The distinctive factor that sets Islam apart from the other monotheistic religions, is the way it was conceived.
On the one hand, Islam unraveled as the legacy and syncretism of the vast array of religions and customs that were in its midst, yet on the other, it made headway in an exclusive manner, according to its own new modus operandi.
Based on this, the case of Islam must be interpreted as emergence out of a particular set of contexts, rather than the rise of a new religion completely disassociated with the environment.
Hence, it is more appropriate to see Islam as the outcome of an interactive dialogue with preexisting beliefs, so as not to incur in a misleading and ill-informed analysis of it.[ Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of
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Nevertheless, this essay sets out to outline in a fairly balanced way, the points of consonance and the points of tension of Islam among the pre-Islamic rich cultural and religious variety.
For the sake of coherence and clarity, I shall delineate and expound on the elements of continuity and change of Islam with antecedent practices in two distinct moments and in their entirety, instead of switching between the two throughout.
The Qurʾan itself in specific suras, implies that Islam stands in continuity with previous beliefs; the notion of fitrah is an example.
Fitrah can be defined as the insight given unto man at the time of creation, the special intuition instilled in them to recognize the existence of God.[ Qurʾan, sura Al’Araf 172]
In addition to that, the linkage with antecedent beliefs, specifically with the Judaeo-Christian prophets can be found in sura Al’Ahzab 33:40. There is an acknowledgment of the preexisting messengers, of which Mohammad is the seal and perfect conclusion: khatam al nabiyyin.
A parallelism of the messenger of God being a fulfillment of previous condition can be seen in the Book of Matthew, which describes Jesus as the repletion of scriptures.[ Matthew
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However, they did not fall into a particular denomination.
This was therefore an archetypal approach to Islam in which the seminal figure of Abraham contributes in the common heritage of the belief in a single God.
Some scholars do suggest that the Sabiʾans, ‘a local group of tolerated monotheists’[ G.P. Makris, ‘The Islamic Community through history’ in Islam in the Middle East: A Living Tradition (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), p.19] also be included under this broad generic category of preexisting monotheists, by virtue of the scriptural passage in AlʾBaqarah.[ Qurʾan AlʾBaqarah 2:62]
Given this point, the standpoint of having exclusively one God, to some extent stood in cohesion with the time, therefore the message of the Prophet could be effortlessly understood by his listeners.
In fact, these vague creeds foreshadowed Islam and were an indication that the Hijaz region in the Arabian peninsula was already undergoing a religious ferment[ Jonathan P. Berkey, ‘Arabia before Islam’ in The formation of Islam:Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 48-49] and that momentum was reclaimed by