Why aren't Christians and Jews considered as "Muslim" ?

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Why aren't Christians and Jews considered as "Muslim" ?
OP - September 26, 2014, 09:29 AM

If a Muslim in Islam is someone who "submits to God/Allah" Then wouldn't Christians and Jews, at least logically, be considered Muslims as well since they also submit to God/Allah?

Add this to the list of contradictions since Christians and Jews are labeled as Dhimma in Qur'an but are supposed to be considered Muslim by logic.
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Reply #1 - September 26, 2014, 10:03 AM

I think you make a valid point. Since Islam basically means submission to God - the same God of the Jews & Christians, then logically they should also be called Muslims.

Yet in reality Islam and Muslim mean those who accept Muhammad as the last prophet and the Qur'an as the divine word of God.
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Reply #2 - September 26, 2014, 10:43 AM

Quote from: Nergal on September 26, 2014, 09:29 AM
If a Muslim in Islam is someone who "submits to God/Allah" Then wouldn't Christians and Jews, at least logically, be considered Muslims as well since they also submit to God/Allah?

Add this to the list of contradictions since Christians and Jews are labeled as Dhimma in Qur'an but are supposed to be considered Muslim by logic.

hello Nergal that is a good Idea and welcome to CEMB..

Hell we know nothing about lalalalalalaa Allah ... I mean "La ilaha illa 'llah"...... i don't care about that, So let me change that Shahada

"La ilaha illa 'llah, Everyone Rasulullah"

now that will fit to every one why only to Jews, Christians and Muslims? It will even fit to Muhammad's Dad..

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I renounced my faith to become a kafir,
the beloved betrayed me and turned in to a Muslim
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Reply #3 - September 26, 2014, 01:44 PM

that's another thing, Muhammad is considered a prophet but why is he considered the most important prophet when all other historical prophets were chosen by God, thus all prophets chosen by God are all equally important, neither one takes precedence over the other prophets.
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Reply #4 - September 26, 2014, 03:50 PM

Quote from: Nergal on September 26, 2014, 01:44 PM
all prophets chosen by God are all equally important, neither one takes precedence over the other prophets.

It's interesting that you should say that because the Qur'an actually says there is no difference between the prophets:

Say: "We believe in God, and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in (the Books) given to Moses, Jesus, and the prophets, from their Lord: We make no distinction between one and another among them, and to God do we bow our will (in Islam)." (3:84)

And the verb used at the end is Aslama - i.e. Islam.

However despite this, Muslims do definitely put Muhammad above the others. They call him Habibullah - the beloved of God!

Because of course God loves our prophet best - so na na na na na!
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Reply #5 - September 26, 2014, 04:15 PM

Quote from: Nergal on September 26, 2014, 09:29 AM
If a Muslim in Islam is someone who "submits to God/Allah" Then wouldn't Christians and Jews, at least logically, be considered Muslims as well since they also submit to God/Allah?

Add this to the list of contradictions since Christians and Jews are labeled as Dhimma in Qur'an but are supposed to be considered Muslim by logic.

because Jews and Christians have deviated from true monotheism (tawhid)

Islam had to explain all that came before it was no longer legitimate in order to claim Mo was the 'seal of the prophets' and that narrative explains it

"we can smell traitors and country haters"

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Reply #6 - September 26, 2014, 04:28 PM

It's interesting to note that the Qur'an speaks with many voices though.

Muhammad's ambitions at the beginning may not have even been to establish a new religion at all - and may have just wanted to move his people away from polytheism and towards the belief in the God of Abraham, like the Christian & Jews.

He was fairly conciliatory towards Christians and Jews to start with.
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Reply #7 - September 26, 2014, 04:51 PM

Was Muhammad a Muslim?

I think it would be uncontroversial now to say that Jesus was a Jew not a Christian. Christianity clearly only really developed after he died. Why not ask the same kind of question about Muhammad?

