Sacred Scripture and Cosmogony in Islam and Christianity - Coursework Example

279449 Christianity and Islam: Two Common Factors Introduction To a person studying the religions of the world, it would probably come as no surpriseto them that when looking at Christianity and Islam, there are many similarities that can be found linking the two religions. This is not unusual, because throughout history as one ideology emerges as a religious ideology, then the existing form of belief, such as paganism, which was replaced by Christianity for the gentiles. In order to make the transition from the former tradition to the new tradition comfortable and one that can be grasped by the converts, without fear of the god(s) that they’re converting away from. Just as Christianity shares much with the Judaic tradition that came before it, Islam shares traditions in common with Christianity. Many people, even today, do not realize that since the onset of Christianity and Islam, there have been Christians and Muslims (meaning the followers of Islam) living side by side in most of the Muslim countries. The Christians are a minority, but Islam, by way of the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings as documented in the Quran, makes room for Christianity alongside Islam. This brief essay will examine two of the elements that Christianity and Islam have in common, and how those elements work within the religion, and outside of the religion as it pertains one to the other. The first element will be creation, because Islam, like Christianity and Judaism before it, must have a beginning so that Muslims can connect to their existence, and to provide the context for their relationship with Allah. Creation helps Christians to connect to their place and context in time and space, and this paper will compare it with Islam. The second element that will be discussed in this brief essay will be one that will perhaps surprise many people as a commonality between Islam and Christianity: the concept of the Virgin Mary. Unbeknownst to, or perhaps just not realized, by many Christians is that the Virgin has a sacred place in Islam, and is highly revered in Islam (Eaton, Gai, 1982, 42). Creation in Christianity and Islam Unlike Islam, everything in the life of a Christian is not guided by the doctrine of Christianity. That is, Christianity is left to the Christian conscience. The relationship between Christians and God is described, defined, and demonstrated by the stories of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Christianity does not reinvent the wheel, and the stories that grew out of Judaism, and since Christianity grew out of the Judaic tradition, serve Christians in their tradition as well. The first story of the Old Testament is the story of creation, in the Book of Genesis (Bible, Old Testament, Genesis). It is in Genesis that, for Christians, God created a perfect world into which he would create and insert into it the imperfect humankind, beginning with Adam. Genesis covers the entire breadth of God’s ownership of the world, and his authority over the peoples of the world (Bowker, John Westerdale, 2002, 206). Genesis serves to establish that there is good and evil in the world. This is represented by the story of Adam and Eve, wherein Eve bites from the forbidden fruit and becomes aware of her nakedness, and she is no longer innocent, humans continued on earth (Bowker, 252). It establishes free will and the human ability to choose between good and evil (Bowker, 252). “Traditional Christianity, because it posits mans corruption through original sin, must assume that his natural inclination will be to choose the dark face. Islam, being realistic, cannot take an entirely opposite point of view, but it bases its perspective on the assumption that, rightly guided and controlled, man is capable of choosing the light one and of perceiving, through phenomena, the Face of God (Eaton, Gai, 1985, 47).” In Islam, there is also a creation story, and it, too, establishes the context within which Muslims can establish their relationship to Allah. In Islam, because Muslims live their faith and tradition, the Quran instructs the faithful to “travel the earth and contemplate how Allah created all things (Esposito, John, 1999, 65). Islam inserts the contemporary Muslin into the creation by instructing the faithful to contemplate the world around them, and through traveling the world, to consider how Allah created it (65). In this way, even the story of creation is one that is being lived by Muslims in their lives. “It is Allah who brings things to life and causes them to die, and [Allah’s] is the alteration of the night and the day (65).” Christianity also encouraged its followers to investigate the world around them, and to travel, “believing that this is a way to learn about God’s creation (Rigeon, Lloyd, 2003, 205.” So we find that Christianity and Islam have much in common as concerns the notion of creation, and what God wanted the faithful to think about as they moved about the world He had created for them. While Islam takes its instruction from the Quran literally, and some Christians take the stories of the Bible, like Genesis, literally; for Christians there is ambiguity as to whether or not they must take the stories of the Bible literally. This leaves room for Christianity to reconcile, or to raise more questions, as to the elements in the story of Genesis that perhaps do not connect to the rational aspect of thought that the human mind looks for. While in Islam, Muslims have unquestioning faith, and because the Prophet Muhammad experienced the revelation of the Word of God, there are no questions that are not answered by the instruction they take in applying Islam in their lives – even when stories, like creation, do not necessarily find logical reconciliation in their minds. Mary in Christianity and in Islam One of the most intriguing and interesting aspects of Islam is that Islam acknowledges the Jewish tradition, and the Christian tradition too as having come before the tradition of Islam. Muhammad’s first revelation of awareness was a visit to him by the same angel that had visited the Blessed Mother Mary before she conceived the Christ Child (Eaton, 103). “Muhammad was asleep in the cave on Mount Hira. He was awakened by the Angel of Revelation, the same who had come to Mary the mother of Jesus, Gabriel (called by the Arabs Jibrāil), who was