We have all noticed similarities between the Christian and Muslim religions. They share common Judaic origins. Both feature male clerics with special titles wearing special clothes and special hats, relaying versions of what God wants, in special halls built with special towers, designed for calling the faithful. They both feature prayers and ceremonials, monopolies on rights of passage, and morality based on ancient books which they imagine to have been written by God.
Secularists can point to many other similarities, but even they are often unaware of historic similarities, believing the two religions to be more different than they are.
When Christians look at the Moslem world
today, they are often horrified by Islamic practices, which they see as primitive and
backward. They are invariably judging the religion by modern western secular
standards. If they knew a little more about the history of their own faith, they would know that Islam is not so very different
from traditional Christianity. The worst aspects of Islam were all familiar and integral aspects of Christianity too. Here are a few examples.
Rape in order to Force Marriage
In many Islamic countries it is common
practice for men to rape single women in order to force them to marry their
rapist. Failure to consent to marry will mean that the raped woman is at best
unmarriageable and at worst liable to execution. Having had sex, however
unwillingly, she is guilty of fornication. Such unfair and unreasonable practices
are not peculiar to Islam. They are based on the Jewish scriptures and were
shared for most of its history by the Christian Church. (In Church Law marriage following rape was identified explicitly as one of three types of valid marriage). The practice is rare now in western countries, but was reported in Catholic areas well
within living memory, for example in Italy.
Child Marriage
Brides and their Grooms |
The prophet Mohammed married Aisha bint Abu
Bakr when he was 51 and she was 7 years old. They engaged in sexual activity,
but not full sexual intercourse until she was 9 years old. For many Muslims
this establishes beyond all doubt that child marriage is warranted by God. The
idea horrifies many modern Christians, but not those familiar with the
traditions of their own faith. Traditional Catholic teaching was that girls
could marry at the age of 12 and boys at the age of 14 - or at puberty if earlier than 12 or 14. They could contract
marriages at the age of seven, unless they were from royal or great noble
houses in with case they could contract marriage at any age. We know from
Church records that in practice, even in Protestant England, children and even
babes-in-arms were routinely married in church.
The legal age for marriage remained
at seven in the state of Delaware until the early twentieth century. In many other US states and European countries it was still 12. As in
almost all western jurisdictions the age of consent was repeatedly raised during the
twentieth century – only the Vatican State lagging behind. For Girls, it was eventually
raised to 14 by Law No. VIII of 11 July 2013.
Veils, Head Coverings and Harems
Muslima or Nun/ |
The practice of women wearing veils,
covering their hair and living together in total or partial seclusion in a
well-defined section of the house is still common in many Muslim countries. In
the west the restricted areas are often called harems, but they go by many local
names. In Pakistan they are is popularly known as murgh khanas (literally
“hen houses”). The memory of all these practices has faded in the West, though
they were all widespread within Christendom, especially in the Eastern Church.
The Greeks even had their own name for a harem – they called it a gynæceum. We
have a few other small reminders of traditional Christian ideas of female
modesty. A nun’s habit is almost identical to traditional forms of women’s
clothing in some Muslim countries, and high status women still wear their
traditional veils on special occasions, such as funerals and on meeting senior
clerics. It made front page news in April 2014 when Queen Elizabeth II broke
with tradition by not wearing a long black dress and a veil when she met Pope
Francis. Ironically, the Muslim world might well have picked up all of these
practices concerning female modesty, along with purdah, from Byzantine Christians.
Iconoclasm
Catholic icons defaced by Protestants |
Like the Jews both Christians and Muslims strictly prohibited the making of images of anything in heaven or on earth. Christianity gradually shifted ground on this: allowing successively images of inanimate objects, plants, animals, humans, prophets, supernatural beings, God;s limbs and finally God's face. All Muslims have taken the same path, but some are further along than others. (Images of Mohammed for example are common in Iran). Incidentally, The Christian journey was as rocky as the Muslim one, with separate iconoclastic controversies in the Eastern and Western Churches.
