Religion and Theology

More than 6000 years ago there lived in the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia an extremely righteous man called Abram (According to the Bible after making a covenant with God he was later renamed Abraham). The sacred scriptures of both Islam and Christianity agree that Abraham had two children that ultimately gave rise to their respective religions. These two sons were Isaac and Ishmael-the former is believed to have given rise to the nation of Israel from which arose the religions of Judaism and Christianity and from the latter was the Arab nation founded. The two religions of Islam together with that of Judaism are clustered as Abramic religions from their common patriarch Abraham.

Abrahamic religions, as expected, share certain fundamental characteristics that transcend their common founder-father and a geographical area that is the Middle East. However, Islam and Christianity also have differences differences that make these religions distinct from each other. The similarities neither necessarily guarantee a smooth co-existence in case of an interaction between the two, nor do the differences by themselves aggravate their relations. Nonetheless there are two fundamental characteristics between Islam and Christianity that are dually differential and also similar.

Two of these religious characteristics are their characterization of the divine and their fervent belief in the end of the world (eschatology). In these two characteristics, Islam and Christianity share a lot both in their origin and practice.

Christians and Muslims both believe that there is one supreme God. In other words these two religions are monotheistic-the worship of one all powerful God. Monotheism is diametrically opposed to polytheism-the worship of many gods. At least two faithful that I spoke to affirmed this idea that there is principally only one God.

Kennedy aged 33, a zealous Lutheran, who said he has never missed a single service of his church, believes that there is only one God. He quotes from the Bible in Deuteronomy5 48 which postulate that You shall have no other gods before me.  He insists that this is a concept that differentiates Christianity from a host of other religions. According to his Churchs teachings God is both omnipresent (present everywhere) and omnipotent (his power is felt everywhere). Though this feature has a striking resemblance to other religious belief in animism-that God is in everything (Hopfe and Woodward 123).

Muslims monotheism is unmistakably captured in one of their five pillars. In the pillar of daily prayer known as Salaht a Muslim has to recite this prayer five times a day. In this prayer one acknowledges two things that there is only one God called Allah and that Muhammad is his only prophet. Hopfe and Woodward write that the mere utterance of it makes a recitor a Muslim (344). Omar, whose father is a chief Kadhi, says that he observes salaht to the letter and spirit and frowns at idolaters and atheists. To him it is not a big deal to have divergent religions as long those religions worship one God. But it wont be business as usual if you believe in no God and if you worship a myriad of gods.

May be it is convictions such as Omars that evoke such assertions as those offered by Muhammad centuries ago. According to this Islam prophet, there is not a big difference between Christian teachings and Islamic teachings. Both Muslims and Christianity are the people of the book and as such his revelations should not be taken for granted by either the Christians and the Jews (Chambers et al 234).

The concept of eschatology is also shared by the two religions. Followers of both religions believe that those who live in accordance with the teachings of Jesus in case of Christians and Muhammad in case of Muslims are going to have a blissful after-life in heaven. However, should you live a wicked life on earth you will be tormented by the eternal flames of hell.  Eschatology of course as will be demonstrated herein has the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism as its origin.

Matthew and Platt (49) say that Israelites must have taken up this belief in the world of darkness and that of lightness after their being freed up by the Persians led by their leader Cyprus from Babylonian captivity. The belief in the twin forces of good and evil or light and darkness was borrowed from the Persian Zoroastrianism. Matthew and Platt further say that the Jews started incorporate two new features into their religion. In addition to eschatology, there was also an interest in apocalypse, prophecies about the coming of God and a day of judgment.

Muslims also believe in eschatology. In fact as Hopfe and Woodward (343) state that Muslim beliefs concerning heaven and hell are similar to those of Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity. The Muslims also believe that a good Muslim is rewarded with a rapturous life of bliss in heaven. A sinful man or woman who does not follow Muhammads precepts will suffer in hell at the end of the world.

But as eluded herein, there are also differences in these characteristics. To begin with the difference in the characterization of the divine, and with regard to the belief in monotheism, there is a marked difference between monotheism in Islam and that in different denominations in Christianity. The differences are not that huge, but they are differences still.