Which side are you on?
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Reply #8 - September 26, 2014, 05:00 PM

I think that is a fair question. It's been asked before as to whether Muhammad was in fact a "Haneef" - those who followed the pure religion of Abraham.
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Reply #9 - September 26, 2014, 05:49 PM

Quote from: billy on September 26, 2014, 04:15 PM
because Jews and Christians have deviated from true monotheism (tawhid)

Islam had to explain all that came before it was no longer legitimate in order to claim Mo was the 'seal of the prophets' and that narrative explains it

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica - "....Modern scholars have located the focus of this faith tradition in the context of monotheistic religions. Christianity addresses the historical figure of Jesus Christ against the background of, and while seeking to remain faithful to, the experience of one God. It has consistently rejected polytheism and atheism."

On Judaism, "The various teachings of Judaism have often been regarded as specifications of the central idea of monotheism. One God, the creator of the world, has freely elected the Jewish people for a unique covenantal relationship with himself. This one and only God has been affirmed by virtually all professing Jews in a variety of ways throughout the ages."

Tawheed is monotheism, both religions meet Tawheed...
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Reply #10 - September 26, 2014, 08:55 PM

Quote from: Nergal on September 26, 2014, 05:49 PM
..................~~Christianity addresses the historical figure of Jesus Christ~~ ................

Hello Nergal ., you mean Christians and Christianity selected a guy and named him as Jesus Christ and wrote all sorts of stories around him ?

Quote
On Judaism,........................... central idea of monotheism. One God, the creator of the world, has freely elected the Jewish people for a unique covenantal relationship with himself. ................

You mean Jews of early times drank too much juice, corrupted Judaism and wrote "That One God thing , the creator thingy of the world has freely elected the Jewish people for a unique covenantal relationship with himself"??

correct me if I am get you wrong Mr. Nergal
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Tawheed is monotheism, both religions meet Tawheed...

You mean Towel heads?

Yes..yes.. we need to put towels on our heads and cover the brain to be a monotheist..

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the beloved betrayed me and turned in to a Muslim
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Reply #11 - September 26, 2014, 11:16 PM

Because it wouldn't be as useful for expanding the reach of islam. Once you see islam for what it actually is (bullshit created by humans) everything falls into place.

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
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Reply #12 - December 18, 2014, 11:25 AM

Can Jews and Christians be admitted to heaven?
"Nay, whoever submits his whole being to God, and he is a doer of good to humanity, his reward is with his Lord. Then, no fear shall come upon them nor shall they grieve." Quran, 2:111-112

It seems that they would, but it other verses it seems they won't. http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Contra/deeds_accepted.html

What's the scholarly consensus?
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Reply #13 - December 18, 2014, 01:04 PM

A massive contradiction in the Quran. At one point Christians and Jews are cool and the next second it's calling those who don't accept muhammad or don't accept all the scriptures are disbelievers going to hell. Probably a sign of the later editors of the Quran trying to create a new religion by telling people they have to accept the Quran while the earlier material was more vaguely monotheistic and reconciliatory.

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Reply #14 - December 18, 2014, 01:17 PM

That is right, but as always in Muslim exegesis the contradictions and interpolations will be explained by recourse to fictive developments in Mohammed's biography.

If one part of the Qur'an is blessing the Jews and the next cursing them, it will turn out that there is some background narrative where Mo was aligned with the Jews at one point and then turned against them when they betrayed him. Sharp disjunctions in the texts, and contradictory rhetoric, is explained by effectively turning Mo's own biography into a tale of factional strife, change, and radical dislocations.

You raise an interesting point, however: The Qur'an is very clear that it is not bringing a new message, but rather reminding its audience of the eternal message that has been the same from Abraham on downwards. This is why you have an ecumenical overall feel to the Qur'an when it comes to 'the message.'

But many parts of the Qur'an rail against Jews and, to a lesser extent, orthodox Christians. The arguments against the Christians are shirk. And that's basically it. The problem with Christians is shirk. For Jews, it's trickier because the Qur'an is never able to satisfactorily explain why the Jews got the message wrong. Instead it borrows anti-Jewish rhetoric from Christians, particularly about their rejection of Jesus, vaguely accuses them of modifying their scriptures (without ever specifying how), and vaguely accuses them of shirk in confused terms (associating Uzayr with Allah). The Jews are bad because they reject prophets, and are inherently treacherous, disobedient people (so they can be Muslim in theory, but have been bad).

