Christianity and Islam


Christianity and Islam are the two largest religions in the world and share a historical traditional connection, with some major theological differences. The two faiths share a common place of origin in the Middle East, and consider themselves to be monotheistic.
Christianity is an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion which developed out of Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE. It is founded on the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and those who follow it are called Christians.
Islam is an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion that developed in the 7th century CE. Islam, which literally means "submission to God", was founded on the teachings of Muhammad as an expression of surrender to the will of God. Those who follow it are called Muslims which means "submitter to God".
Muslims have a range of views on Christianity, from viewing Christians to be People of the Book to regarding them as kafirs that commit shirk because of Trinitarianism and as dhimmis under Sharia. Christian views on Islam are diverse and range from considering Islam a fellow Abrahamic religion worshipping the same God, to believing Islam to be heresy or an apostatic cult that denies the Crucifixion and rejects the divinity of Christ.
Islam considers Jesus to be al-Masih, the Arabic term for Messiah, sent to guide the Children of Israel with a new revelation: al-Injīl. Christianity believes Jesus to be the Messiah of the Hebrew scripture, the Son of God, and God the Son, while Muslims consider the Trinity to be a division of God's Oneness and a grave sin . Muslims believe Jesus to be a messenger of God, not the son of God.
Christianity and Islam have different scriptures, with Christianity using the Bible and Islam using the Quran, though Muslims believe that both the Quran and the Christian Gospel, termed Injeel'', were sent by God. Both texts offer an account of the life and works of Jesus. The belief in Jesus is a fundamental part of Islamic theology, and Muslims view the Injeel as tahrif, while Christians consider their Gospels to be authoritative and the Quran to be a later, fabricated or apocryphal work. Both religions believe in the virgin birth of Jesus through Mary, but the Biblical and Islamic accounts differ.

Scriptures

The Christian Bible is made up of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament dates to centuries before the time of Christ. The New Testament dates from the time of Christ, or centuries thereafter. The central books of the Bible for Christians are the Gospels. Christians consider the Quran a non-divine false, later work.
The Quran dates from the early 7th century, or decades thereafter. The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. It summarizes some, dwells at length on others and differs in others. Muslims believe that Jesus was given the Injil from the Abrahamic God and that parts of these teachings were eventually lost or distorted to produce what is now the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament.
Muslims believe that the Quran present today is the same as the one just at the time of death of their prophet.

Jesus

Christianity and Islam differ in their fundamental views in regard to the nature of their religion, their beliefs about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Most Christians are Trinitarian and believe that Jesus is divine and God the Son. Christianity teaches that Jesus was condemned to death by the Sanhedrin and the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, crucified and resurrected, as per the Gospel narratives. Christians believe Jesus was divine and sinless.
Muslims and Christians both believe that Jesus was born to Mary, a virgin. They also both believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Islam teaches that Jesus was one of the most important prophets of God, but not the Son of God, not divine, and not part of a God as part of a Trinity. In Islam, Jesus was a human prophet who, like the other prophets, tried to bring the children of Adam to the worship of the One God, termed Tawhid. Muslims believe the creation of Jesus was similar to the creation of Adam. Muslims believe that Jesus was condemned to crucifixion and then miraculously saved from execution.
Muslims contend that Jesus argued against the division of God's oneness. Christians do not see the Trinity as implying any division and that Christianity follows God's command to have no other gods from the Old Testament. Christians argue that the New Testament, particularly the Gospel of John, contains or is centered on the Trinity and that Jesus made several implicit and explicit claims to be the Son of God, and divine in nature..

Muhammad

Muslims believe that the Quran was verbally revealed by God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, gradually over a period of approximately 23 years, beginning on 22 December 609, when Muhammad was 40, and concluding in 632, the year of his death. Muslims regard the Quran as the most important miracle of Muhammad, a proof of his prophethood, and the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with the messages revealed to Adam and ended with Muhammad. They consider the Quran to be the only revealed book that has been protected by God from distortion or corruption.
Muslims revere Muhammad as the embodiment of the perfect believer and take his actions and sayings as a model of ideal conduct. Unlike Jesus, who Christians believe was God's son, Muhammad was a mortal, albeit with extraordinary qualities. Today many Muslims believe that it is wrong to represent Muhammad, but this was not always the case. At various times and places pious Muslims represented Muhammad although they never worshiped these images.
The first recorded comment of a Christian reaction to Muhammad can be dated to only a few years after Muhammad's death. As stories of the Arab prophet spread to Christian Syria, an old man who was asked about the "prophet who has appeared with the Saracens" responded: "He is false, for the prophets do not come armed with a sword."

The Trinity

The doctrine of the Trinity states that God is a single being who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a communion of three distinct persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Islam such plurality in God is a denial of monotheism, and thus a sin of shirk, which is considered to be a major 'al-Kaba'ir' sin.

The Holy Spirit

Christians and Muslims have differing views on the Holy Spirit. Christians believe that the Holy Spirit is God, and also the Paraclete referred to in the Gospel of John, who was manifested on the day of Pentecost. In Islam the Holy Spirit is generally believed to be the angel Gabriel, and the reference to the Paraclete is a prophecy of the coming of Muhammad.

