The muslim faith is similar to any other monotheistic religion in that those who belive-believe in one god, believe that there were prophets and believe that only their beliefs are true. All monotheistic religions are the same in this way. Islam in arabi translates to submission (as in to God known as Allah)  The basic beliefs for the religion are as follows: The believe in following the five pillars of islamic law which are there to bring the Muslim communtiy together. They believe that the Qur'an is the word of god which was delivered to Muhammed and that the jewish and christian faiths have distorted the true religion which was laid out by god ( jews and christians believe this about everyone else also....). They believe heavily in the power of prayer and pray often in order to be centered with Allah. It is a peaceful religion fundamentally and has many teaching which could be condsidered tradtionally moral.  There are however divisions amoungst its followers, as it is will all religions... The Sunnis and the Shi'ites are the two main sectors of this religion.These two groups arose in response to the question of who would take Muhammeds place after he died. Sunnis are the larger of the two groups they believed that he should be followed by people elected to the position of leader within the religion. However the Shi'ites believed that he should be followed by his sons, progeny was the way to go as far as they could see. This rift has exsisted almost since the religion has and continues to this day to be a major issue. Finally Muhammed ibn Abd al-wahhab was a scholar of the 1700 who is credited with the "purification" of the islam religion, going back to the book and taking it more seriously in modern times. The term Wahhabism comes from his last name and is a term for the this type of practice. Many religious radicals state that they are of the sector of Muslim practioners.