A few new issues were brought up in the course of these discussions that are worth addressing here in public.
Firstly, a point was in the humanity of Muhammad: he glorified himself with riches, spoils of war, hundreds of wives (some of them very young, 13 years old or less). A few Muslims pointed out to me that having many wives was practices common in ancient times, even in Israel: David, Solomon both had many wives, and thus one can't consider it evil. While polygamy may not be truely evil -- especially in a time when so many women would die of childbirth -- the fact still remains that Muhammad exalted himself: like a spoiled child realizing he can get anything he wants, Muhammad created riches and worldly pleasures for himself through conquest, plundering, personal gain, riches and women, all in the creation of his invention of Islam.
Several Muslims rejected the notion that Islam was a new creation, but rather, a continuation of things of old. The problem is, for Islam to be a continuation of the Abrahamic faith, they have to denounce both Judaism and Christianity, claiming that Jews have changed the Old Testament to their liking; for Islam to be correct, Israel cannot be the people of God. Here Israelites were the people of God for more than 2000 years, then Muhammad came along and said, "oh, those Jews have changed it! We Arabs are the people of God!". So, for Islam to be a continuation of the Abrahamic faith in Yahweh, all of Scripture must be thrown out: first the Tenakh (Old Testament) because it has been changed by Jews, and second, the New Testament, because Jesus' messianic claims are blasphemous. In that sense, Islam is a continuation of the ancient faith, only when most of history is rewritten 2000 years after the fact.
"Worship one God,noone else",you call em God,we call HIm Allah,Hindus call HIM "Eshwar",different names but same person.
Oh, this is a doozie! I am honestly astonished to hear this coming from a Muslim; this "everybody has their own way to God" argument I hear often, primarily from universalist unitarians, pantheists, deists and other borderline secularists -- definitely not Muslims. What's more, most Muslims will assert that their God is not the same God as the Hindu gods: the whole ongoing volatile conflict in Pakistan between Hindus & Muslims is based around this very issue!
The topic of "are all gods really the same god" is a huge issue in itself, worthy of a few postings at least. For now, I will say that, for the believer in Messiah, and the Jewish believer in the God of Abraham, it's quite clear in Scripture whether all gods are the same god. While secularists and unitarians may not like the fact that not everyone is right and not everyone has the truth, I can't imagine God is losing sleep over their dislike of non-politically correct reality.
Didn`t Abraham warned His dad NOT to worship and create Idols?didnt David,Jacob spreaded teachings to ask Help from God only,rest are false entities?what Jesus tried to teach to Children of Israels,give me the difference in teaching to me.
Gladly. First, you're right: Jesus didn't teach people to worship idols. To go even further, Jesus' teachings were all confirmations of the teachings in the Tenakh/Old Testament. For example, the Torah teaches it is wrong to commit adultery. Jesus confirmed this and strengthened it by saying that if a man even lusts after a woman in his heart, he is committing adultery.
Unfortunately for Muslims, the idea that Jesus was just a regular old prophet, ala Muhammad, goes kaboom when one realizes that Jesus made blasphemous messianic claims: Jesus taught that he is the son of God, the Messiah, whose self-sacrifice on the cross atones for the sins of the world, fulfilling the Torah's sacrifices of lambs and goats, instead the Messiah being the perfect Lamb slain once and for all. He taught that the Torah was about him, the Psalms were about him, the writings of prophets in the Tenakh/Old Testament were about him; in essence, the God-inspired writings were all pointing to Him. He claimed to be the one prophesied to come in Scripture: the one all the prophets had prophesied would come so that the sins of humanity would be forgiven. That's a huge atomic bomb on Islamic teaching, which has us believe Jesus was a human only, not God, and definitely should not be worshipped as God. Contrast this with Jesus' own words, saying no one comes to God but by him, that he is the son of God, that he is the Messiah promised on the Tenakh. Obviously, these are blasphemous words, coming from a so-called prophet. Either Jesus is a blasphemous crazy man, or he is indeed the son of God, the one sent to take away the sins of the world. You can't have a half-way house of "Oh, Jesus was just a nice prophet";, such middle ground does not exist outside the imaginations of universalists.
