In this Lecture, Vivienne Stacey explores the shared beliefs of Muslims and Christians regarding one God – similarities and differences. These lectures were given at Columbia International University in partnership with the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies. The Zwemer Center was founded in 1979 and exists to offer comprehensive courses on Islam, facilitate research, foster dialogues, offer seminars, conduct training, and provide resources for effective witness and ministry among Muslims. We also have a course study guide for these lectures that you might find helpful.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Vivienne Stacey’s Lecture on Christians and Muslims believe in One God:
I just wondered how many of you realize what the connection is between the word Islam and the word Muslim. The word Islam, as you probably know, means submitting to God, and Muslim is someone who submits to God, And in Arabic if you put an m at the beginning of a word often indicates the doer. So the person who submits to God is Muslim, the doer of the submission. Islam means submission, one who submits is who does submission is Muslim. The word m at the beginning indicates that.
We can say that, Christians and Muslims worship one God, and you will notice that sometimes I pray, in the name of the one God. In fact, I correspond also with Muslims in the name of the one God. I so I don’t say, your sincerely, I say, in the name of of the one God, and then I say something else perhaps and then I sign my name, I’m corresponding with a Muslim in Malaysia on in this way. We have that in common in the name of the one God and I always like if I’m preaching I like to start my prayer. I like just to start a prayer and I just say, in the name of the one God, the father, the son, and the holy spirit.
So god in Arabic is Allah, it means it comes from Hebrew, and the al is from sort of El, I think, and, the word really means the God. Now, some people feel that Christians shouldn’t use the word Allah, but if you’re an Arab you can’t use anything else because that’s what it is. And some translations of the bible in other languages it comes, for example the Pashtun new testament only has, it has Allah for the name of God. And, I have no problems. I some I wouldn’t mind saying in the name of Allah, the father, the son, and the holy spirit.
There’s no problem with that. And the word Allah forgot the name was current in Arabian poetry before the rise of Islam, and it was current, in other things in usage in in Arabic before Mohammed ever came, so it’s pre Muslim, pre Islamic, so we don’t need to have a hang up about using it. But so we can say what we all with Christian and Muslim worship one God, but the understanding about God is different. You might say that the subject is the same and the predicate, varies rather. It’s rather different.
The subject of the is one, but the interpretation or is different on these two sides. Now the most important concept after Allah for the Muslim is the Quran itself. The Quran for the Muslim is the eternal written word. It’s the the the preserved tablet on which the words of the Quran are written in Arabic is supposed to be in heaven, and, the Quran itself says that. It was revealed through the angel Gabriel or sometimes there’s a reference to the spirit or the holy spirit, but it was revealed, through the spirit or and to to Gabriel and he gave it to Mohammed in pieces or he Mohammed received it, and and wrote it down, or got it written down, and it wasn’t a whole thing or a surah at once, it was pieces that came at different times.
In the Christian side of things, we regard Jesus as the eternal living word. So it’s really the Quran is more parallel with Jesus if we’re gonna write do parallels, Jesus, has a higher place in than than Muhammad, the position of Muhammad in Islam is lower than the place that Christians give to Jesus. On the other hand, the Quran has a higher place as a written book than the bible. So we’re thinking in parallels then of the Quran and Jesus. And you could say, if I had to sum up in one sentence the differences between these two faiths, I would say that, in Islam, God reveals his will in a book.
So Allah reveals his will for mankind in a book, the eternal written Quran. And the Christian I concept is that God, Allah, reveals himself in the eternal living word, Jesus. So here we have a difference. That’s we can see why the focus in Islam is on on the book, and then the focus in Christianity is on the person Jesus. God reveals himself, in Jesus, the eternal living word.
God reveals his will, in a book, the eternal written Quran. And so if it’s his will is revealed in a book, that’s why many Muslims are saying, what do I do? And so we have we have traditions to help, there are traditions to help Muslims answer that question because everything can’t be in such a small book if if a Muslim, God reveals his will in a book, and all his will cannot be written for every bit of life in a small book the size of the New Testament. So we have these volumes of traditions which you’re going to see in the library, well, some of them anyway, and which we’ve been talking about this morning. So in one sense then, the bible is more akin to the traditions of Islam.
It in I would say that it’s possibly, it’s a little bit we should put it a bit higher up than than the traditions, but, if we’re going to make a parallel, it will have to be traditions and bible, and if we’re going to have a parallel of personalities, in Christian Muslim, so we’ll have Muhammad here, and then we’ll have Peter or Paul or one of the other apostles, over here, and generally I put Paul, but it could well be Peter or several, so, it will help you as you look at the Quran and look at the traditions, and it would help you not to make, too many comparisons at least between Mohammed and Jesus, but to realize that it’s a person that it’s sort of headed the list for Christians. It’s a book that’s headed the list, for Muslims. Muslims don’t like being called Mohammedans. Muslims don’t like being called Mohammedans because they they don’t worship Mohammed. Sometimes they venerate him greatly, but they don’t worship him.
We don’t mind being called Christians, followers of Christ, because we worship Christ. We worship God in Christ. We worship Christ. We worship the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I also find when I’m sharing with Muslims, that it’s very helpful to say, I believe in one God.
You can spend hours discussing it, trying to prove that God is 1, and 1 in 3 persons. So many Muslims think you worship 3 gods, but, rather than and there’s a place for explaining it, but it really bugs quite a number of people when Muslims, when they hear you say I believe in 1 God, because that’s a creedal statement, and the longer I live the more I’m saying some of the things in terms of creedal statement. I believe in 1 God, And I feel that, I might spend half an hour explaining how I see and understand the one God. But what’s going to remain in the minds of the customs officer who asked me, are you Muslim? Or, what’s going to remain in the mind of the schoolgirl who said you’re dressed this way rather like us and you speak our language, and but she realizes that I am not a Muslim.
So if I leave with her the idea that I believe in one God, not the idea, but if I make the creedal statement, it will be of great, help and, it will stick in her mind in a way that, discussion and argument doesn’t.