Comparing Christian And Muslim Views On The Creation Of God

For Muslims and Christians, creation is entirely the work of God. Not only is everything created by God, it is also submissive to the Creator, and wholly dependent on God. The created world is “destined to exist for merely for a short duration, after which all will perish - all except God” (Iqbal, 196). So, creation should not be worshiped alongside God, as He is the “only eternal, self-existent being” (Lucas, 138). Both Muslims and Christians also believe that God created man out of organic matter; in the Quran (38: 71-76), man is made out of clay. In Genesis 1:7, God created man out of dust. Everything God created was created ex nihilo, out of nothing, and that “God spoke or commanded the universe into existence with everything in it- both material and spiritual” (Olson, 160). Many passages in the Quran refer to this

Christians are given a detailed creation narrative in Genesis that is referenced throughout the entire Bible. Muslims are only given short statements interspersed throughout the Quran to refer to creation, with no narrative truly present. Genesis provides both the creation of the world and its inhabitants and the goodness of creation. God repeatedly calls what He has made good and blesses His creation on the seventh day. Genesis also tells of the creation of living beings as being different; some were created to live in the waters, others on land, still others in the sky. Although it may have not been an instantaneous existence, Christians are only told that the forms were created and then filled with creatures suited to those forms, not when or how this was done. Muslims are told in the Quran (21:30) that every living thing was created out of the water. There are also stories of humans being changed into lesser beings in the Quran, promoting a more positive response to theories of evolution in the Muslim community than in the Christian