The subtle micro aggressions of islamophobia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So I located a passage from the earliest English translation of Quran from 1734. It apparently was translated from a Latin version of the Quran. It uses the word God instead of Allah; presumably the Latin used "Deus" and not Allah. So our Christian forefathers had no problem seeing the God Muslims worshiped as the monotheistic God they worshiped or that the Jews worshiped.

The God of the Old Testament is very different from the God of the New Testament, and yet I can't imagine any Jew I know who wouldn't take offense at being asked at which temple he worshiped Yahweh.

The core here is belief in one creator God and no other gods beside him.

Pickthall uses Allah and I couldn't find any reasons why, except perhaps that it was commissioned by the ruler of Hyderabad and was written there. Perhaps it was common in India for Muslims to refer to Allah owing to the polytheistic culture. (Of course there are Indian Christians who must have a native tongue word for God, but I am totally out of my depth on this subcontinent.)

I think you are making an unwarrantedly broad assumption that "God" necessarily means a) monotheistic plus b) the God of Christians and Jews. It can just be "god", any god, capitalized out of respect.

I respectfully disagree. God in English refers to the creator God in a system of belief that does not acknowledge any other god. It is not exclusively for the Abrahamic religions. Zorastrians believe in one creator God as do Yazidis, Parsees, and Sikhs. If one is dealing with a polytheistic or henotheistic deity, one refers to the god by his or her name as adapted to English spelling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So I located a passage from the earliest English translation of Quran from 1734. It apparently was translated from a Latin version of the Quran. It uses the word God instead of Allah; presumably the Latin used "Deus" and not Allah. So our Christian forefathers had no problem seeing the God Muslims worshiped as the monotheistic God they worshiped or that the Jews worshiped.

The God of the Old Testament is very different from the God of the New Testament, and yet I can't imagine any Jew I know who wouldn't take offense at being asked at which temple he worshiped Yahweh.

The core here is belief in one creator God and no other gods beside him.

Pickthall uses Allah and I couldn't find any reasons why, except perhaps that it was commissioned by the ruler of Hyderabad and was written there. Perhaps it was common in India for Muslims to refer to Allah owing to the polytheistic culture. (Of course there are Indian Christians who must have a native tongue word for God, but I am totally out of my depth on this subcontinent.)

I challenge you to find a non-Arab Muslim society that uses any other word for God - other than Allah.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So I located a passage from the earliest English translation of Quran from 1734. It apparently was translated from a Latin version of the Quran. It uses the word God instead of Allah; presumably the Latin used "Deus" and not Allah. So our Christian forefathers had no problem seeing the God Muslims worshiped as the monotheistic God they worshiped or that the Jews worshiped.

The God of the Old Testament is very different from the God of the New Testament, and yet I can't imagine any Jew I know who wouldn't take offense at being asked at which temple he worshiped Yahweh.

The core here is belief in one creator God and no other gods beside him.

Pickthall uses Allah and I couldn't find any reasons why, except perhaps that it was commissioned by the ruler of Hyderabad and was written there. Perhaps it was common in India for Muslims to refer to Allah owing to the polytheistic culture. (Of course there are Indian Christians who must have a native tongue word for God, but I am totally out of my depth on this subcontinent.)

I challenge you to find a non-Arab Muslim society that uses any other word for God - other than Allah.

I lived in the Middle East for many years and every Muslim I knew who was educated in English used God when speaking English. Indeed, I wrote for an English language newspaper while there, and it was strictly prohibited to write Allah in reference to God in Islam for both stylistic and theological reasons. I wouldn't know what Malaysians et al say, but I did know a Taiwanese Muslim who always used God when she spoke in English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So I located a passage from the earliest English translation of Quran from 1734. It apparently was translated from a Latin version of the Quran. It uses the word God instead of Allah; presumably the Latin used "Deus" and not Allah. So our Christian forefathers had no problem seeing the God Muslims worshiped as the monotheistic God they worshiped or that the Jews worshiped.

