Date
8-9-2022
Department
Rawlings School of Divinity
Degree
Master of Arts in Christian Apologetics (MA)
Chair
Dietmar Schulze
Keywords
Islam, Origins, Christian, Religion, Founder, Practices
Disciplines
Religion | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion
Recommended Citation
Matos, German, "A Christian Perspective on Islam's Origins: Its Religion, Founder, and Practices" (2022). Masters Theses. 896.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/masters/896
Abstract
The many years of exposure to Islamic believers in the five boroughs of New York State, but more specifically, the Bronx, set a precedent for this thesis to comprehensively analyze the religion of Islam by investigating the Abrahamic monotheistic connection to its historical origins and religious practices. The methods used in this thesis to prove Islam’s legitimacy as an Abrahamic monotheistic heir consisted of sources like the Qur’an, hadith, and tafsir texts translated from Arabic into English. The simultaneous usage of Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and authoritative secular sources was used to scrutinize Islam’s theological and historical claims to formulate a modern Christian perspective on the prophet Muhammad’s existence, uniqueness, and religious practices he established according to Allah’s mandates. After thoroughly investigating the ethnic and religious origins of the Arabian Peninsula’s peoples and the prophet Muhammad’s connection to Ismael, this thesis concluded that Islam lacks traditional monotheistic continuity to its Judaic and Christian predecessors suggesting that it remains a Judaeo-Christian cult. Thus, this thesis expresses a modernized Christian perspective, which intends to demonstrate that the founding of Islamic theology and religious practices lies in the notions of the Arabian prophet Muhammad regarding Judaism, Christianity, and ancient paganized Arabic henotheistic beliefs of his time.
