Islam – Part 2
Prepared and Presented by Skylar Stevens, Youth Group Leader
Week 2 – Theology
You’ve probably heard of the 5 pillars of Islam in school (or you at least will) and these are how they practice their religion, we will talk about these next week, there are also 6 essential doctrines Muslims believe in. To believe these things is a requirement to be Muslim. The six doctrines of Islam are:
- Believing that there is only 1 god and he is called Allah. Allah being the Arabic word for god, and this can get a bit confusing because Arab Christians will also call the God of the Bible Allah. However, all Muslims will refer to their god as Allah. To them, Allah is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful.
- There are angels and the chief angel is Gabriel, who they believe appeared to Mohammed. There is a fallen angel named, Shaitan, or Satan, as well as the followers of Shaitan, which are jinns, or demons.
- Muslims believe in four religious books they believe are inspired by Allah, which are the Torah of Moses, the Zabur, which are the Psalms of David, the Injil or the Gospel of (isa) Jesus which pulls pieces from our gospels in the Bible, and the Qur’an which is the revelation and teachings of Mohammed; however, since the Muslims believe that Christians and Jews corrupted their scriptures( through translation), they believe the Qur’an is the final word (which they believe is only true in the original Arabic and thus is memorized by Muslims of all languages in the original Arabic), and it supersedes and overrules all previous writings.
- They must believe that Mohammed is the greatest prophet among the 28 prophets listed by Allah.
- On the last day of the world, the dead will be raised back to life, and Allah will be the judge, and each person will be sent to either heaven or hell. They believe that heaven is a place of sensual pleasure, and hell is a place for those who oppose Allah and his prophet Mohammed.
- The last doctrine is believing in predestination. They are required to believe that God has determined what He pleases, and no one can change what He has decreed (also known as kismet, the doctrine of fate). From this doctrine comes the most common Islamic phrase, “If it is Allah’s will.” Muslims (and others from Arab countries) use this phrase at the end of common conversations. For instance, In a conversation, if you say I hope to see you soon, the response is often “Anshallah” meaning, if it is Allah’s will.
Now, what do we believe?
- As Christians we believe in one God as well, but it is the God of the Bible, Yahweh, not the god of the Qur’an, Allah. It is also important to notate that Muslims do not believe in the Trinity, whereas as Christians we do. (Explaining the Trinity to Muslims book)
- We also believe in the angel Gabriel, but we do not believe that he appeared to Mohammed to go and preach doctrine contrary to the Bible. We also believe that Lucifer was an angel who fell from heaven and is now Satan.
- We do believe in the Pentateuch, or the Torah. We also believe in the Psalms of David and the Biblical gospels of Jesus. However, we also believe in other books throughout the Bible, and we do not believe in any additional books that are considered to come from alleged prophets, such as Joseph Smith with the Book of Mormon, or in this case, Mohammed with the Qur’an.
- We do not believe that Mohammed was a biblical prophet as what he taught was contrary to the Bible.
- We also believe in a heaven and a hell. We believe that Yahweh will be the judge of all, and those that reject Jesus as LORD will go to hell. We openly reject the fact, once again, that Mohammed is a prophet.
- We do believe that God does what pleases Him, but we also believe that we have free will. We do pray for Yahweh’s will to be done, but we also believe we are able to make free choices.