Like many Arabs, Muhammad believed in al-Lah, which meant “the God” and this diety was identical to the God worshipped by the Jews and the Christians. The Arabs were often taunted by Jews and Christians for being barbarians as the Arabs had never had a revelation from God. (See Jews and Christians CAN agree on some things).
The Palestinian Christians practiced what they believed was the religion of Abraham before he went into the tent and became a Jew. Now this religion would technically be older than Judaism and Christianity, but we have no record that Abraham had a religious belief system before Judaism. If you want to be like Abraham, I say practice Judaism. If you want to be like Christ, practice Judaism. but I digress.
The Arabs had numerous pagan gods that they worshipped, but unike other cultures they hadn't worked out the details such as the relevance of these god. They didn't believe in an afterlife, but believed in Fate. To ensure the survival of the tribe, they would share the wealth equally. If a member of your tribe was killed there was no duty to kill the killer, just kill any memeber of the killers tribe as, again, all were equal. Not exactly an eye-for-an-eye, more like a Mob hit.
Around the year 610, an Arabic man named Zayd prayed,"O god, if I knew how you wish to be worshipped I would worship you: but I do not know.” His prayers were answered when Muhammad (a merchant from Venice, just kidding that was Shakespeare, he was acutally a merchant from Mecca) claimed that he was awakened one night by an angel who commended him to “recite” Mohammad refused several times until Muhammad found the following words flowing from his lips”
Recite in the name of thy Sustainer, who has created - created man out of a germ cell Recite…..
The Arabs had finally had a revelation from God and the rest is history.
So, I say, Islam is the new kid on the block of the big three. I win!! You have to buy me sushi.
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