Muslim Worldview

This is the rival worldview with the implicit and explicit vocation, and past attempts to conquer the world, replace Christianity and impose its way of seeing life and the world, that is, its worldview. This vocation to submit the world to their own worldview still exists and is the main goal of today's jihad, terrorism, invasive immigration, and the demographic growth of Muslims in Western countries.

As happened in the Middle Ages, when an inferior, more aggressive, and violent culture imposed itself on a superior one, it was followed by a period of darkness and ignorance, the same could happen in the West. History can repeat itself, and social change is not always accompanied with progress and improvement.

Theological Inconsistencies of the Qur’an Narrative
From a theoretical or theological point of view, Christianity that was born in Western culture has over the centuries been exposed to criticism, refinement, and purification by the Western rational culture. The same is not true of the Muslim narrative which, despite claiming to be historical, remains shrouded in myth and lives by a faith that is barely reasonable, plausible, or humanly credible, such as, for example, that the Qur’an was dictated by God to the Prophet Mohammed who wrote down word for word what God dictated to him. There are still other inconsistencies:

Muhammad, the last prophet, Jesus, the son of God
Islam accepts as valid the Jewish religious tradition described in the Old Testament which they also consider as their own. Mohammed is therefore the last of the prophets that God sent into the world, Jesus being the second last.

If humanity lives another 10,000 or 20,000 years, what sense does it make that the last prophet came in the year 524? The world and the humanity have changed much more since the year 524 than in all the millions of years before; why, then, did the prophets often succeed one another before this date, and after the year 524 they are no longer needed?

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.  Hebrews 1:1-2

In the case of Christianity, even if humanity lives to the year 20,000, it still makes sense that the revelation happened in year zero. As the author of the letter to the Hebrews explains, the one sent is not another prophet, but God himself who comes to live among us.

There is a qualitative leap here; prophets bring messages for a specific time, while God's word is eternal for all times and all places because God in his perfection does not need to speak twice. Furthermore, Christ is not just a spoken word, he is a lived incarnated word and he only lived once.

In what sense is he the last prophet? Is it because Islam has a more refined doctrine and, on an ascending path, has already reached the summit? But the top looks more like Christianity, with its love of enemies. while Islam, in its practice and doctrine, resembles more the Old Testament than the New, when we think that even today women are stoned to death under Islam, and Christ was already against this sort of justice in his day.

God is one and triune, He is a community
Islam inherited the simple monotheism from the Hebrews. Therefore, both Jews and Muslims have no theological basis with which to conclude that man is made in the image and likeness of God. If God is love, and love that does not go out of itself is self-centeredness, God is more than one; God is a family, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in this we find the model of the human family: father, mother, and child.

God is one and triune, just as a human family is called to be a unity of three persons where the existence of one is not possible without the existence of the other two; a man is not a father without having a wife and a child; a woman is not a mother without having a child and a husband; and a child does not exist by himself or herself without having a father and a mother.

As Christ is the role model for individual human life, the Holy Trinity is the role model for social human life, a model of peace, harmony, and love. Judaism and Islam lack models, or theological reference points for life in the family and in society, conceiving God as a great loner.

Prophet Isa (Jesus), son of Mary ever virgin
With an entire chapter (sutra) dedicated to her alone, the Virgin Mary is the only woman indicated by her own name in the book of the Qur'an; all other women are spoken of in relation to a man; for example, there are no references to Sarah, but rather to Abraham's wife. Regarding Mary's virginity, the Qur'an clearly states that whoever does not believe in it or calls it into question is in sin.

According to both Christian and Muslim traditions, both Mary and the prophet Mohammed receive a visit from the Archangel Gabriel who blows the Word into both of them. The Word in Mohammed became a book, the Qur’an, and in Mary, a man, Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, some scholars of Islam say, Jesus or the Prophet Isa as he is called in Islam, is the Qur’an in the form of a man and the Qur'an is Jesus in the form of a book.

Faced with these facts, let us look at another inconsistency in the Muslim religion; if for the Muslim faith, as it is for us, Mary, the mother of Jesus is a virgin, then who is the father of Jesus? It obviously cannot be Joseph the carpenter, for if he were, Mary could not have remained a virgin.

And if Joseph is not the father of Jesus and Mary remains a virgin after conceiving, then the conception cannot have been natural and the father cannot have been human; if it is not the work of a human, it can only be the work of God, and if it is God's work, then God has a son, and it is not as Judaism conceives Him, a solitary God, but as Christianity conceives Him and how He was revealed to us by Jesus Christ, a God of love, a divine family or community.

If you owe nothing, you have nothing to fear
We are never more violent than when fighting for self-preservation. While the Christian religion, called into question by the French Revolution, the age of reason, the Enlightenment, and lately, by atheistic philosophies, has survived, the Muslim religion opposes all internal and external critical thinking and threatens with death anyone who does so.

