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Muhammad is so respected that it is usual for Muslims to say 'peace be upon him' whenever they mention his name.

Muhammad is believed by Muslims to be the last prophet sent by God (Allah). They believe God sent prophets to mankind to teach them how to live according to His law.

Jesus (Isa), Moses (Musa) and Abraham (Ibrahim) are other respected prophets.

Five Pillars of Islam

The Five Pillars of Islam are an important part of Muslim life. They are five things that a Muslim must do so they can live a good and responsible life. They include:

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Learn what Islam is and discover its religious teachings with this KS2 religious studies guide.

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Muhammad

According to Muslims, in 610 an angel told Muhammad that Allah had chosen him as a prophet. Throughout his life, Muhammad continued to receive messages that he believed came from God.

This idea that there is only one God was unusual for Arabs at the time. Many people in Muhammad's hometown of Mecca disliked the new religion because of that belief. To avoid their hostility, Muhammad encouraged his followers to move to the nearby city of Medina. Muhammad's journey to Medina ended on September 24, 622, which is considered the starting point of Islamic history.

Division and Spread of Islam

Muhammad eventually persuaded most of the people of Arabia (including Mecca) to practice Islam. But after his death in 632, Muslims disagreed as to who should lead them. Muhammad's son-in-law ʿAli became the Muslim leader, or caliph, in 656. But he was murdered in 661. Some Muslims maintained that Muslim leadership belonged to ʿAli's descendants alone. They formed the Shiʿite branch of Islam. The Muslims who disputed this claim became the Sunnis.

During the 600s and 700s, Islam spread far beyond Arabia, from the western Mediterranean region to Central Asia. Holy wars called jihads were fought to gain political control over societies so that they could be run using Islamic principles.

In the 11th century the Turks began their rise as an Islamic power. A group called the Seljuk Turks conquered vast territories in the Middle East. In 1071 they captured Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a city that is important to Christianity and Judaism as well as Islam. It is part of an area known as the Holy Land. Over the next two centuries, Muslim powers fought off Christian attempts to win back the Holy Land in a series of wars known as the Crusades. In the 1200s another group of Muslim Turks, the Ottomans, began an empire. The Ottomans eventually ruled over North Africa, the Middle East, and southeastern Europe for hundreds of years.

Islam in Modern Times

During the 1800s and 1900s, Western powers established colonies in Muslim nations for the purpose of trade. Islamic leaders lost political power. However, Muslims drew together more as a community in the face of colonization. In the 1900s this sense of unity helped many Muslim countries in their struggles for political independence.

In the late 1900s, Islam became one of the fastest-growing world religions. Some Muslims have resisted the influence of the West, which they view as leading to a loss of traditional Muslim values. In Iran a revolution brought Islamic religious leaders to power in 1979. Islam has had a strong influence on the governments of other countries as well.

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Islam is one of the world's major religions. Its founder was Muhammad. The religion has more than 1.5 billion followers worldwide. Most of the followers of Islam, called...

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Afghanistan Facts for Kids (All You Need to Know!)

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Afghanistan Facts for Kids Afghanistan is a country with many cultures and ethnicities. It has a population of 34 million people (34,124,811). The total land area of Afghanistan is 652,230 sq km. Afghanistan is a landlocked country that shares borders with six other countries, which are Iran, Pakist…

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Explore the geography and culture of Afghanistan through a country infographic, detailed map, photo gallery, video, activities and more!

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Major trade routes crossed what is now Afghanistan thousands of years ago. The Persians and Macedonian king Alexander the Great ruled the land more than 2,300 years ago. In the 600s ce Arab invaders introduced Islam. In 1219 Genghis Khan made the area part of his Mongol Empire. Beginning in the 1300s Turkic peoples, the Mughal Empire, and the Persians ruled parts of the land.

Ahmad Shah Durrani, a Pashtun leader, unified Afghanistan under his rule in 1747. Great Britain invaded in the 1800s. After winning independence from Britain in 1919, Afghanistan continued as a monarchy. In 1973 Afghans overthrew the king. The country's new leaders made Afghanistan a republic, led by a prime minister.

Soviet Control

In 1978 Communists seized control of Afghanistan's government. The new government mistreated the Islamic majority, and civil war broke out. In December 1979 the Soviet Union sent troops to join government forces in their fight against Muslim rebels. For nearly a decade Islamic forces known as mujahideen fought the Soviets. Millions of Afghans left the country for Pakistan and Iran during that period. The Soviet Army left in 1989.

The Taliban

Various Afghan groups then fought for control. By the late 1990s a group called the Taliban had gained control over most of Afghanistan. The Taliban ruled according to a strict version of Islamic law.

