Our Muslim brother believers in the One True God are about to enter another another Ramadan. I wish them a holy and peaceful time of worship
Does Islam worship the same God of Christianity? I do not know a great deal about Islam, but I understand that they do not believe that Jesus is God.
I pretend no great expertise in this area, however this is what I understand. There are three great Abrahamic Faith Communities. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Judaism speaks of God, with various 'El' names, El Elohim, El Shaddai, El, and the unutterable tetragrammaton YHWH. Christianity speaks of God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, One God three persons. Christianity is born in Judaism and starts life in some sense as an extension of Judaism. Islam speaks of God using the Arabic Allah, clearly not far from the Hebrew El. Mohammad clearly saw in Christianity and Judaism monotheistic traditions of faith which he felt had lost the way and wandered from the pathway. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity was seen as a wandering too close to polytheism, though the prophet clearly saw christianity as monotheistic, some contemporary Islamic websites mock us relentlessly for the doctrine seeing it as gobbledygook. All three traditions understand the God they worship in terms of the God of Abraham. There is clearly a deal of common ground. That Islam accepts Jesus as a prophet, indeed a significant prophet, and probably ready to accept some of the account of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, but struggled deeply with the crucifixion and a theology of atonement. In the confusion, probably for most of the next couple of hundred years, the followers of the prophet Mohammed where often thought of as an outbreak of the Arian heresy, rather than a separate religion.
Thanks for your insight Philip. Would you agree then, notwithstanding similar shared foundational aspects, that Islam is incompatible with Christianity and the triune God of the bible?
Islam would never accept any trinitarian doctrine as they view it as putting partners with God. However, to answer your initial question, it's a monotheistic faith and worships the same God as Christianity and Judaism. Allah is not a name given to God, it's simply the Arabic translation of the word God. Arab Christians also say Allah when praying
Judaism: The Lord our God, the Lord is One Christianity: We believe in One God, the Father Almighty ..., We believe in One Lord Jesus Christ ... true God from true God, We believe in The Holy Spirit the Lord the giver of life ... Islam: There is one God, Allah, and Muhammad is the last prophet. I think Christianity is incompatible with Islam, in that we proclaim the divinity of Jesus which Islam sees as an assault on the notion of singular deity - Allah. I think Islam is perhaps incompatible with Christianity in that it understand the the prophet Muhammad represents a full stop on revelation, whereas for Christians the Day of Pentecost declares that the revelation of God continues. Islam understands the Koran as the words that Allah spoke directly to the prophet, and therefore they are not readily translated, and certainly not to be subjected to any form of what we would call textual analysis and literary criticism, as we are used to in our understanding of the Biblical texts. Whilst this understanding is in place it seems very unlikely that Islam will experience a reformation. Arianism would be more likely to be acceptable to Islam than Orthodox Christianity, but even still there would be difficulties. It is perhaps mostly the doctrine of the atonement that is the bar that Islam can not cross. Any notion that God would suffer death for the creation seems to them impossible, any notion that he would allow his son to die for the sins of others is impossible to contemplate as it seems to deny a sense of justice in the divinity. I repeat my earlier declaration that I make no pretense of understanding Islam, though I have read a little in order to improve my knowledge and try and make more sense of what is happening in the world in which I live.
All religions are incompatible with each other (my opinion), however I understand Islam to be the worship of the one God. There is, afterall one God and since they claim to worship Him, I prefer to take them at their word.
I think there's value in resurrecting the discussion on if Allah is the same God Christians and Jews worship. From a scriptural standpoint, in some sense they are the same god: God also said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you”: This is my name for ever, and this my title for all generations. ~ Exodus 3.15 Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. We all repeat these terms and call God by the name he told us he always would be. But, of course, we worship God the trinity. God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Jews see Jesus as a false prophet, and the Spirit as a tool of God, not God himself. It is the Spirit of God, but God (to the Jews) is not bi-personal, let alone tri-personal. The Muslims see Jesus as the Messiah, but not the Son of God nor God incarnate. In Islamic faith Jesus is a prophet, and secondary to the most important prophet (Muhammad), whom Jesus was instrumental in paving the way for. They believe in the second coming of Christ, but they do not believe Christ is God. Muslims believe the Holy Spirit is the angel Gabriel, and neither the Spirit of God nor a person of God. So, then I think it becomes a little philosophical. Is worshiping God in the same name worshiping the same God? Is it necessary to understand God (to at least a base extent) to appropriately worship him, or can we worship God with no knowledge or understanding of who He is? God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ ~ John 4.24 Muslims certainly worship God in spirit. Their worship is earnest, comes from the innermost parts of their soul, is genuine, is authentic, is not coerced. But by a Christian understanding, if they reject Jesus as the Son of God, then they are not worshiping God in truth. So, on that basis, although our Gods share names I do not think we worship the same God.