for jews,David,Jacon are most important and beliving and followin them is enough to be a jew
I'm afraid you're mistaken. Jews do not follow David or Jacob. David was a psalmist who loved God, definitely not the Muhammad of Judaism. Jacob was the progenitor of Israel who also loved God. Again, definitely not the Muhammad of Judaism. Jesus was the Messiah who loved his Father in heaven, also not the Muhammad of Judaism, nor the Muhammad of Christianity. Where these figures had important roles in the eventual creation of religions based on the faith in God, they did not purposefully create a new religion, unlike Muhammad. Indeed, Christianity itself wasn't a seperate religion from Judaism until long after Jesus' death; the invention of the religion of Christianity -- especially Roman Catholicism -- can be credited to 4th century "Holy" Roman Emperors more than anything. But Islamics want to equate holy figures in other religions as prophets in order to validate Muhammad's self-proclaimed prophetic status, and yet, such generalizations do nothing but blur the line between truth and well-crafted fiction.
how can you say tht Islam is some new religion invented by a guy named Muhammad
I can say it because it's true: Islam was invented more than 500 years after Jesus, and more than 2500 years after Abraham. The faith borrowed ideas from both faiths, but claimed that the old faith was modified, and that this new faith was God's Own Religion® and the previous faiths were flawed. It matters little that Muhammad borrowed bits from the Tenakh and the New Testament, the fact remains that he knowingly and consciously invented a new religion that wasn't meant as a continuation of the previous faith in the God of Abraham, but instead, denouces the previous faiths as flawed and falsified by men, and announced that his new religion was a perfect one revealed to him by God. Contrast this with Jesus, who never started a new religion, saying the the original faith points to the Messiah (which, by the way, Jews won't deny, they will only deny that Jesus is the Messiah). Initially, the followers of Jesus were a sect of Judaism! It wasn't until the new man-made ritual religion of Christianity was truely invented a few hundred years later, when the the Roman Emperor Constantine declared the Roman Empire would be "Christian".
"Bless, O Allah, Muhammad and his people as Thou didst bless Abraham and his people. Thou art indeed Praiseworthy, the Exalted." give me some source that either yours or chiristianity religion covers and send blessings to these people?
Sure thing: Genesis 17 in the Christian and Jewish Bibles and you'll clearly see that God does indeed bless the Arab people.
It's a shared trait of the 3 Abrahmic faiths: Abraham and his descendants were blessed. Arabs are blessed to this day, with power, money from oil, and much influence around the world. Jews are blessed as well: despite persecution by Christians, the Holocaust, and numerous mini-holocausts, the Jewish people have survived 2000 years of this persecution -- quite an astonishing feat for any people group -- and have returned to the land God gave to them, Israel.
I question the veracity of the claim that Islam is interested in blessing the Jews. If Islam is truely interested in blessing the people of Abraham, which include Jews, I wonder then: why are so many in Islam bent on the destruction of not only Jews, but Christians as well? Why am I watching parades of Hamas bombers on my television, complete with explosives attached to their belts? Why do I read news every week about buses of civilians, pizza palors, and supermarkets being blown to pieces by Islamic zealots?
Do not say I am portraying Islam unfairly; even Islamic newspapers report the same stories, only labeling the bombers as freedom fighters, the massacres as successful offensive campaigns, and Israel as "the Zionist entity" which Islam refuses to acknowledge. Not everyone in the Islamic camp is so gung-ho zealous about defeating the enemies of Islam or its perceived enemies, or so the politcally correct folks will tell me. But it is apparent that either there's a majority that subscribes to these beliefs, or a very vocal minority that speaks louder than the majority.