Mutilation
Mutilating criminals is widely considered
in the west to be barbaric, but this view is characteristically secular and
relatively recent. Christian Churches not only tolerated mutilation, but
practised it. Cannon law set penalties for various crimes against the Church: amputations
for stealing church property or striking a cleric, ripping out tongues for
blasphemy, branding on the face for a range of crimes. Like modern Muslims they
pointed out that mutilation was mandated by God – for Muslims in the Qur’an,
for Christians in the Bible.
Execution for adultery
Modern Christians are fond of pointing out
that Jesus took no action against a woman taken in adultery, and this is often
contrasted with the Muslim practice of stoning women to death for adultery, a
practice based on God’s eternal laws as specified in the Old Testament. Before the secular age, Christians too
followed the Old Testament and imposed the death sentence for adultery. Indeed,
the laws sometimes cited the Christian scriptures, chapter and verse, in their
statutes, emphasizing their Christian nature.
Praying with Arms Out, Palms Open
Orthodox icons show the original Christian way of praying |
Muslims pray 5 times a day, facing a special direction with their arms held out in a characteristic pose. These features are often thought typically Muslim, but they are all equally Christian. The practice of praying 5 or 7 times a day at set times was once standard practice for all Christians - it was once a strict requirement - and the practice is still observed in religious institutions. The idea of facing a set direction was also common. European Christians faced East to the rising sun, or to Jerusalem, to pray. Muslims originally faced Jerusalem too when they prayed, but changed the direction to Mecca when they lost control over Jerusalem.
Christians praying with their hands together is an innovation. It derives from the feudal practice of swearing homage. Modern Christians pray as though they were swearing homage to God. Actually, not all of them do. Some evangelical Christians have recently switched to the traditional pose, identical to the one used by Muslims.
Slavery
Muslims have practised slavery for
over fourteen centuries since the time of Mohammed. Christians practised slavery for a rather longer time, starting from the time of Jesus. God’s approval of the
practice of slavery is very clear – it is mentioned many times in the Old
Testament. Archaeologists have found examples of Christian slave collars from early times. It is still possible to read the owners' names - names such as Felix the Archdeacon. In medieval times monasteries owned slaves and unlike other slave-owners refused ever to emancipate their slaves - arguing that they belonged to God, so he could emancipate them himself if he wanted to. Up until the rise of secular thought during the Enlightenment, no
Christian seems to have criticized the practice, and when the first Christians
followed free-thinkers, like Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, they were roundly
denounced by the Churches as atheists intent on attacking the word of God. Modern Christians, almost all follow secular opinion, and imagine it to represent historical Christianity. For them it is
sobering to think that Christians practised slavery for centuries longer than
Muslims have practised it.
Forced conversions
Christians often attribute the success of
Islam to forced conversions. Islam conquered many lands by the sword and then
prohibited the practice of any religion other than the “religions of the book”.
There is a great deal of truth in this, but a critical fact is that
Christianity was spread in exactly the same way. Both religions won territory
by force of arms, made deals with existing rulers, and enforced conformity to
the new religion. Holy pagan artefacts were destroyed and holy pagan temples appropriated
as Mosques or Churches. People had were presented with a straight choice
between conversion and death. Lucky ones were given a third option, exile. We
know from Christian records that Christian forces were prepared to kill tens of
thousands of people a day if they refused to convert – the Saxons are just one
example well known to historians. Again the Moslem practice was modelled on
existing Christian practices.
Execution for apostasy
It seems absurd and barbaric to try and
execute people for exercising what is now seen as a basic human right, the
right to reject religious beliefs. It is well known that some Muslim countries
enforce belief in Islam, and execute any citizen who dissents – Saudi Arabia is
a notable example. What is less well known is that Christians did the same
thing, when they had the power to do so. When the Church was able to enforce
cannon law it was a capital crime to abandon the Christian faith. From
historical records we know that Christians executed not only atheists, but
Pantheists and Deists, and even Christians who opted for a sect other than the
one currently in favour. We even have records of cases of a trainee monk in England being
executed for adopting Judaism. So death for apostates is not a particularly
Islamic idea. When they could, Christians did exactly the same thing.