clothed in light and who seized him in a close embrace. A single word of command burst upon him: Iqra -- Recite! He said: I am not a reciter! but the command was repeated. What am I to recite? he asked. He was grasped with overwhelming force and thrown down, and now the first recitation of the Qurān came upon him: Recite in the name of thy Lord who created -created man from a clot. Recite: for thy Lord is Most Bountiful, who teacheth by the pen, 2 teacheth man that which he knew not (Q.96.1-5) (Eaton, 103).” Mary is for Islam a sign of Divine Grace (Eaton, 42). Jesus, as the Son of Mary, is likewise held to be a prophet as was Muhammad after him (42). “Christ Jesus, son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah and His Word, bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him; so believe in Allah and His messages . . . (Q.4.171) (42).” Islam cites what it perceives to be the Jewish failure to recognize that Mary was of Allah His Self (42). “One of the sternest reproaches made by Islam against the Jews is for their calumnies against Mary. Allah has chosen thee, the Angel of the Annunciation told her, and exempted thee from all stain. Thou are the preferred amongst women (Q.3.42); and she is a reminder to mankind of the divine mercy and bounty. According to the Qurān, Zachariah, whenever he came to seek her in the prayer-niche of the Temple, found her supplied with food (the symbol of inexhaustible spiritual nourishment). He would ask her then: O Mary, whence came this unto thee? and she would reply: It is from Allah; truly Allah giveth beyond measure to whom He will (Q.3.37). This verse is frequently inscribed above the prayer-niches in mosques, and the Marian message ( Allah giveth beyond measure to whom He will) occurs a number of times in the Qurān, indicating an overflowing generosity to which no human limits can be set (42).” This helps to put into perspective the high regard with which Muslims view the Blessed Mother. In Christianity, the Blessed Mother is perceived by tradition and Catholic Doctrine as being in the Church, while Jesus, the Son and God, is over it. Mary is held with the highest regard and esteem, and she is the Immaculate Conception, just as the Quran tells its faithful that the Virgin Mary was born without stain. This indicates that Mary was of God, and that her destiny was inextricably intertwined with God’s will, and not her own. The Christian trinity is three: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. In the Quran, Islam holds that the Christian three are: Allah, Jesus, and Mary (Ridgeon, 270). For Christianity and Islam, the beliefs and doctrine that surround the Blessed Virgin help to establish the relationship of women to the society in which we came from, and to which we have evolved to. When Muhammad went to the site of the black stone in Kaaba, he circled it seven times, touched it with a stick, then accessed it with the key from the keeper, and, inside, he found and broke what he believed to be false Christian idols: a wooden dove, that he broke into three pieces (Akbar, M. J., 2002, 27). Three hundred and sixty other “idols,” were destroyed, as the Prophet Muhammad recited the words, “Truth has arrived and falsehood perished; for falsehood is (by its nature) bound to perish (27).” Following the afternoon prayer, all 360 idols were destroyed, all pictures “erased,” except two: the pictures of Jesus and Mary (27). If the false idols were falsehood, then this would suggest that the Prophet Muhammad perceived the Blessed Virgin Mother and Jesus as the truth. “Early Christians believed that pictures of Jesus and Mary, the angels, saints, and martyrs had special powers of intercession and protection (Wilson, Brian, 1999, 52).” Christians, of course, believe that Mary was born without sin, and that she was assumed into heaven (Bowker, 249). Mary, and has long been, the most popular of the Catholic saints. There have been more “Mary” sightings by the faithful in Christianity than there have been of Christ. Today, there are a large number of “Marion sites,” around the world where Mary is reported as having been seen by the faithful. Those sites, Fatima, and Lourdes, in France, are said to be places where the prayers of the faithful might be answered. Where Islam has condemned nearly all Christian tradition as being false since the revelations made to the Prophet Muhammad, it continues to hold Jesus and the blessed Virgin in the highest regard. Mary holds a place of in the tradition of Islam and Christianity, although as we look around us at the world today, one wonders as to how Mary has continued to hold such a place of high regard when all else concerning Christians and Christianity is held to be false (except Jesus). In fact, it might be suggested that Christianity has taken some cue from Islam as concerns the Virgin Mary, because, in Islam, Mary remains forever a virgin, and can be nothing less. Her relationship to God, and having entered this world as without sin, no stain, it was not possible, in Islam, that Mary ever experienced the intimacy of a physical relationship with a man (Bowker, pp. 249-253). Perhaps if there is ever to be a peace between Christianity and Islam, it will be the Blessed Virgin that brings both sides together in reconciliation of those things that are so different as to divide one from the other. This relationship between Muslims and Mary and Jesus remains one of the most intriguing aspects of Islam when comparing it to Christianity. Islam has been able to break and erase all other aspects of the Christian tradition in order to securely and firmly the Prophet Muhammad as the legitimate heir to the Word of God. The three books of God; and each book has built on its predecessor in ways that help to establish its superiority over the predecessor, and to ensure its success and faithful following. Works Cited Akbar, M. J. The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity. London: Routledge, 2002. Questia. 22 Mar. 2009 . Eaton, Gai. Islam and the Destiny of Man. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1985. Questia. 22 Mar. 2009 . Islam- The Straight Path: Islam Interpreted by Muslims. Ed. Kenneth W. Morgan. New York: Ronald Press, 1958. Questia. 22 Mar. 2009 . Mascall, E. L. Grace and Glory. New York: Morehouse-Barlow Co., 1961. Questia. 22 Mar. 2009 . Wilson, Brian. Christianity. London: Routledge, 1999. Questia. 22 Mar. 2009 . Read More