Salvation

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, the official doctrine document released by the Roman Catholic Church, has this to say regarding Muslims:
Protestant theology mostly emphasizes the necessity of faith in Jesus as a savior in order for salvation. Muslims may receive salvation in theologies relating to Universal reconciliation, but will not according to most Protestant theologies based on justification through faith:
The Quran explicitly promises salvation for all those righteous Christians who were there before the arrival of Muhammad:
The Quran also makes it clear that the Christians will be nearest in love to those who follow the Quran and praises Christians for being humble and wise:

Early Christian writers on Islam and Muhammad

John of Damascus

In 746 John of Damascus wrote the Fount of Knowledge part two of which is entitled Heresies in Epitome: How They Began and Whence They Drew Their Origin. In this work St. John makes extensive reference to the Quran and, in St. Johns's opinion, its failure to live up to even the most basic scrutiny. The work is not exclusively concerned with the Ismaelites but all heresy. The Fount of Knowledge references several suras directly often with apparent incredulity.

Theophanes the Confessor

wrote a series of chronicles based initially on those of the better known George Syncellus. Theophanes reports about Muhammad thus:

Nicetas

In the work A History of Christian-Muslim Relations Hugh Goddard mentions both John of Damascus and Theophanes and goes on to consider the relevance of Nicetas of Byzantium who formulated replies to letters on behalf of Emperor Michael III. Goddard sums up Nicetas' view:
Goddard further argues that Nicetas demonstrates in his work a knowledge of the entire Quran, including an extensive knowledge of Suras 2-18. Nicetas account from behind the Byzantine frontier apparently set a strong precedent for later writing both in tone and points of argument.

Song of Roland

The author of the 11th Century Song of Roland evidently had little actual knowledge of Islam. As depicted in this epic poem, Muslims erect statues of Mohammed and worship them, and Mohammed is part of an "Unholy Trinity" together with the Classical Greek Appolo and Termagant, a completely fictional deity made up by Christians in the Middle Ages. This view, evidently confusing Islam with the pre-Christian Graeco-Roman Religion, appears to reflect misconceptions prevalent in Western Christian society at the time.

The Divine Comedy

In Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Muhammad is in the ninth ditch of Malebolge, the eighth realm, designed for those who have caused schism; specifically, he was placed among the Sowers of Religious Discord. Muhammad is portrayed as split in half, with his entrails hanging out, representing his status as a heresiarch.
This scene is frequently shown in illustrations of the Divine Comedy. Muhammad is represented in a 15th-century fresco Last Judgment by Giovanni da Modena and drawing on Dante, in the San Petronio Basilica in Bologna, as well as in artwork by Salvador Dalí, Auguste Rodin, William Blake, and Gustave Doré.

Catholic Church and Islam

Second Vatican Council and ''Nostra aetate''

The question of Islam was not on the agenda when Nostra aetate was first drafted, or even at the opening of the Second Vatican Council. However, as in the case of the question of Judaism, several events came together again to prompt a consideration of Islam. By the time of the Second Session of the Council in 1963 reservations began to be raised by bishops of the Middle East about the inclusion of this question. The position was taken that either the question will not be raised at all, or if it were raised, some mention of the Muslims should be made. Melkite patriarch Maximos IV was among those pushing for this latter position.
Early in 1964 Cardinal Bea notified Cardinal Cicognani, President of the Council's Coordinating Commission, that the Council fathers wanted the Council to say something about the great monotheistic religions, and in particular about Islam. The subject, however, was deemed to be outside the competence of Bea's Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity. Bea expressed willingness to "select some competent people and with them to draw up a draft" to be presented to the Coordinating Commission. At a meeting of the Coordinating Commission on 16–17 April Cicognani acknowledged that it would be necessary to speak of the Muslims.
The period between the first and second sessions saw the change of pontiff from Pope John XXIII to Pope Paul VI, who had been a member of the circle of the Islamologist Louis Massignon. Pope Paul VI chose to follow the path recommended by Maximos IV and he therefore established commissions to introduce what would become paragraphs on the Muslims in two different documents, one of them being Nostra aetate, paragraph three, the other being Lumen gentium, paragraph 16.
The text of the final draft bore traces of Massignon's influence. The reference to Mary, for example, resulted from the intervention of Monsignor Descuffi, the Latin archbishop of Smyrna with whom Massignon collaborated in reviving the cult of Mary at Smyrna. The commendation of Muslim prayer may reflect the influence of the Badaliya.
In Lumen gentium, the Second Vatican Council declares that the plan of salvation also includes Muslims, due to their professed monotheism.

Recent Catholic-Islamic controversies

entered into contact during the 16th century, at a time when Protestant movements in northern Europe coincided with the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in southern Europe. As both were in conflict with the Catholic Holy Roman Empire, numerous exchanges occurred, exploring religious similarities and the possibility of trade and military alliances. Relations became more conflictual in the early modern and modern periods, although recent attempts have been made at rapprochement.

Mormonism and Islam

have been compared to one another ever since the earliest origins of the former in the nineteenth century, often by detractors of one religion or the other—or both. For instance, Joseph Smith, the founding prophet of Mormonism, was referred to as "the modern Mahomet" by the New York Herald, shortly after his murder in June 1844. This epithet repeated a comparison that had been made from Smith's earliest career, one that was not intended at the time to be complimentary. Comparison of the Mormon and Muslim prophets still occurs today, sometimes for derogatory or polemical reasons but also for more scholarly and neutral purposes. While Mormonism and Islam certainly have many similarities, there are also significant, fundamental differences between the two religions. Mormon–Muslim relations have historically been cordial; recent years have seen increasing dialogue between adherents of the two faiths, and cooperation in charitable endeavors, especially in the Middle and Far East.

Artistic influences

and culture have both influenced and been influenced by Christian art and culture. Some arts have received such influence strongly, particularly religious architecture in the Byzantine and medieval eras