Fatwas
Pius V |
A fatwah is an Islamic religious judgement,
but in the popular Christian mind it is a sentence of death, passed by a
religious leader without any sort of trial. The very idea is contrary to the
secular concept of Justice and the rule of law. For Catholics at least, the
idea of such a fatwah should not be so alien. For many centuries Popes,
speaking on behalf of God, routinely called for the deaths of people they
regarded as their enemies. Perhaps the best known example is Pope St Pius V calling for the death of Queen Elizabeth I of England. His idea was to free her subjects “from the sordid libidinous slavery to women” (ex turpissima muliebris libidinis servitute). In Regnans in Excelsis, he purported to liberate her subjects from their allegiance to her, and called on them to “send her out of this world”.
Holy War
Jihad is another Arabic term that has a range
of meanings, one of which has become well known in the west. For many Jihad
means holy war, a war sanctioned by God. The idea of a holy war is familiar to
Christians. The Church has a long history of preaching holy war. The best known
examples were the Crusades to the Holy Land, but there were many other
examples. As is many other cases, the Muslim practice seems to have been based
on the Christian one. The very concept of a Holy War became popular in Islam as
a direct reaction the Christian “Holy Wars” to recover Jerusalem for
Christendom. As Saint Bernard said “It is not homicide to kill a Muslim, but
malicide” – killing an evil, not a man.
God’s representative on earth
The idea that a man might be God’s personal
representative on earth now seems implausible, but both Muslims and Christians
believed that a succession of men fulfilled this role. Muslims considered the
Caliph to be “God’s Shadow on Earth”. This is comparable to the claim made by the bishops of Rome. Since the thirteenth century they have claimed to be
“God’s Vicar on Earth”. In both cases religious leaders were claiming to be
God’s deputy on earth.
Ummah
One aspect of Islam that scares many
Christians is the intention to convert the whole world. Everyone must adopt the Islamic religion. This global community is known as the Ummah (another
Arabic word with a range of related meanings). The idea is not peculiar to
Islam. Medieval Christians believed that the end of the world could not arrive
until the whole world had accepted God's one true religion and become Christian – a phenomenon that the Franciscans
imagined to be imminent. Christians belonging to some evangelical sects still
believe that it is their duty to convert the whole world in order to allow the End Times to begin.
Practising Deception
God was known to have been opposed to
lying. He said so in one of his ten Commandments. On the other hand it did not
suit His followers to tell the truth in all circumstances. The answer to this
problem was to invent rules that permitted lying, but calling the practice
something else. For Shi’a Muslims it is Taqiyya. For Catholics it is called “equivocation”
or “mental reservation”. Broadly the Catholic method works like this: You find
a form of words that you know will be interpreted in one way, although in your
own mind it has a totally different meaning. To give a (genuine) example, a
Catholic bishop might say that he is not aware of hush money being paid to cover up child abuse, even though
he aware of such payments. He justifies it to himself by saying that he meant he was not aware of such a payment having been made today. Similarly,
a Muslim cleric might say that he does not know of any terrorist activities. He
justifies it by saying that he does not regard bomb making as a terrorist
activity. In both cases, secular opinion is that the person has lied, but for
the religious mind, God has allowed them a way out of telling the truth without lying.
So there it is. Many aspects of modern
Islam and traditional Christianity are remarkably similar. And this is no coincidence – Islam was long regarded as an heretical branch of Christianity.
The two religions have common origins. They have borrowed liberally from each other. They have fought each
other for adherents. They have developed the same dangerous and immoral ideas. We could have added a host of other similarities: interference in politics, indoctrination, censorship, institutional corruption, concealing serious crimes, religious restrictions on many normal activities, etc. In fact, apart from polygamy, it is not at all easy the find areas where Christianity and Islam have consistently held different views.
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