Islam is more than a system of belief. The faith provides a social and legal system and governs things like family life, law and order, ethics, dress, and cleanliness, as well as religious ritual and observance.
The Islam Prophet, Muhammad, is ranked one the most influential people in history in a book by Michael H. Hart. This was due to Muhammad being the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels. Like all religions, Islam exerts an enormous influence upon the lives of its followers. It is for this reason that the founders of the world's great religions all figure prominently in this book. Since there are roughly twice as many Christians as Moslems in the world, it may initially seem strange that Muhammad has been ranked higher than Jesus. There were two principal reasons for that decision. First, Muhammad played a far more inportant role in the development of Islam than Jesus did in the development of Christianity. Although Jesus was responsible for the main ethical and moral precepts of Christianity, St. Paul was the main developer of Christian theology, its principal proselytizer, and the author of a large portion of the New Testament. Muhammad, however, was responsible for both the theology of Islam and its main ethical and moral principles. In addition, he played the key role in proselytizing the new faith, and in establishing the religious practices of Islam. Moreover, he is the author of the Moslem holy scriptures, the Quran, a collection of certain of Muhammad's insights that he believed had been directly revealed to him by Allah. The Quran closely represents Muhammad's ideas and teachings and to a considerable extent his exact words. No such detailed compilation of the teachings of Christ has survived.
Muhammad gave an impetus to the lives of his followers that was to lead them to spread Islam far beyond the borders of Arabia.