The God of the Old Testament is very different from the God of the New Testament, and yet I can't imagine any Jew I know who wouldn't take offense at being asked at which temple he worshiped Yahweh.

The core here is belief in one creator God and no other gods beside him.

Pickthall uses Allah and I couldn't find any reasons why, except perhaps that it was commissioned by the ruler of Hyderabad and was written there. Perhaps it was common in India for Muslims to refer to Allah owing to the polytheistic culture. (Of course there are Indian Christians who must have a native tongue word for God, but I am totally out of my depth on this subcontinent.)

I challenge you to find a non-Arab Muslim society that uses any other word for God - other than Allah.

I lived in the Middle East for many years and every Muslim I knew who was educated in English used God when speaking English. Indeed, I wrote for an English language newspaper while there, and it was strictly prohibited to write Allah in reference to God in Islam for both stylistic and theological reasons. I wouldn't know what Malaysians et al say, but I did know a Taiwanese Muslim who always used God when she spoke in English.

What did they call it in their native languages?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of them is when people think they're being PC and saying it doesn't matter if you pray to God or Allah or whoever you believe in. Allah = Arabic for God. I truly believe lots of celebrities who say this WANT to set Islam apart in a negative way -- in a -- oh we respect Muslims, they just pray to some other foreign God. Um no -- they pray to the same God as Christians and Jews.

I respectfully disagree with this. As a Christian I do not believe that Muslims pray to the same God as I do. Nor do Jewish people. I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but my God is a trinity which must include Jesus. If you do not believe in Jesus as God, then we do not believe in the same god. We don't need to believe in the same god to be respectful to one another.

As a Muslim I completely understand WHY you don't think we pray to the same God as you. However, from our perspective the true message delivered by Jesus did not teach trinity (see Gospel of Thomas thread). Thus, the message Jesus brought is the same message as Moses brought and it is the same message that Muhammad brought. This is from the Muslim perspective. It emphasizes the oneness of God. So from the Muslim perspective, we do pray to the same God that Moses and Jesus spoke of, although we do not pray to Jesus as God. Muslims know by now that many, not all, Christians believe Jesus is God himself but we do not accept this.

But clearly, Muslim perspective isn't the only one that counts here, is it. If you say "we pray to the same God as Christians", and Christians disagree, you have a de facto impasse. Christians also disagree massively with Muslims on what exactly Jesus' message was. Jews certainly don't look to Muslims to interpret what exactly was the message that Moses brought. That Muslims would like to draw these figures under the umbrella of Islam doesn't mean much to Jews and Christians.

I think its not entirely correct for Muslims to say we believe in what Christians believe, because assigning partners to God or saying God is actually a man is a huge sin in islam. It is more correct to say muslims believe in Jesus' message. Now we know Christians interpret Jesus' message differently and of course thats their prerogative but it is a true factual statement for a muslim to say he embraces Jesus'teachings.

[Anonymous]

Here is a scholarly yet reasonably accesible article by a Muslim scholar arguing that Muslims should use the word "God" when speaking or writing in English and not use "Allah."

http://www.nawawi.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Article2.pdf

It appears that extremist English speaking Christians and extremist Muslims find common ground on insisting that the God of Islam be called Allah in English.

The extremist Christians appear to have spread internet nonsense that Muslims actual worship a moon god called Allah. Thus, if one uses God to refer to the Muslim God one is denying the essential paganism of Islam.

Extremist Muslims, on the other hand, have various reasons for insisting on Allah instead of God.

There is linguistic nonsense such as the word God, unlike Allah, can become plural or denote gender, while Allah cannot. This fails to take into account the role capitalization plays in English. (Arabic has no capitals.) The word Gods makes no sense in English as God connotes a system of belief in just one creator God with no deities beside him.

