Although I never met anyone who identified as Muslim until I went to college, I had a preconceived notion of what it meant to be Muslim. Unfortunately, this preconceived notion was heavily influenced by what I saw on TV and in video games. To put it bluntly, I thought all Muslims were terrorists who hated America.
I knew nothing about Islam, and I didn’t think I had to because it didn’t have anything in common with Christianity. And while I no longer consider myself a Christian, I feel compelled to share some similarities between Christianity and Islam, if only to dispel the misbelief that their followers are "mortal enemies."
To start, Christianity and Islam are both Abrahamic religions, just like Judaism and several other lesser-known faiths. Abrahamic religions are those that claim spiritual descendance from Abraham, who is an incredibly significant figure in both the Torah/Old Testament and the Quran. One key difference, however, is that Christianity traces Jesus’ lineage to Abraham through Isaac (Abraham’s second son), while Islam traces the Prophet Muhammad’s lineage to Abraham through Ishmael (Abraham’s first son).
Another similarity between Christianity and Islam is that both religions have several denominations/sects. In Christianity, the four largest denominations are Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Protestantism.
The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church have been separated since 1054, due to the East-West Schism (which I don’t have time to go into, so let’s just say that like many breakups, it’s complicated). The Oriental Orthodoxy is made up of six churches, which separated from the rest of Christianity several centuries before the East-West Schism.
Unlike Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Oriental Orthodoxy, Protestantism is not the name of a single denomination. It is actually an umbrella term for those who consider themselves Christians but are not Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, nor a member of one of the six churches in Oriental Orthodoxy. Anglicans, Baptists, Lutherans, and Methodists are all considered Protestants, as are Evangelical and nondenominational Christians.
The two major sects in Islam are referred to as Sunni and Shia. According to Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, 87 to 90 percent of Muslims are Sunni, while 10 to 13 percent are Shia (not including other minor sects of Islam). Although I know very little about the Sunni-Shia split, I can tell you that unlike the several schisms in Christianity, it had more to do with politics than with religious doctrine. To learn more, I recommending watching this YouTube video about the Sunni-Shia split, or reading this NPR article concerning the issue.
Now I realize that pointing out a couple of similarities between Christianity and Islam doesn’t rectify their vast differences or the history of violence between. But that was never my intention. I only wish to suggest that we should take the time to understand religious faiths other than our own, instead of simply demonizing their followers as “the other.”
