The worst thing that Islam could possibly have done was to admit that Christianity had a genuine core and then claim that the "original" message had been corrupted. But that's exactly what it did. The problem of recovering the "original" message is utterly insuperable. And it is a fatal problem for Islam.
It raises an interesting question: How do you start a new religion? Specifically, how do you define your new religion in relation to already existing religions? You could say that all previous religions were false. Or you could accept that one religious tradition had got it right. If you do that, then you need to show that your new religion is a natural outgrowth of the other tradition. That is what Christianity did. Christianity is a natural outgrowth of Judaism, not least because the first Christians were all Jews.
Islam, on the other hand, is utterly unable to show that it is a natural outgrowth of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. So the only option for Islam was to reject the Judaeo-Christian tradition as completely false. But it didn't do that. Instead, it ended up falling between two stools.
The worst thing that Islam could possibly have done was to admit that Christianity had a genuine core and then claim that the "original" message had been corrupted. But that's exactly what it did. The problem of recovering the "original" message is utterly insuperable. And it is a fatal problem for Islam.
ReplyDeleteIt raises an interesting question: How do you start a new religion? Specifically, how do you define your new religion in relation to already existing religions? You could say that all previous religions were false. Or you could accept that one religious tradition had got it right. If you do that, then you need to show that your new religion is a natural outgrowth of the other tradition. That is what Christianity did. Christianity is a natural outgrowth of Judaism, not least because the first Christians were all Jews.
Islam, on the other hand, is utterly unable to show that it is a natural outgrowth of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. So the only option for Islam was to reject the Judaeo-Christian tradition as completely false. But it didn't do that. Instead, it ended up falling between two stools.