The word "god", though can be pluralized and made feminine by adding "-ess." Every English speaker with a minimal amount of education recognizes the difference instinctively. This Muslim argument also conveniently glosses over the fact that in Arabic the word Allah is a combination of "the" (al) and "god" (ilah), but it has been run together to produce a word that mean one creator God.

Another extremist Muslim argument for using Allah instead of God is that Allah, like the Quran itself, is untranslatable--God just doesn't convey the rich depths of Allah--so we are back to the old canard that one cannot understand Islam without deep study of ancient Arabic, which has been thoroughly debated on DCUM. It also ignore the fact that Arabic speaking Christians and Jews used the word Allah to refer to the creator God long before Islam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of them is when people think they're being PC and saying it doesn't matter if you pray to God or Allah or whoever you believe in. Allah = Arabic for God. I truly believe lots of celebrities who say this WANT to set Islam apart in a negative way -- in a -- oh we respect Muslims, they just pray to some other foreign God. Um no -- they pray to the same God as Christians and Jews.

I respectfully disagree with this. As a Christian I do not believe that Muslims pray to the same God as I do. Nor do Jewish people. I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but my God is a trinity which must include Jesus. If you do not believe in Jesus as God, then we do not believe in the same god. We don't need to believe in the same god to be respectful to one another.

As a Muslim I completely understand WHY you don't think we pray to the same God as you. However, from our perspective the true message delivered by Jesus did not teach trinity (see Gospel of Thomas thread). Thus, the message Jesus brought is the same message as Moses brought and it is the same message that Muhammad brought. This is from the Muslim perspective. It emphasizes the oneness of God. So from the Muslim perspective, we do pray to the same God that Moses and Jesus spoke of, although we do not pray to Jesus as God. Muslims know by now that many, not all, Christians believe Jesus is God himself but we do not accept this.

But clearly, Muslim perspective isn't the only one that counts here, is it. If you say "we pray to the same God as Christians", and Christians disagree, you have a de facto impasse. Christians also disagree massively with Muslims on what exactly Jesus' message was. Jews certainly don't look to Muslims to interpret what exactly was the message that Moses brought. That Muslims would like to draw these figures under the umbrella of Islam doesn't mean much to Jews and Christians.

I think its not entirely correct for Muslims to say we believe in what Christians believe, because assigning partners to God or saying God is actually a man is a huge sin in islam. It is more correct to say muslims believe in Jesus' message. Now we know Christians interpret Jesus' message differently and of course thats their prerogative but it is a true factual statement for a muslim to say he embraces Jesus'teachings.

Christians do not assign partners to God. If we did, we would believes in gods, not God. The trinity holds that there are three persons in one God. One of these persons is God the Son who has two natures, God and man. We do not believe that God is a man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of them is when people think they're being PC and saying it doesn't matter if you pray to God or Allah or whoever you believe in. Allah = Arabic for God. I truly believe lots of celebrities who say this WANT to set Islam apart in a negative way -- in a -- oh we respect Muslims, they just pray to some other foreign God. Um no -- they pray to the same God as Christians and Jews.

I respectfully disagree with this. As a Christian I do not believe that Muslims pray to the same God as I do. Nor do Jewish people. I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but my God is a trinity which must include Jesus. If you do not believe in Jesus as God, then we do not believe in the same god. We don't need to believe in the same god to be respectful to one another.

As a Muslim I completely understand WHY you don't think we pray to the same God as you. However, from our perspective the true message delivered by Jesus did not teach trinity (see Gospel of Thomas thread). Thus, the message Jesus brought is the same message as Moses brought and it is the same message that Muhammad brought. This is from the Muslim perspective. It emphasizes the oneness of God. So from the Muslim perspective, we do pray to the same God that Moses and Jesus spoke of, although we do not pray to Jesus as God. Muslims know by now that many, not all, Christians believe Jesus is God himself but we do not accept this.