Christian monotheism has been muddled up by the debate on the validity of the concept of Holy Trinity. Christian monotheism has thus for long been intricate due to this concept of trinity. The climax of this standoff was witnessed in 300 AD. In this century there was a priest called Arius of Alexandria (ca 280-336). This priest under whose name there grew the movement of arianism, believed that Jesus was not divinely equal to God. On the other hand Athanasius (ca 293-373) was of the view that transformation of Jesus into divinity would have only been possible if Jesus were both fully human and fully divine (Craig et al 170).  In 325 AD at the Council of Nicaea, Emperor Constantine ruled in favor of Athanasius team. Hence to date a good number of Christians believe in the Holy trinity The idea that there is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy.  Apparently some Christian denominations such as Jehovahs Witness accuse those who hold on to this concept of trinity as turning Christianity into polytheism.
 
On the other end, Muslims conception of this characteristic is quite simple and clear as captured in their prayers There is no God but Allah Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. The only bone of contention that is vaguely related to this characteristic of divine contention is on the legitimacy of certain caliphates. This factor has given birth to such Islamic factions as Sunnis and Shiites.  But they all believe in one God and hold that Muhammad is only a prophet of Allah that lived and died just like any other human being (Hopfe and Woodward 335).

There is not such a big difference on eschatology, though the Islamic eschatology seems to have been lifted holistically as was practiced among the Persian Zoroastrians. Zoroastrians believed that the soul on its way to paradise and while crossing the Chinvat Bridge is greeted by beautiful maidens who escort it into heaven (Hopfe and Woodward 228). This eternal journey is almost similar to Muslims idea that one whose deeds were acceptable gets to marry a number of virgins while in heaven. Christian eschatology on the end only talks of one being taken to Hades when a sinner and to heaven when a righteous.

Both Islam and Christianity were inspired into monotheism and eschatology by the religious and other societal conditions around them in the beginning of their religions. The idea of monotheism, which would in subsequent periods be taken up by both Muslims and Christians, began at the times of the Hebrew patriarch Abraham. Pritchard reasons that Abraham while in Ur must have encountered a monotheistic kind of worship and especially that revolving around the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil (83).

The Jewish interaction with the Roman cults that had several gods and goddesses only enhanced what had initially been well established. The Romans worshipped several gods and goddesses such as Apollo, Athena, or Mithra. Of course in the same period there were the Jews who resisted all attempts to involve them in such Roman cults as Mithraism. A few epochs later Christians took up this initiative of resisting all official attempts to indoctrinate them into polytheism. And with their zealous belief that Jesus was the long-awaited messiah they earned themselves not only the hatred of the Jews but also the persecution of the Romans. However their belief in a single God had firmly been anchored.

By the time Muhammad allegedly received the revelations of the Quran, his region of Mecca was rife with the worship of many gods. Before Muhammads revelation pre-Islamic people worshiped a variety of gods but recognized Allah as one Supreme God (Hopfe and Woodward 334).  One such kind of paganism was the worship of the idol Kaba. With more revelations he became convinced that there was but only one God, which his people called Allah. This did not go down well with his Meccan neighbors who depended upon pilgrimage on the stone of Kaba (Hopfe and Woodward 337).

Not much has changed since these two characteristics as practiced by Islam and Christianity were conceived centuries ago. Today, Muslims worship five times a day in mosques that have continued to spring up around the world and continue to recite that salaht Christian churches have also doubly increased. The proliferation of these religions has also meant more interactions between their doctrines of monotheism and eschatology. There has not been much friction with regard to interplay of these two characteristics. But of course with different factions coming up and re-defining these doctrines there is likely to be more conflict of ideas, at least. This is the case for example with some Christian understanding of Islams eschatological idea that it sanctions radical jihadism.

The two characteristics of course continue to be redefined, differentially both within and between the two faiths but the two religions by and large still remain fundamentally Abrahamic. Omar put it well, in the end. Said he, Christians and Muslims still believe in One God, and when asked by what else, he replied that there is a reward in heaven for good people and punishment in hell for the sinners, that is true in both Islam and Christianity.  These two, according to Omar, make these two faiths intrinsically similar than dissimilar.