The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1106 page)

ammad and the message of the Qur’
n then become a working out and application of that fundamental vision: all people (divided as they are from each other at present) should become a single ’umma (community), and every action and every aspect of life should become an act of witness that ‘there is no God but God’ and that ‘Mu
ammad is his messenger’.
Those latter affirmations, making up the basic witness (al-
Shah
da
), form the first of the
Five Pillars of Islam
. Muslim life and belief are derived directly from the Qur’
n, but since the Qur’
n does not deal with every issue or question which a Muslim might wish to ask, authoritative guidance is derived also from the traditions (
ad
th
) concerning the words, deeds and silences of Mu
ammad and his
companions
. Even so, there remains much scope for application and interpretation. Methods of such interpretation emerged (see
IJM
‘
;
IJTIH
D
;
QIY
S
), as also did major schools of interpretation, which drew up law-codes to govern Muslim life: see
SHAR
‘A
.
When Mu