But clearly, Muslim perspective isn't the only one that counts here, is it. If you say "we pray to the same God as Christians", and Christians disagree, you have a de facto impasse. Christians also disagree massively with Muslims on what exactly Jesus' message was. Jews certainly don't look to Muslims to interpret what exactly was the message that Moses brought. That Muslims would like to draw these figures under the umbrella of Islam doesn't mean much to Jews and Christians.

I think its not entirely correct for Muslims to say we believe in what Christians believe, because assigning partners to God or saying God is actually a man is a huge sin in islam. It is more correct to say muslims believe in Jesus' message. Now we know Christians interpret Jesus' message differently and of course thats their prerogative but it is a true factual statement for a muslim to say he embraces Jesus'teachings.

Christians believe (not "interpret" as you put it) Jesus' message is very different from the Quranic Jesus' message. So when you're talking to a Christian audience or to an audience that's familiar with Christianity, saying you believe in Jesus' message is going to mean something very different to them than it does to you. This is the same problem as claiming women are "equal" in Islam. In both cases you're presuming your listeners have knowledge about Islam that they probably don't have. Or, more likely, given that 98% percent of Anericans are probably not familiar with the Quranic Jesus, you KNOW your listeners are hearing something that isn't quite the full truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of them is when people think they're being PC and saying it doesn't matter if you pray to God or Allah or whoever you believe in. Allah = Arabic for God. I truly believe lots of celebrities who say this WANT to set Islam apart in a negative way -- in a -- oh we respect Muslims, they just pray to some other foreign God. Um no -- they pray to the same God as Christians and Jews.

I respectfully disagree with this. As a Christian I do not believe that Muslims pray to the same God as I do. Nor do Jewish people. I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but my God is a trinity which must include Jesus. If you do not believe in Jesus as God, then we do not believe in the same god. We don't need to believe in the same god to be respectful to one another.

As a Muslim I completely understand WHY you don't think we pray to the same God as you. However, from our perspective the true message delivered by Jesus did not teach trinity (see Gospel of Thomas thread). Thus, the message Jesus brought is the same message as Moses brought and it is the same message that Muhammad brought. This is from the Muslim perspective. It emphasizes the oneness of God. So from the Muslim perspective, we do pray to the same God that Moses and Jesus spoke of, although we do not pray to Jesus as God. Muslims know by now that many, not all, Christians believe Jesus is God himself but we do not accept this.

But clearly, Muslim perspective isn't the only one that counts here, is it. If you say "we pray to the same God as Christians", and Christians disagree, you have a de facto impasse. Christians also disagree massively with Muslims on what exactly Jesus' message was. Jews certainly don't look to Muslims to interpret what exactly was the message that Moses brought. That Muslims would like to draw these figures under the umbrella of Islam doesn't mean much to Jews and Christians.

+1000. I've pointed out elsewhere that the Christian Jesus, who got rid of eye-for-eye vengeance and more Old Testament things, is very different from the Quranic Jesus and message. You may want to put them under the same umbrella, but for Christians that doesn't really work.

But it's not a case of Muslims wanting to put them under the same umbrella, Muslims DO put them under the same umbrella and they ARE under the same umbrella to us. We acknowledge you don't buy it and that was always understood, but Muslims believe that the Christian faith has been altered (trinity has been added, for example, though Muslims believe Jesus did not teach it).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So I located a passage from the earliest English translation of Quran from 1734. It apparently was translated from a Latin version of the Quran. It uses the word God instead of Allah; presumably the Latin used "Deus" and not Allah. So our Christian forefathers had no problem seeing the God Muslims worshiped as the monotheistic God they worshiped or that the Jews worshiped.

The God of the Old Testament is very different from the God of the New Testament, and yet I can't imagine any Jew I know who wouldn't take offense at being asked at which temple he worshiped Yahweh.

The core here is belief in one creator God and no other gods beside him.

Pickthall uses Allah and I couldn't find any reasons why, except perhaps that it was commissioned by the ruler of Hyderabad and was written there. Perhaps it was common in India for Muslims to refer to Allah owing to the polytheistic culture. (Of course there are Indian Christians who must have a native tongue word for God, but I am totally out of my depth on this subcontinent.)

