Few basic differences between Islam and Christianity

 

Few points of contrast between the teachings of Christianity and Islam

	Christianity	Islam
1	The conception of the Triune God.	Pure Monotheism
2	Jesus was ‘the only begotten son of God’.	Jesus was nothing else than human; he was a divinely inspired Teacher and a great and holy Prophet.
3	Eve was the first to be deceived in the garden of Eden, and she in her turn was responsible for tempting Adam to eat the forbidden fruit. Thus the curse of God rests on woman, and she is ‘the organ of the Devil’, ‘the foundations of the arms of the Devil, whose voice is the hissing of the serpent’, ‘the gate of the Devil’, ‘the road of iniquity’. ‘the sting of the scorpion‘, ‘a daughter of falsehood, a sentinel of hell, the enemy of peace and of the wild beasts the most dangerous‘, etc., etc., according to St. Bernard, St. Anthony, St. Bonaventure, St. Cyprian, St. Jerome, St. John Damascene and others.	Adam and Eve both were simultaneously deceived. Woman, therefore enjoys equal status with man.
4	The sin of Adam and Eve was not forgiven. Hence every child is born in sin.	The sin of Adam and Eve was forgiven. Every child is born sinless. Sin is an acquisition and not a heritage.
5	The mission of Jesus was to redeem the sins of humanity through his blood.	The mission of Jesus was to teach the way of leading upright life. The doctrine of Atonement is untenable.
6	Man can attain salvation by belief only–by the belief that Jesus was the only begotten son of God and that he gave his blood for washing the sins of mankind in a mysterious way.	The one essential condition for the attainment of salvation is that we combine righteous action with right belief. Mere passive belief is meaningless. The Islamic system, which comprehends all problems of mankind- spiritual, moral, social and political, must be followed· in its entirety.
7	We cannot approach God without the mediation of a priest.	Every man and woman -is his or her own priest or priestess and can approach God without the mediation of anyone.
8	Ascetic life is a saintly life-the lives of Jesus and the saints being models in this respect and the state of celibacy is preferable to the married state for the attainment of spiritual eminence.	Asceticism is unnatural. Natural way of attaining eminence in the Kingdom of God isto endeavor persistently for leading an upright life in the midst of temptations which challenge man in social environment
9	Conception of Dual- ism—“Give unto God what is God’s and unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.”	Islam does not recognize any form of Dual ism. Every action, whether ‘religious’ or ‘secular’, is a truly religious action when performed in the light of God’s commands. Thus the whole life of a true Muslim from the mosque to the market and from the school to the battlefield is a religious life.
10	The Bible contains “irrational beliefs, crude science and indecent tales” (Canon Barnes). As examples of obscenity, I may refer here only to the stories of Lot and David-two personages to whom the Bible attributes saintliness and immorality at the same time.	The Quran is essentially rational, scientific and modern in its spirit. With a view to give instances of practical ethics, it has narrated several stories which occur in the Bible but it cleanly leaves out all irrational, obscene and contradictory accounts of those stories.

 

[Source: Book- Islam and Christianity in the modern world, pg. 20-23]