I'd suggest that what all this reflects is several layers of texts that were modified in stages, the most basic of which is a sort of Semitizing Christianity, which then gets overlaid with (in the context of factional strife and jihad) factional interpolations in the early conquest era. And that is where the anti-Semitic and anti-trinitarian stuff gets interpolated into what were otherwise broadly ecumenical base monotheistic texts -- the less adulterated examples of which are considered early Meccan material, not yet worked into the later 'Medinan' surahs that developed from the conquest era political and theological climate.
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Reply #15 - December 18, 2014, 01:33 PM

Do you think the semitic Christianity that the early believers seem to adhere to is close to any of the mainstream heresies that Orthodox Christians condemned? Could they maybe have been influenced by Arianism?

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Reply #16 - December 18, 2014, 01:55 PM

That is a big debate amongst scholars right now -- does Islam reflect the influence of Ebionite theology etc. Personally, I feel it is unlikely to have any sort of direct historical connection in a doctrinal sense. Rather I prefer the argument that Islam incorporates *basic indeterminate monotheism* in a sort of vernacular Semitic context, and that this context inherently corresponds to the type of features that are condemned as Jewish Christian heresies by the early Orthodox Christians (non-trinitarian, failure to appreciate the crucifixion's salvation, following Jewish legal traditions).

People tend to think of early Christianity through the lens of the classical Orthodox tradition v. obscure heretics. Because that tradition won, and it wrote the texts that we have. The periphery did not win (except with Islam!), and its texts were not preserved (except with Islam!). What I believe is more empirically correct is that the Orthodox tradition emerged, and existed, on top of a much broader base of vernacular belief, particularly in Eastern Christianity. It is wrong to think of this as specific, narrow heretical sects, and more accurate to think of it as *common knowledge* and *common belief* outside of a centralized formal organization.

So I think it is misleading to think of *narrow, doctrinal sects* which penetrated a pagan milieu, as if you were either a particular Christian group, a Jew, or a pagan. Instead I think what you had was indeterminate monotheism, which crystallized in some sectors into more dogmatic and narrow orthodoxies/heresies. The earliest background of the Qur'an is just such indeterminate ecumenical monotheism, not the legacy of narrow sects or orthodoxies (and certainly not paganism!). What you see is a new doctrinal confession, Islam, slowly emerging from this indeterminate monotheistic Arabic matrix, and becoming progressively distinct and supercessionist. That trajectory is partially reflected in the surahs that have been compiled into the Qur'an, although they are still a very early stage in its development.

If you look at the archaeological work done by Nevo and Koren in the Sinai, I believe that the pre-Islamic and early-Islamic era inscriptions they report show quite clearly what this indeterminate non-confessional monotheism was like. The inscriptions do not reflect any specific sect or creed, but rather basic Semitic monotheism.

However there are scholars (like Zellentin) who are arguing for a stronger role of Jewish Christianity, and I believe Crone is supposedly writing a book on the subject. I remain skeptical but open minded on this front.
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Reply #17 - December 18, 2014, 02:18 PM

Sweet! Do you have any links to the inscriptions from pre/early Islamic times?

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Reply #18 - December 18, 2014, 06:46 PM

I don't know of any online links. But on the subject of this thread, I'd also note that the most detailed Qur'anic description of who gets into paradise is very interesting ... Surah 56. In a permutation on classic Christian eschatology (sheep on right going to heaven, goats on left going to hell), the Qur'an divides everybody into three (!) groups, a group on the right which is going to heaven (and gets houris and such), a group on the left going to hell, and a 'foremost' group, which is the third group, composed mostly of former peoples "and a few later peoples" which also goes to heaven (and gets houris) but is somewhat nearer to God than the group on the right. Notably the foremost group and the people on the right are described as "former peoples" plus a few later peoples, which implies that at the time this is said/written MOST of the people who would be saved were former peoples, i.e. Christians and Jews.

