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The sacred text of Islam, the Qur'an , uses term, ummah, to refer to the community of believers. The term is used to describe both individual communities, both great and small, of faithful Muslims and to refer to the world-wide community of believers—in the latter sense of the term it is synonymous with dar al-Islam, or "The House of Islam," which refers to the world Islamic community. In its widest sense, however, the term, both in the Qur'an and in Islamic tradition, sometimes refers to all believers in monotheistic religions (including Christians and Jews) and sometimes to the entire human community. Strictly speaking, however, the ummah almost always refers to the Islamic community in either concrete reality or in the abstract. Since Islam was inaugurated by Muhammad, it is Muhammad that is the founder of the ummah .
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