ABSTRACT
The Islamic religion took shape in Arabia, nearly 1,400 years ago, and it was first spread by Arab conquests. Its scriptures are in Arabic. Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, is its holiest shrine, to which vast numbers of Muslims make a pilgrimage (haj). But only a fifth of the world’s 1,200 million Muslims are Arabs. There are more Muslims in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh than in the Arab countries. And not all Arabs are Muslim.
