Reading Response #5

I have not spent much time studying Islam. I knew that it was not the radical, violent religion that the western news makes it out to be, but in truth, I didn't know just how incredibly similar the original Muslim beliefs were to those of the Jews and Christians. I knew that all three religions essentially worship the same God, but I didn't realize how much the three religions were entwined. It was interesting for me to read that the original ideas of the Islamic faith were much more existential and moral than demanding adherence to a set of doctrines, which I had mistakenly assumed was the focus because of traditions such as praying to Mecca five times per day. Armstrong says "Like the Hebrew prophets, Muhammad stressed the prime duty of practical compassion: care for the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the oppressed was a Muslim's first responsibility". This is the shared ideal of all three major faiths at their core (obviously people from all faiths distort the original ideas to benefit themselves, but it their core, all three faiths stress this point). It was also interesting to learn that rather than Islam being a split from Judaism and Christianity, it was merely the first time that God had spoken to the Arab people in their own language, emphasizing the same moral obligation of compassion as Judaism and Christianity. In a world where Islam seems like a foreign and violent belief to most westerners, it was good to read something that explained the original ideals and intentions of the Muslim faith.