the the most important things

Believe in Allah or suffer for all eternity, basically.

Impossible to answer simply--Sunnis and Shiites differ greatly, and there are moderate, liberal, and radical factions within each sect.

Let me whip out my history notes... I trust my history teacher from last year, he stayed as unbiased as possible.

662 AD

The Islamic people at Mecca are aware of Christianity, but are not followers. One man named Mohammed (out of many, I'm sure) was sort of a loner and kept to himself. Finally, he was fed up with people mocking him and he ran off.

According to him, while he was gone the angel Gabriel spoke to him. He wrote the Qur'an based on what Gabriel said.

There are five pillars to Islam that they must follow.

-Creed: There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the final prophet.

-Daily Prayer: Pray five times a day. At sunrise, high noon, mid afternoon, sunset, and two hours later. They seldom have to go to mosque, but the biggest prayer of the week is friday at noon. Posture counts, and they must wash themselves and face Mecca.

-Romadon: For one month (I'm not sure when) they can't eat between sunrise and sunset.

-Zakat: A gift of 2.5% of all earnings for the public good. Charity, basically.

-Haiji: One must take a trip to Mecca at least once in their lives.

They believe that when they die, they enter heaven. There are seven levels, seven being the best. Nobody in Mecca believed him, so he ran to Medina and converted people there, and they came back to Mecca to start converting. They killed those who didn't convert, as it is in their belief to spread Islam or kill those who don't believe.

Honestly, to me, it sounds like Mohammed was just an angry guy looking for an excuse to get revenge on everybody. Classic bullying story, taken to an extreme level.