I challenge you to find a non-Arab Muslim society that uses any other word for God - other than Allah.

I lived in the Middle East for many years and every Muslim I knew who was educated in English used God when speaking English. Indeed, I wrote for an English language newspaper while there, and it was strictly prohibited to write Allah in reference to God in Islam for both stylistic and theological reasons. I wouldn't know what Malaysians et al say, but I did know a Taiwanese Muslim who always used God when she spoke in English.

What did they call it in their native languages?

So this took a bit of Googling, but it appears that the word Indian Christians use for God is Deva. In Sanskrit, "deva" means god.

It is not unlikely that Indian Muslims would not use deva for God, because it has connotations of a non-monotheistic deity and instead used Allah when speaking Hindi or other native language, including English.

So it could well make sense that Pickthall writing in English for an Indian commission and an Indian Muslim audience would use Allah, instead of God. Had he been writing for a British Christian audience, he may well have used God as the earliest English translation of the Quran did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It feels to Jews and Christians as though Islam wants to co-opt their religions and present itself as the ultimate form of monotheism. They don't accept that, especially given the massive differences among the three religions, as PP pointed out. A good parallel is with the Bahais and their prophet: do you accept that this is the perfection of all monotheistic religions including Islam? I didn't think so.

I am not sure what the debate here is about. Muslims are not asking Jews and Christians to embrace Islam. Our holy book mentions many prophets from Adam to Noah to Moses to Jesus and finally, Muhammad. The religion asks us to respect all of them. The message sent from God through these messengers is one and the same. So Islam is not trying to take over any other faith. It was simply the same message brought by yet one more, and last, messenger of God. Islam also believes all good Christians and all good Jews will go to Heaven, so there is no necessity to convert to Islam if you are secure in your own faith. So why do you feel so threatened by islam?

As far as Bahai faith goes, our Islamic holy book clearly states there will be no messengers after Prophet Muhammad. That the Bahai faith believes there is is pointless and irrelevant to Muslims. Similarly, Jews and Christians are free to think Islam is irrelevant also. I don't think Muslims are asking Jews or Christians here to accept them. We simply don't want Muslims to be discriminated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It feels to Jews and Christians as though Islam wants to co-opt their religions and present itself as the ultimate form of monotheism. They don't accept that, especially given the massive differences among the three religions, as PP pointed out. A good parallel is with the Bahais and their prophet: do you accept that this is the perfection of all monotheistic religions including Islam? I didn't think so.

I think the Bahais an apt comparison.

For the Semitic religions, we have the Jews, who had a succession of prophets. Jesus came and there were some who saw him a another prophet--I believe this is the premise of the Jews for Jesus. Had he been accepted as a prophet, Judaism would just have incorporated his message as it had incorporated the message of prophets before him.

But the Christians insist that Jesus is not a prophet, but rather the incarnation of God, appearing on earth to send a message not just to Jews, but to gentiles as well. Not surprisingly, many Jews did not embrace this view.

In a sense, Jesus was the seal of the prophets by virtue of his Godhood. This did not leave room for another prophet to be incorporated into Christianity.

Islam views Muhammed as the seal of the prophets and Jesus as the immediately previous prophet. Under Judaism there technically was room for another prophet, but even if they were inclined to embrace Muhammed, that would require embracing Jesus as prophet as well, something that had been rejected by almost all Jews.

Since Muhammed is the seal, there is no room in Islam for other prophets, so those claiming there is one like the Bahais are said to be heretical Muslims.

Note that Christianity could be considered heretical Judaism, and Islam either heretical Judaism or heretical Christianity. One could perhaps say that Islam is much more heretical to Christianity than to Judaism as the latter is theoretically open to additional prophets but the former is not.