Muslims worship a god named Allah. "There is one God, Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet." See? They are not using "Allah" as a generic Arab word meaning "God"; instead they are using "Allah" as the name of their god. Christians and Jews know that the name of God is not Allah. The proper pronunciation of God's name may have been lost over time, but His name is represented as YHWH. When one adds in the fact that the characteristics and disposition of Allah are at odds with those of YHWH, one may reasonably conclude that Muslims worship a different god than do Christians and Jews. Muslims do not view Allah as a Saving or Redeeming god. Nor is he a loving god, for he is angry and vengeful. Salvation is not even in the vocabulary of Islam. For them, all humans are born innocent and the redemptive principle is centered in each individual. "...I am YHWH your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob" (Isaiah 49:26). To the Muslim this means nothing, because they trace their lineage through Ishmael instead of through Isaac and Jacob. They would vehemently deny that YHWH is their god. They would say that Allah (the god of Ishmael's descendants) is not YHWH, the 'false god' of Jacob's descendants (unless of course you talk to the radical Muslims whose goal is to fool Christians and Jews into believing that 'we all worship the same God', for the Quran tells them that lying to infidels in order to attain the goal of eventually subjecting all infidels is perfectly acceptable). Islam's holy book, the Quran, tells its followers to hate "infidels" such as Jews and Christians, and to kill them or bring them under subjection. The Bible tells us to love our enemies and to do good to those who despise and abuse us. Christians follow Jesus, the only One who ever was born of a virgin, lived a perfectly sinless life, and rose from the dead on the third day after burial. Muslims follow Muhammad, a greedy, selfish man who took wives from other men for his own harem and who participated in the slaughter of thousands of Christians and Jews. My wish (during Ramadan and all year long) is that Muslims might come to knowledge of the truth concerning their need for Jesus the Redeemer, and be saved by grace through faith in Christ.
For anyone who'd like to know that Muhammad was really like, I highly recommend this book: Christ, Muhammad and I, by a former Muslim who became a Christian, M. Al Ghazoli. The author also explains from Islamic writings the reasons why Muslims do not worship the same God as we.
If I may comment: "Allah" is not the name of any god. It is simply the Arab word for our word god. Christian Arabs call the Christian God "Allah" as well. I know because I have been there.
Did you even read my post? The foundational statement of the Islamic faith proves that they use "Allah" as a proper noun, a name. I don't deny that it is also a generic word in Arabic for "God," but the Muslim usage shows that it is more than that to them. At any rate, Islam is a man-made religion and the Quran is a man-made, uninspired text filled with historical inaccuracies and 25% contradictory statements. Therefore any god that it promotes is a false god, not the Creator we learn about in the Bible.
I believe there is a linguistic confusion here. Muslims use in Arabic, الله, which is transliterated into English as 'Allah'. However, the English translation of الله is 'the God'. Muslims do not give the god in which they believe a name.
“Allah” is also how one says “God” in Aramaic. When Jesus referred to God in his native language, “Allah” is the word he would have used. Christian Arabs and Arabic-speaking Jews also refer to God as “Allah”. The Quran led an entire people to renounce idolatry and to identify themselves as people who worship the same God who revealed Himself at Sinai. That in itself is a remarkable thing. Whatever else one may think of Islam, the intended identity of the God of the Quran with the God of the Bible is not something that ought to be controversial.
Do Muslims worship the God who incarnated as a man, lived a sinless life, suffered on a cross, died, rose from the dead, and ascended back into heaven? Ask any Muslim if he worships that God. He will tell you, "No, I do not." He will tell you that their Allah has no son, and that Christians worship a false god. Therefore, any Christian who thinks Muslims and Christians worship the same god is engaging in wishful ecumenism and false hope. Such a Christian may as well pretend that the Muslim eats pork regularly as pretend that the Muslim worships YHWH. Muslims reject the one true God who saves, the God who redeems; Allah doesn't do those things.
Practicing Jews will tell you the same, yet the Scriptures are clear that they do not worship a different God.