THINGS WE HAVE IN COMMON A reading of today's headlines in the world press would suggest that Jews, Muslims and Christians are far apart on many issues. In a political sense, that may be the case. Froma strictly religious point of view, however, there is much more that the three faiths have in common than is usually acknowledged.

Team Middle East from the film "The Quest for Peace" witness the sunset on the summit of Mount Sinai

AGREEMENTS

One God
The first concept that all three faiths share is the fact that there is only one Divine Being who is responsible for all of creation. What's more, all three religions believe that God is a force of good; that he is passionately committed to the well-being of mankind and wants to inform human beings about the kind of ethical life that He expects them to lead.

Back To Top

Divine Revelation
All three faiths believe that because God wants to inform us, He has revealed His will and instructions to mankind on many occasions. These instructions are necessary, because God endowed men and women with free will, and both are easily tempted to stray from the right path.

Judaism believes that God spoke through the patriarchs and the prophets, from Abraham to Jeremiah. Christianity has accepted the Jewish tradition of prophecy but believes that the ultimate revelation of God's will and plan came with Jesus Christ. Islam accepts virtually all of the foregoing prophets and messengers, but holds that its messenger -- the prophet Muhammad -- received God's revelation in its purest and most articulated form.

There are subtle differences, however. Revelation for Jews and Muslims pertains to God's word as legislation in everyday life. Christian revelation, on the other hand, is focused on the remission of sin and on fostering an intimate relationship with God.

Back To Top

Prayer
All three religions also hold that men and women can, conversely, communicate with God through the agency of prayer. In fact, every believer --whether Jew, Christian or Muslim -- prays to God knowing that God will hear him and assist him in the journey through life.

Prayer is structured differently in each of the three faiths. Islam prescribes a fixed cycle of five daily prayers. Judaism and Christianity both held to a cycle of three prayers per day, but this practice has fallen into disuse. For Jews and Christians, prayer is an intensely personal communion with God that can occur at any time.

Nevertheless, the belief in the power of individual meditation and prayer is one of the great principles in which each of the three faiths finds common ground.

Back To Top

Mercy
The third element that the three scriptures have in common is that God's pre-eminent attributes are merciful and just. The word for mercy, Rachman, is the same in Hebrew as in Arabic. " One of the important attributes of God is that He is the All-merciful and the Mercy-giving," says Dr. Mohamed Fathi Osman of the Omar Ibn Al Khattab Foundation; "there are, in fact, about ninety attributes of God. Because God is abstract, Islam tries to make it easier to conceptualize Him. But The Merciful is by far His most important attribute; you will find it in virtually every exhortation, at the beginning of every prayer: 'In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate'."

The Jewish interpretation has a slightly different nuance. "In the Jewish tradition, God sits on two thrones: there is a throne of mercy and a throne of judgement," says Rabbi Reuben Firestone, a Professor of both Jewish and Islamic studies at USC. "And the reason is that if God were absolutely and totally merciful, regardless of what we do, there would be no accountability. So we pray for God's mercy at the same time we accept that god is the righteous judge."

In Christianity, mercy is a central tenet of Jesus' teaching. Believers should reciprocate God's mercy by acts of compassion of their own, particularly towards the poor. Social justice towards the poor is paramount in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as conveyed in the Gospel of Matthew.

Back To Top

Children of Abraham
Jews, Christians and Arabs all trace the origin of their faith development to Abraham -- the first human being which whom God made a covenant of divine protection in return for faithful worship and obedience to His will. Jews consider Abraham, his son Isaac and grandson Jacob the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel that would ultimately populate the Promised Land in Canaan. Christians accept this progeny as well, and consider the New Testament the fulfillment of the original Abrahamaic covenant.

Muslims trace their origins from Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, the maid of Abraham. Islamic tradition holds that Abraham took his son Ishmael to Arabia, where they built a shrine to God in Makkah. This shrine, the Ka'bah, still stands today.

Back To Top

End Times
All three faiths are essentially positive in outlook. All believe that under God's guidance, mankind will ultimately reach some form of End Times where all human beings will be judged and the righteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God. For Jews, the most articulate source of eschatological prophecy is the Book of Daniel; for Christians it is the Book of Revelations, and for Muslims there are several sources, most notably the Hadith

In fact, Islamic tradition holds that it is Jesus (and not Muhammad) who will herald the day of the Last Judgement.

Back To Top

Graven Images
Both Judaism and Islam uphold a ban on "graven images" in their faith. This means that no artist should undertake to reproduce a living being, for the act of Creation belongs to God alone. Islam is particularly vociferous in its condemnation of idolatry.

Naturally, Christians do not share this ban, although the Byzantine Church experienced a period of iconoclasm in the 8th and 9th centuries CE. What's more, Protestantism generally eschews the depiction of biblical figures in houses of worship (although Protestants place few restrictions on artist renderings outside the church building proper).

Back To Top

Purity and Diet
Judaism and Islam also share many tenets of purity and diet. The Qur'an is very concerned with the purity of food, particularly involving slaughtered animals. It states specifically that kosher Jewish meat is acceptable to Muslims. For both Muslims and Jews, pork is abominable.

Like orthodox Jews, Muslims engage in ritual ablution, and distinguish between ritually 'clean' and 'unclean' substances, which must be washed away prior to worship. Traditional Islam also adhered to the practice of circumcision as a key element of male purity.

Concepts of purity and physical cleanliness are far less important to Christianity. Jesus made a clear distinction between outward, physical cleanliness and true purity of a person's heart -- one of the reasons his teaching upset the Pharisees for home the laws of purity were essential to their faith.

Back To Top

Jesus and Mary
Lastly, Muslims hold Mary and Jesus in great esteem. The name of Mary, in fact, occurs more often in the Qur'an than in all the books of the New Testament combined. Jesus is invariably referred to as 'Jesus, son of Mary.'

The Qur'an affirms the 'immaculate' or virgin conception of Jesus as described in the Gospel of Luke. In fact, the Qur'an draws a parallel between Jesus and Adam, who likewise was born without the intervention of mortal seed. However, the purpose of the virgin birth account in the Qur'an is to demonstrate that Jesus was pure, created by the will of God -- not that he was himself a divine being.

The account of Jesus' death and resurrection is ambiguous in the Qur'an. For Muslims, it is inconceivable that a holy man like Jesus would be permitted by God to die such a shameful death as crucifixion. Therefore, it is written that "They neither killed nor crucified him; it only appeared to be that way to them" (Q 4.157). Instead, the Qur'an maintains, "God took him up to Himself" (Q 4.158). Other references suggest that a Doppelgänger was substituted and that another man was crucified in Jesus' stead.

Back To Top