In a recent article, Carlos Segovia argues that this was a supersessionist interpolation that shows the dawning of belief in a new elite group of believers, who are somewhat better than the Christians (implicitly) who are on the right. Thus you get this weird sheep/goats + super-sheep division of people. The crudeness and vagueness of the scheme is revealing of the climate it was produced in -- dawning supersessionist argument, but still thinking of itself as a smaller group. Clearly at the time of Surah 56 former peoples were considered part of the same salvation community as the people who wrote the Surah, including the 'foremost,' and to the extent 'muslim' was later used to describe such people, were considered 'muslim.' This is also consistent with how even modern Muslims view the situation.
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Reply #19 - December 18, 2014, 07:34 PM

Holy books like the Bible and Quran are ridiculous as they leave ambiguous what the difference is between you experiencing an eternity of bliss or an eternity of torture. The Bible swings back and forth between whether beliefs or works save you and the Quran oscillates between whether Christian and Jews can make it into heaven or are to burn for eternity. You'd think if it would make the difference between heaven or hell, God would make sure it is absolutely clear whether you need to pull out all stops to convert your neighbor or if they're cool as long as they act well.

As for the graphic, as long as we're pulling facts out of our asses: Did you know that Native Americans are really descended from ancient Israelites that didn't leave any sort of evidence that they were here? And that Black people are cursed as descendants of Hamm?

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Reply #20 - February 18, 2015, 11:42 PM

I find many of these replies interesting!

To Zaotar: my ancestry is from the Assyrians who went on to create Syriac Christianity and the foundation of the Church of the East which is the first Christian church to have made contact with Islam.

The Church of the East has many purported historical documents on it's interactions with Muslims including Caliphs.
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Reply #21 - February 19, 2015, 12:31 AM

My 2 cents worth (if its worth anything at all)

All 3 religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism have some form of common ground they agree on, when it comes to who burns in eternal hell and who meets and makes merry with the angels.

I am not an expert on any of them, including Islam, but Islam takes the golden cup on the contradictions about whether the other two (Jews and Christians) are the good guys or the bad guys. In the Qoran, at one point there are trees and stones speaking that there is a jew hiding behind them and "all ye good muslims come and smite his head off". But in another narrative the "people of the book" are supposed to be given many more chances (to accept Islam) than your average kuffar.

The comfort zone I choose to stay at, at this point is: if a narrative (whoever is telling) does not make total rational logical sense to me, I call them all BULSHIT! and live and let live.

Tired of the bull-shit. I write my own doctrines.
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Reply #22 - February 19, 2015, 07:50 PM

Anti-bul:
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"at one point there are trees and stones speaking that there is a jew hiding behind them and "all ye good muslims come and smite his head off".

That's not in the Qur'an. That's the Hadith of the Boxthorn.

The anti-Jewish stuff in the Qur'an seems to cluster around suras 4 and 5, where the Jews are called slayers of prophets. The subtext of sura 3 might be even worse, given the reference to the "plot" in context of Jesus. Why should we care about a mere plot to commit a crime, when the plot apparently succeeded - shouldn't the focus be upon the committed crime? Well... if you're Christian, and especially in Monothelete circles (the "united will" of the Trinity: held by the Byzantine Church at the time, held by Copts and Jacobite-Syrians to this day) the Cross was a plot to crucify and slay God Himself. Or at least to cripple God of an essential attribute.

The Qur'an doesn't accept that the Jews could crucify God (I know I'm not revealing anything new here) but it's enough for its rhetorical purpose that the Jews intended to.
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Reply #23 - February 19, 2015, 07:57 PM

Quote from: Zaotar on December 18, 2014, 06:46 PM
classic Christian eschatology (sheep on right going to heaven, goats on left going to hell)

To be precise, sheep and goats are not mentioned in the sura. (I'm not a hafez so I had to look this up.)

But the general dualism seems more Enochian / Qumranian, or even Zoroastrian more than Christian. Although para-canonical texts like Barnabas and Didache also went in for this. And then there were the Manichees / zanadiqa . . .
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