Faith

You know, when we talk about people having faith we mean that they believe in something that they can't prove,

something that they haven't seen or experienced for themselves.

So everybody has to have faith in lots of things

that they only know about because they have been told about them by other people

Which means that it is really important in our lives to know who we can trust.

And there are certain questions that we can never really work out for ourselves,

like where we came from,

what happens after we die,

and why we are here.

With all the people plants and animals around us

and the sun moon and stars above us,

what is the world we live in all about?

Now since the time when the very first man and woman appeared in the world

there have been all sorts of people who have said that they have been given a special understanding of all these things

And they have explained it in different ways that could be understood by the people they lived with,

and things happened around them that seemed to prove what they said was true,

and people trusted them and had faith in what they said.

And the most common way they spoke about the way that the world came about is not that it just happened,

but that it was created out of nothing by a Being we call God,

and in order to explain those things we can't work out for ourselves, God gave certain people a special understanding of the truth about the way things are,

and the best way to live,

the things that are good and bad for us.

Now the person that muslims trust and have faith in lived a long time ago in the deserts of Arabia,

and his name was Muhammad,

and the way that God used him

to explain things to the people around him

was through the words of a Message that is known as the Qur'an.

But in that Message God makes it clear

that Muhammad is not the only person that God has chosen to be a Messenger.

And some of those Messengers now have millions of people who trust in them

people who have faith in them,

and who try to live their lives in the ways that those Messengers said they should,

and those ways are sometimes known as Faiths,

but mostly they are called Religions.

And because those Messengers came from different different times and places, they often seem quite different.

But because those different religions are trying to explain the same things,

the truths of God's creation,

the meaning of life and the way to live it,

it also turns out that what they say often sounds very much the same.

It's what makes sense of our lives,

of why we are here,

and what happens when our lives are finally over.