How Did Islam and The Christian Faith Come To Be ?
Many are those wondering how Islam and the Christian faith came to be. In this issue, we are going to be giving you reliable and authentic information. Information you may have never heard concerning the two beliefs. We are going to give them to you, so as to be able to make a choice based on the knowledge of the truth. We only die once. And if you do not search for the truth yourself, you risk saying after your death: “But that’s not what we were told”. Check things out yourself while there is still time, otherwise you won’t have an excuse and it will already be too late.
A ==> ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM AT THE TIME OF JESUS
To better understand the origins of Islam and the Christian faith, it is first necessary to look at the spiritual environment of the two nations, from which these two beliefs arose. What then was the spiritual environment of ‘Israel at the birth of Jesus? The Christian era began with the ministry of Jesus. The Jews at that time were not defiled by the worship of idols. But they worshiped the one true God who created heaven and the earth. The God of their ancestors, that is, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were educated in the law of Moses and in the writings of the prophets of God. This is obvious to everyone because when you take the Bible in Romans chapter 3v1-2, it is written that the advantage of the Jews is that the oracles of God have been entrusted to them. And that is the reason why they were able to recognize a messenger of God from an impostor. Until Jesus’ time, there was still the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the Jews used to go there to worship in honor of the Lord. But it was a worship celebrated under the covenant that God had made with their ancestors through the intermediary of Moses. This was the spiritual environment of Israel and its main city (that is, Jerusalem) at the birth of Jesus.
B ==> ARABIA AND MECCA BEFORE ISLAM
It is exactly the opposite for Arabia and its main city which is Mecca. When you take the Seerat Rassul-Allah (i.e. the biography of the prophet) of ibn ishaq which was taken up by ibn Hicham, you will discover that until his birth, Muhammad’s people lived in paganism, that is, they worshiped several gods. And it was in this paganism that Muhammad himself was born. On page 33 of the biography of the prophet of ibn Hicham, the last paragraph reads: “Thus, three religions coexisted in Arabia at the advent of Islam: Judaism, Christianity, and paganism. Monotheistic religions were established in rich sites or oases like Najran, yathrib (future Medina), Khaybar etc. Paganism was rather widespread in Ta’if, in Mecca, living in the shadow of its sanctuary which hosted an annual pilgrimage, and among the nomads who constantly roamed the Arabian desert. This was what we read in the biography of Muhammad. So, both cities had sanctuaries.
For Jerusalem it was the temple of God, and for Mecca it was the Ka’ba. The difference was that at that time the Ka’ba was a sanctuary for idols and not a temple for the Most High God. For example, in Sahih Bukhari, volume 2, hadith n°2478, it is written “Abdallah ibn mass’ûd said: The prophet entered Mecca when the Ka’aba was surrounded by 360 idols”. So, there were 360 idols inside the Ka’aba. And Muhammad’s people worshiped all these idols. What is interesting is that each Arabian community called the god they worshiped by the name of “Allah”.
