Questions on Sects and Schools of Thoughts

Chapter 4: Questions on Sects and Schools of Thoughts

Question 30: Some Christian missionaries claim that Islam is not a revealed religion. It is a distorted derivative version of Judaism and Christianity.  Please comment.

Answer 30: What these missionaries are claiming is simply a misleading conjecture.  While the prophet was preaching the new faith, the Jews and the Christians were, at the same time, practising their own religions.  The new faith clearly contradicted Judaism and Christianity in very fundamental issues.  Islam contradicted such beliefs held by Christians and Jews such as: ascribing human qualities to God (Jews witness that Uzair is the son of God).  Their claim that Jesus was an illegitimate child and that they killed him.  They also ascribed major sins to the prophets.  They also claimed themselves to be the chosen people of God, His children and His beloved.  The Christians claimed that Jesus is the son of God; that God is one person in a trinity and their belief in Jesus’s crucifixion and death.  They also believe in the original sin an the Jesus’s atonement from the sins of mankind.  The prophet’ teachings strongly refuted such beliefs.  And in their stead he taught radical monotheism, God’s transcendence, and that He neither had a spouse, nor an offspring. 

Islam also taught that all prophets were free from committing major sins.  Also, the blessed Virgin Mary was not an adulteress, and her son, Jesus, was God’s servant and messenger.  He was neither crucified nor killed.  The doctrine of trinity is false.  The atonement for sins is also false.  Jews are not a chosen people, rather all humans are God’s creation and equal in His sight except for those who manifest faith and God-consciousness. 

Islam also brought many new rules which contradict with those of Judaism and Christianity.  How then can one hold that Islam is a distorted copy of Judaism and/or Christianity?