But no other prophet said that no prophet will come after them. Only Muhammad said this. And is it not true that Muhammad's coming was predicted in the Bible (they called him Ahmed, which is the root form of the name Muhammad)? I might be wrong on this point as I don't know the OT or NT well at all. Final point - I can not overlook the Gospel of Thomas which were a collection of Jesus' own sayings. Is it true that trinity and divinity was not mentioned in this gospel? It seems to me that Jesus' religion was altered for political reasons so isn't it possible that the altered version deviated significantly from the original teachings? Maybe Jesus isn't divine, in which case, Christianity did leave open the possibility of another prophet to come.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of them is when people think they're being PC and saying it doesn't matter if you pray to God or Allah or whoever you believe in. Allah = Arabic for God. I truly believe lots of celebrities who say this WANT to set Islam apart in a negative way -- in a -- oh we respect Muslims, they just pray to some other foreign God. Um no -- they pray to the same God as Christians and Jews.

I respectfully disagree with this. As a Christian I do not believe that Muslims pray to the same God as I do. Nor do Jewish people. I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but my God is a trinity which must include Jesus. If you do not believe in Jesus as God, then we do not believe in the same god. We don't need to believe in the same god to be respectful to one another.

As a Muslim I completely understand WHY you don't think we pray to the same God as you. However, from our perspective the true message delivered by Jesus did not teach trinity (see Gospel of Thomas thread). Thus, the message Jesus brought is the same message as Moses brought and it is the same message that Muhammad brought. This is from the Muslim perspective. It emphasizes the oneness of God. So from the Muslim perspective, we do pray to the same God that Moses and Jesus spoke of, although we do not pray to Jesus as God. Muslims know by now that many, not all, Christians believe Jesus is God himself but we do not accept this.

But clearly, Muslim perspective isn't the only one that counts here, is it. If you say "we pray to the same God as Christians", and Christians disagree, you have a de facto impasse. Christians also disagree massively with Muslims on what exactly Jesus' message was. Jews certainly don't look to Muslims to interpret what exactly was the message that Moses brought. That Muslims would like to draw these figures under the umbrella of Islam doesn't mean much to Jews and Christians.

I think its not entirely correct for Muslims to say we believe in what Christians believe, because assigning partners to God or saying God is actually a man is a huge sin in islam. It is more correct to say muslims believe in Jesus' message. Now we know Christians interpret Jesus' message differently and of course thats their prerogative but it is a true factual statement for a muslim to say he embraces Jesus'teachings.

Christians believe (not "interpret" as you put it) Jesus' message is very different from the Quranic Jesus' message. So when you're talking to a Christian audience or to an audience that's familiar with Christianity, saying you believe in Jesus' message is going to mean something very different to them than it does to you. This is the same problem as claiming women are "equal" in Islam. In both cases you're presuming your listeners have knowledge about Islam that they probably don't have. Or, more likely, given that 98% percent of Anericans are probably not familiar with the Quranic Jesus, you KNOW your listeners are hearing something that isn't quite the full truth.

Fine. Believe. Not interpret. I will make sure to say "Christians believe" from now on. I did not mean to be disrespectful. But this is similar to a situation where you say Islam advocates an eye for an eye philosophy whereas Christianity does not. This is not entirely accurate. I don't want to explain it in detail in this thread but you are free to start another thread for this topic and I will be more than happy to discuss there. My point is simply that if you are a nonMuslim who also hasn't studied Islam extensively, it isn't fair to Muslims for you to interpret our holy book and the principles of our faith. 98% of Americans are probably not familiar with real Islam so when you say that, your readers here are hearing something that isn't quite the full truth.

