Discussion

The three religions, namely Christianity, Islam and Judaism are together referred to as Abrahamic religions. These three religions are religious communities that have been semantically originated from Judaism that have been descended from the Judaism of the old Israelites who used to worship the God of Abraham. The legacy of Abraham began to spread through the religion of Christianity which was adopted in Roman Empire by Emperor Charlemagne in the 4^th Century. The legacy of Abraham was further spread by Islam through the formation of the various Islamic Empires in the seventh century. The initial principles that are mutual to all forms of Abrahamic religions, spread in this world through the Judaism in the seventh century (Before Christ Era). Christianity started from 1^st century BC and lastly arrived Islam in the 7^th century Christian era. So far as the global statistics of 2015 is concerned, about 55% of the entire population of the world (that is about 3.6 billion of people). Out of the population following Abrahamic religion, 33% of the people follow Christianity, 21% of the people follow Islam and Judaism is followed by about 0.2% of the people.

Discussion

As per the suggestions of Eickelman (2017), the term Abrahamic religion refers that all these three religions were being derived from one unique spiritual source. Paul, the Apostle of Christian religion have stated that Abraham is the father of everyone. Again the Quranic term millat Ibrahim implies that Islam religion perceives itself as standing epitome of the customs and the religious traditions of Abraham.  Lastly, the Judaists claim that one among three fathers who are Biological Patriarchs is Abraham other than Jacob as well as Isaac. All these three religions claim that they have descended from Abraham in various ways. It is stated that the Torah records the fact that Abraham is the direct ancestor of Israelites from the end of Isaac. Who was in turn born to Sarah as promoted in the Genesis. Again, the Islamise legacy believes that Muhammad who was an Arab is actually one descendent of Ishmael, who was son to Abraham. Based on the Jewish tradition, Ishmael’s decedents, the Ishmaelite are equated with the Arabians. However, Hildebrandt (2015), states that although all three religions have a basis of commonality in terms of history and theology, there are many underlying problems. On one hand where there is commonality and sameness among the three stated religions, in bigger measure, the ancestry which they share is peripheral to their own foundational beliefs and hence there are crucial differences. One example can be provided here. The common beliefs among the Christians like that of Incarnation, resurrection of Christ as well as that of Trinity are rejected by the Islamise or the Judaists. Again, Judaism as well as Islam have some primary beliefs that are similar, but on the other hand, the Christians do not share the beliefs. Those are monotheism and even the adherence to a set of divine regulations (Idel & McGinn, 2016). Moreover, there are some key beliefs shared by the Islam and Christianity like prophetic as well as Messianic position that is attributed to Jesus Christ, are not at all accepted by the Judaists.

Monotheism and the Concept of God

Tanakh, the most primary text of Judaism, draws a picture of the relationship between God and the Israelites (Reeves & Reed, 2018). The religion hails Abraham as the first Hebrew, who is also the father of all Jewish people. The great-grandson of Abraham was Judah from whose name the religion derives its name from. The Christianity made its advent as a small sect from among the Judaists and began to spread with Jesus. Initially viewed as the messiah, after his death, Jesus was viewed as the “God Incarnate”. As Moritz et al. (2017), states, the Christians believes that when time ends, Jesus would return again on the Judgement day and re-establish Earth as the abode of God. After several periods of relative peace as well as alternative prosecution passed, vis-à-vis, the Roman authorities under various administrations, Christianity came to be the state church in the whole of the Roman empire in 380, however, since its beginning, Christianity have been split into different churches (Nirenberg, 2014). The Byzantine rulers made a great effort to unify the whole Christendom, although the attempt eventually failed. In the latter part of the 16^th century, the rise and development of the proletariats further segregated the Christendom into many other denominations.

Lastly, talking of Islam, it is basically a philosophy that is founded under the guidelines of the Quran. Muhammad is being considered as the supreme among all the Islamic prophets, however, Islam texts reveal that every prophet preached Islam thereby framing a back story for the advent of the religion, recognizing prophets from Judaism as well as Christianity along with others. The teachings and the sayings in the Quran are reflected as the words of Allah (Norenzayan, 2016). The conception of god under Islam is unitary and this conception is called Tawhid.  

Monotheism is the popular belief of almost all the religions under Abrahamic religions. All the three religions that are under focus here, preaches strictly that God is unique, who rules, loves, judges as well as punishes as well as forgives. In this context, Ray et al. (2014), states that there is a slight deviation in Christianity, which although does not believe in three gods, have a strong belief in the Trinitarian principle or the position of three persons or hypostases. However, the strict and ardent followers of monotheism, that are the Jewish and the Islamise. That is why, Islam typically views Christianity to be polytheistic. The manifestation of Jesus is also different for the various religions. The followers of Islam as well as Christianity have reverence towards Jesus Christ (Isa in Arabic). The Christians have a perception that Jesus is their saviour and God Incarnate. Muslims view Isa (other name for Jesus) as one of the prophets of Islam and a messiah.

Nature of Jesus and Holy Books

However, there is unanimity among all the three religions regarding the presence of one supreme godhead, who has created the whole universe and is the ruler of history, who is liable to send prophets as well as messengers to reveal the divine will. Another unanimous belief is that one day the intervention of God in human history would ultimately take place and that would be the time of last judgement.

The Christians, Islam as well as the Judaists vary in their rituals also. Baptism as well as the Holy Communion are the main rituals of Christianity. However, the five most important rituals namely Shahadah, Zakat, Hajj, Sawm and Salat are pillars of Islam (Papaconstantinou & Schwartz, 2016). Lastly, the Barmitzvah and the Sabbath are the most important.

The Christianity and Islam always varies on the concept of original sin. Christians believe that we human have a natively sinful nature owing to the rebellion of our common ancestor, Adam. In sharp contrast, the concept of original sin is not present in Islam (Peters, 2018). They believe that every man is born sinless. However the weakness in human nature, leads man towards sin.

Conclusion

These three religions that essentially are acknowledged as Abrahamic religion, have gone through evolution through ages. The original scriptures of all three religions have been destroyed to quite some extent many a times. However, the customary beliefs of these three religions about the role of Christ, the concept of monotheism and the acknowledgement of Abraham makes them somewhat similar in approach. However major differences still exist. Currently Globalisation have had its impact on all these religions and the stringency in the religious ethics of all religions have been slackened. The approach of religion have now become much more humane. The conception that religion is for man and that man is not for religion, have gained ground. Although, conflicts regarding supremacy of religion is the greatest form of terror, however, it is the most common scenario and the whole concept of religious war dates back from the Crusades. Nevertheless, none of the religions conspicuously despises the other religions and there is harmonious coexistence of all the three religions.

Reference List

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Nirenberg, D. (2014). Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today. University of Chicago Press.

Norenzayan, A. (2016). Theodiversity. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 465-488.

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