For Islam the teachings of the Quran and of Muhammad's life are fulfilled only with the creation of a community of believers, the , and its proper regulation through political structures.

Approximately the length of the Christian New Testament, the is considered by Muslims the absolute, uncorrupted word of God.

A sixth pillar of Islam, , or sacred struggle, was less stringently required at the outset of Islam and has been interpreted in different ways over the years.

To preserve the umma and its political organization, the Muslim leadership elected Abu Bakr, one of the closest associates of Muhammad, as or successor to the Prophet and head of the Muslim community.

The , who stressed the importance of religious purity, wanted the caliph to represent Islam's religious principles rather than imperial aspirations.

One of the significant survivals of the collapse of the caliphate was the legal systems of Islam, , that expressed in formal terms the standards of proper conduct.

The personnel of the Islamic legal system are the , the religiously trained scholars of Islam who interpret and implement the law.

A group of Islamic philosophers, called , "those who keep themselves apart," began to challenge orthodox Islamic belief, arguing that the attributes of God in the Quran were not literal but metaphorical.

One of the choices of non-Muslims in Islamic societies was to accept status; this status was available to all monotheistic "peoples of the book" including Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and, later, Hindus.

One of the last architectural wonders created by followers of Islam in Spain was the , a palace in Grenada built in the 1300s.