I can see why Christians might think not clarifying the differences between Quranic Jesus and the Bible's Jesus is misleading, but you must believe me when I say it is not intentional. When Muslims say they believe in Jesus it is simply because Jesus truly holds a very important place in Islam. To delineate all the differences and commonalities between the Quranic Jesus and the Biblical Jesus will take many pages of explaining, which Muslims can certainly try to do, but, unless asked, I'm not sure why they would. It's time consuming and presumptuous to think anyone is interested in knowing that much about the Quranic Jesus. If they are, I would assume they would inquire further. So all they will say is that Jesus is a critical figure in Islam but he is not God as he is in the Christian faith.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of them is when people think they're being PC and saying it doesn't matter if you pray to God or Allah or whoever you believe in. Allah = Arabic for God. I truly believe lots of celebrities who say this WANT to set Islam apart in a negative way -- in a -- oh we respect Muslims, they just pray to some other foreign God. Um no -- they pray to the same God as Christians and Jews.

I respectfully disagree with this. As a Christian I do not believe that Muslims pray to the same God as I do. Nor do Jewish people. I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but my God is a trinity which must include Jesus. If you do not believe in Jesus as God, then we do not believe in the same god. We don't need to believe in the same god to be respectful to one another.

As a Muslim I completely understand WHY you don't think we pray to the same God as you. However, from our perspective the true message delivered by Jesus did not teach trinity (see Gospel of Thomas thread). Thus, the message Jesus brought is the same message as Moses brought and it is the same message that Muhammad brought. This is from the Muslim perspective. It emphasizes the oneness of God. So from the Muslim perspective, we do pray to the same God that Moses and Jesus spoke of, although we do not pray to Jesus as God. Muslims know by now that many, not all, Christians believe Jesus is God himself but we do not accept this.

But clearly, Muslim perspective isn't the only one that counts here, is it. If you say "we pray to the same God as Christians", and Christians disagree, you have a de facto impasse. Christians also disagree massively with Muslims on what exactly Jesus' message was. Jews certainly don't look to Muslims to interpret what exactly was the message that Moses brought. That Muslims would like to draw these figures under the umbrella of Islam doesn't mean much to Jews and Christians.

I think its not entirely correct for Muslims to say we believe in what Christians believe, because assigning partners to God or saying God is actually a man is a huge sin in islam. It is more correct to say muslims believe in Jesus' message. Now we know Christians interpret Jesus' message differently and of course thats their prerogative but it is a true factual statement for a muslim to say he embraces Jesus'teachings.

Christians do not assign partners to God. If we did, we would believes in gods, not God. The trinity holds that there are three persons in one God. One of these persons is God the Son who has two natures, God and man. We do not believe that God is a man.

I think of those three persons as assigning partners to God, though. I'm not clear on whether they are persons or natures or both, though, because you say God the Son is one of these persons but he has two natures, God and man. So who are the other two persons? I was also under the impression that Christians believe Jesus is God. If Jesus is God, then that must mean God is a man because Jesus is a man. Forgive my ignorance. I have not studied Christianity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So I located a passage from the earliest English translation of Quran from 1734. It apparently was translated from a Latin version of the Quran. It uses the word God instead of Allah; presumably the Latin used "Deus" and not Allah. So our Christian forefathers had no problem seeing the God Muslims worshiped as the monotheistic God they worshiped or that the Jews worshiped.

The God of the Old Testament is very different from the God of the New Testament, and yet I can't imagine any Jew I know who wouldn't take offense at being asked at which temple he worshiped Yahweh.

The core here is belief in one creator God and no other gods beside him.

Pickthall uses Allah and I couldn't find any reasons why, except perhaps that it was commissioned by the ruler of Hyderabad and was written there. Perhaps it was common in India for Muslims to refer to Allah owing to the polytheistic culture. (Of course there are Indian Christians who must have a native tongue word for God, but I am totally out of my depth on this subcontinent.)

I challenge you to find a non-Arab Muslim society that uses any other word for God - other than Allah.

As a child I was taught in islamic sunday school to use "Allah" instead of "God" to distinguish our God from the God of other faiths. In Islam, the concept that God is one, has no trinitarian natures or persons within him, is crucial. The risk of saying "God" is that others may consider Islam's God to be the trinitarian God of Christianity.