The Taliban angered other countries by allowing terrorists to live in Afghanistan. When the Taliban refused to hand over suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden, the United States and its allies bombed Afghanistan in October 2001. Within months the Taliban abandoned Kabul. In 2004 Afghanistan adopted a new constitution and elected a president.

Allied forces, including troops from the United States and Britain, remained in Afghanistan to help stabilize the country and to support a strong government. The foreign troops also trained the Afghan military so that the Afghans could protect the country once the foreign troops left. The Taliban did not disappear completely, however, and they continued to fight against Afghan forces. The Afghan forces were supported by the Allied troops as well as by troops from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). NATO troops left Afghanistan in 2014, and the United States began pulling out its troops several years later. In the summer of 2021 the last U.S. troops began to leave Afghanistan. The Afghan military was not able to stop the Taliban from quickly taking control of many parts of the country. In August the Taliban moved into the capital, Kabul, and took control of the whole country.

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Major trade routes crossed what is now Afghanistan thousands of years ago. The Persians and Macedonian king Alexander the Great ruled the land more than 2,300 years ago. In the 600s ce Arab invaders introduced Islam. In 1219 Genghis Khan made the area part of his Mongol Empire.

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Afghanistan was settled around 7000 B.C. and has been in transition for most of its history. Alexander the Great conquered Afghanistan in 330 B.C. and brought the Greek language and culture to the region. Genghis Khan's Mongols invaded in the 13th century. In 1747, Pashtun elders held a council meeting called a Loya Jirga and created the kingdom of the Afghans.

The British and Afghans fought in three wars in the 19th and 20th centuries, but the Afghans finally defeated the British in 1919 and formed an independent monarchy in 1921.

In 1978, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in the country, setting in motion a series of events that would turn the poor, mostly peaceful country into a breeding ground for terrorism. The PDPA's occupation of Afghanistan eventually led to civil war, or a war between citizens of the same country.

Afghan fighters called the mujahedin fought against the PDPA; these rebels later received aid from the United States, Pakistan, China, and Iran. The Soviet Union, now called Russia, supported the PDPA regime. Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and remained in the country until 1989. Civil war continued in Afghanistan after the Soviet departure until the fall of the PDPA regime in 1992.

After the PDPA's fall, various groups fought to gain control of the country. The Taliban emerged in 1994 and quickly began to take over cities across Afghanistan, with military support from Pakistan. During the Taliban's rule, the group was condemned by the international community for murdering innocent Afghan civilians and denying food supplies to starving citizens.

In 2001, following the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11 of that year, the U.S. government demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden, the leader of a terrorist group called al Qaeda, which was based in Afghanistan. The Taliban refused. The United States and its allies then took military action in Afghanistan and drove the Taliban from power in December 2001.

Both the Taliban and al Qaeda fled Afghanistan and relocated to nearby Pakistan, where they set up political and military outposts. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies worked with Afghans to set up schools, hospitals, and public facilities following the Taliban's departure. Thousands of girls-who were banned from being educated under Taliban rule-went to school for the first time. Women were free to get jobs and take part in government activities, both of which were forbidden under the Taliban.

In 2004, Afghanistan adopted its current constitution and became an internationally recognized government, electing Hamid Karzai as its first president. Under its constitution, the president and two vice presidents are elected every five years. But the government struggled to extend its authority beyond the capital city of Kabul because the Taliban forces continued to try to regain control of the country.

In 2020, the Taliban and the Afghan government began to discuss a peace treaty, and though some people were concerned that the talks wouldn't progress, U.S. president Donald Trump planned to remove U.S. troops from the country by May 2021. His successor, Joe Biden, extended the date for the withdrawal to August 31 of that year. After nearly 20 years of U.S. occupation in Afghanistan, the United States' longest war was going to end.

But the people who were concerned about the peace treaty talks stalling were right: Following Biden's official announcement in July and the start of the withdrawal of international troops, the Taliban quickly took over multiple cities by force and brought back their extreme practices. By August 15, 2021, the Taliban had taken control of all major cities, including the capital of Kabul. President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and the Afghan government all but collapsed.

The United States sent military troops to the country to help the American diplomats and support staff at the U.S. embassy in Kabul evacuate safely.

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Afghanistan Country Profile - National Geographic Kids

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Afghanistan is located in Central Asia with Iran to the west and Pakistan to the east.

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Kids learn about the War in Afghanistan including what led up to the war, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the U.S. invasion, the Northern Alliance, Osama bin Laden, and interesting facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.