Muslims claim to believe in “the God of Abraham,” which on the surface leads some Christians to assume that we then believe in the same God, but how can that be when Islam does not believe in the Triune God?

If you vehemently don’t believe that Jesus is God and that He and the Holy Spirit (which is the love that spirates between the Father and the Son) are all three in One God, how could it possibly be the same God?

When Abraham had relations with Hagar, the Egyptian slave woman, he did not trust that God would provide his promised progeny. Ishmael was born of Hagar, but Ishmael was turned away as the rightful “first born son” which was reserved for Sarah’s first born as planned by God. Ishmael became the father of the Arab nations and they recognize Ishmael, not Israel (Jacob), as the rightful son.

Our Christian God is unchangeable. Allah changes at will (Sura 2: 106) and according to the writings in the Quran, he can cancel previous teachings and contradict himself. If Allah is changing, then he has not arrived at perfection. Muhammad could not read, but he taught his followers that Christians (“The People of the Book”) believe that Mary is part of the Trinity to be worshipped and yet there is not a single Christian document that makes this claim.

But the most vast difference is that God has a father/son relationship with mankind. Islam’s god, Allah, has a master/slave relationship with humans.

Muslims fear Allah as a slave fears his master. Christians call God “Our Father.” One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, fear of the Lord, is not a slave fear. It is a “filial” fear which a loving child has for his father, a heathy fear of hurting the one you love. Moreover, it is a fear of the loss of the Lord.

Muslims think it is blasphemous to infer that Allah has a son and that it is extreme blasphemy to worship Jesus.

Allah is not a God of love and mercy. He commands cutting off hands and feet, cutting off heads, rape, enslavement, beating wives, taking spoils from invasions and destruction of established cultures.

St. John Paul II said, “In Islam, all the richness of God’s self-revelation, which constitutes the heritage of the Old and New Testaments, has definitely been set aside. The god of the Quran is a god outside of the world, a god who is only Majesty, never Emmanuel, God-with-us. Not only the theology, but also the anthropology of Islam is very distant from Christianity.”

 Muhammad embraced and borrowed from certain Christian and Jewish beliefs, including one God and then he added his own ideas to form a religion perfectly suited to his culture, but the core of his borrowed belief is barely recognizable. It gave the Arabian tribes a unity they did not have before and along with their fierce warrior traditions, they became a dangerous jihad, quickly taking over the Middle East.

There are some serious differences between the Christian God and Allah and any one of them shows that we do not worship the same God.

Allah is an owner and humans are property; he is a master and humans are his slaves.

We Christians, who have the faith that Christ himself gave us, pray for the unity that Christ speaks of, that we must be one.

1 Corinthians 1:10: I urge that there be no divisions among you.

John 10:16: There shall be one fold and one shepherd

Romans 16:17: Avoid those who create dissensions

Philippians 2:2: Be of same mind united in heart thinking one thing

John 17:17: I pray that they may be one as we are one

1 Timothy 3:15: The Church is the pillar and foundation of truth.

Allah is not the same as our Christian God. We do not and cannot worship their god.

Even so, the religiosity of Muslims deserves respect. We must admire their faithfulness to prayer. Christians could learn from Muslim devotion, which is so strong that they fall to their knees regardless of time or place and immerse themselves in prayer. Americans, on the other hand, who have the true God, have taken Him out of our schools and public venues. Many only pray when they want assistance from God, and although we as a nation thoroughly teach our children about sports, we neglect teaching them to know, love, serve and talk to God.

America still has the freedom of religion but we have abandoned our beautiful churches and pray very little or not at all. How grateful we should be to be able to say... “Our Father” who art in heaven.

Mimnaugh is a resident of Lakeside.