Christianity and Islam - Essay Example

Such efforts managed to preserve monasteries in the western civilization for everywhere in western Europe, the Pope of the Catholic church was looked up to regardless of whether a Christian was English, German, French, or from other European nationalities that were Christianized with Latin as the official language in the implementation of church rites. Hence the church of the West, being universally identified as “catholic”, abound in wealth and became an institution of chief influence in the Dark Ages since medieval people paid great respect and devotion to the aspect of spirituality at the time.

            On the other hand, the founder of Islam, Muhammad, did not receive warm acceptance from rich merchants among those whom he initially convinced to undergo conversion beside his wife, relatives, and friends. Muhammad encountered persecution from these merchants instead so he and his followers took a flight to Medina, known as the “City of Prophet”, in 622 A.D. in order to escape the hostilities of the Meccan unbelievers.

Through the teachings of Islam, god goes by the name “Allah” and Muhammad considered himself to be Allah’s greatest and last prophet while Jesus Christ, who is God’s son and messiah in the context of Christian beliefs, merely takes the role of another prophet before the time of Muhammad. Among Muslims, Qur’an or “Recitation” is the holy book compiled by the disciples after the death of their founder and it consists of 114 sutras pertaining to the fundamental Islamic teachings known as the “Five Pillars of Islam.

” The Holy Bible, on the contrary, was found to have been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit believed to be guiding Christian authors in conveying God’s thoughts and plan of salvation for mankind through the Holy Scripture which serves as the standard for Christian faith.             Despite the aforementioned differences, the spread of Christianity and Islam led to historical fates that had striking similarities.

By armed forces, pagan Arab tribes were converted, laying foundations to the rise of the Arabian Empire upon the Islamizing of both the Eastern and Western regions of the world. Jihad or ‘holy war’ in Islamic terms had been waged against the unbelievers in an analogous manner that the crusade or military Christian expedition was set by European kings and knights for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Turks.