Despite all the similarities between Islam and Christianity, Muslims seem to operate on a different wavelength. Beneath the surface, we are poles apart. The explanation, I believe, lies in the Muslim worldview. The key to the Muslim worldview is the word "Islam" itself. It is an Arabic word, a kind of verbal noun which Muslims love to tell you means "submission" (similarly, "Muslim" means "one who submits"). Its importance lies in the fact that it defines how Muslims understand the relationship that God intends should exist between Himself and man. The verb form is typically used for a person laying down his arms in defeat; he "makes peace" or "submits." This same idea comes out in the principal synonyms for God and man used in the Quran: Rabb ("Lord") and 'abd ("slave"). Five times a day Muslims must address God in prayer as "Lord of the worlds," in the words of the first Sura of the Qur'an, and prostrate themselves to the earth as His "slaves." Christians will note that the Bible also has something important to say about "submission" to God (cf. James 4:7); indeed, it is at the heart of Jesus' teaching on discipleship and the Kingdom of God. And yet we must also say that the …show more content…
God is "Wholly Other" and inherently unknowable; He does not "reveal Himself" to human beings. In other words, our present condition is normal. People are essentially "good" and "pure," albeit "weak" and "forgetful" (in the garden Adam simply "forgot" God's command). Human beings do sin, but they have the moral power not to sin, and to do the Good. All they need is "guidance." And God has provided that advice in the Qur'an and the Muslim Traditions, held to be the very "Law of God." The objective in all this was the creation of a new social order, one based on Divine Law. To Muslims, this new order came into existence in 722 A.D., when Muhammad founded the first Muslim