"If you owe nothing, you have nothing to fear", this aggressiveness is nothing more than a way to hide the serious deficiencies from a philosophical, historical, and theological point of view. Fueled by oil and hatred of the West, the Muslim expansion is like a giant with feet of clay: the day these deficiencies come to the light of reason, perhaps not a stone will be left standing.

According to Carl Jung, fanaticism is a way to stifle an inner doubt. This is how Jung explained St. Paul's fanaticism against Christians before his conversion. St. Paul's doubt was between the security given by the law, a false security, and the freedom of grace that St. Stephen offered in his speech.

It is clear, even from the way they treat women as second-class citizens, that the Muslim religion was fine for the Middle Ages, but not for today's world. As today's way of thinking infiltrates by many means, even in Muslim countries, by the TV, by the internet, they feel intimidated and fear losing believers. They are afraid that their religion will not withstand the clash of reason, as Christianity has endured by refashioning itself.

Islam and Violence
There are two concepts that have perhaps been misinterpreted, or interpreted in ways that satisfy, justify, and bless the thirst for power of some. What is certain is that it was this "misinterpretation" of the concepts that wrote history and cause much blood to flow. I refer to the concept of JIHAD, which means effort, struggle, holy war, and the concept of ISLAM, which means to submit to the will of God.

As scholars say, JIHAD refers to the struggle that every human being must wage within himself or herself against evil. The case is that, historically, the inner struggle that should have remained inward, became an outer struggle; in practice, this struggle translated and still translates today into the struggle against those whom Islam considers infidels, declaring a war against them that is justified because it is holy, because it is for a good cause. At this time, they have not yet understood that "the ends do not justify the means."

Christianity also has its own version of holy wars, the Crusades. The first crusade was born in response to the request of the Christian Emperor of the East, Alexis I, to help him recapture the holy city of Jerusalem and free the Eastern Christians from Muslim rule. However, it quickly became a way to halt the advance of the Muslims who threatened to wipe out the Christian world. It started out as a right to self-defense that quickly turned into aggression, conquest, and massacre in the name of Christ.

Islam means to submit to God; the basis of the Muslim religion lies in this submission which is symbolically represented by the posture Muslims adopt when praying. This was the purpose of Jihad, the effort, the struggle to submit the whole personality of each person to God; indeed, this is what it means to worship God, to submit to his will. Christians do it by choice, not out of duty, because their Master tells them “I do not call you servants any longer…but I have called you friends…” (John 15:15)

As long as the religion did not go beyond the personal sphere, and remained reflective and intransitive, everything went well and smoothly; but this is not the submission that history prayed for. Submitting to God quickly turned into subjecting others to their version of God. Therefore, just as Judaism calls everyone who is not a Jew a Gentile, Islam calls everyone who is not a Muslim an infidel.

Unlike Christianity, which was born in an adverse world dominated by the Romans and for five centuries was a clandestine and persecuted religion that spread by the examples and preaching of early Christians, Islam was born from a warlike conquest of Mecca and in the submission of Christians and polytheists that were there to the new faith.

Resentment Against the Christian Western World
With the victory of the Christians against the Muslims at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, Christian culture and civilization ended once and for all the constant threat of Islam and grew to be what they are today, while Muslim civilization, whose heyday had been Averroes and Avicenna, stagnated in a medieval mentality.

The Muslim world has yet to recover from the resentment and hatred that this defeat caused; and the success of Western civilization that has overridden the rightness of the world. This hatred motivates the actions of Al Qaeda, Islamic State, and other terrorist organizations, especially against the United States, which represents the Western world.

Currently there is no traditionally Christian country that persecutes Muslims for their faith, while in traditionally Muslim countries Christians are systematically persecuted: Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia...

Muslims in the West are protected by democracy and the right to religious freedom; Christians in the Arab world have no rights; they are at the mercy of fanaticism. Muslims in the West can build their mosques, Christians in the Arab world have no right to build churches or repair those that have existed for centuries, and in Saudi Arabia, they Christians cannot even wear crucifixes around their necks.

Differences in Core Values
As we have already said, the Muslim worldview is fundamentally a re-edition of the Old Testament Judaism for Arabs.

Unity – Or union is a human value for both Muslims and Christians; however, Christians, advocate for unity in diversity, since Jesus chose a group of people so diverse to the point of being once enemies, for Muslims unity is uniformity, oneness, they do not accept or tolerate differences.

Time – Regarding time, Christians are more future oriented, Muslims have remained stagnant in the past. Clinging to their traditions that give them identity and security, they fear the future and change. Change in the West is progress, in the Muslim world it is loss of identity, it is insecurity.

Family – Unlike in the West, the extended family is more important than the core family of father, mother, and children. And there is more solidarity among family members. With the wife's submission to her husband, the divorce rate is low. The West is more individualistic and free, so the nuclear family is the only one that counts.

Peace – It is the greeting of Jews and Muslims, it means not only the absence of conflict as in the West, but also success, prosperity, and happiness.

Honor – It is a very important value in Islam; dishonor is the worst tragedy that can happen to a family. The West values honor equally, but only applies it individually, meaning family members do not pay for the misdeeds of any one of them.

Status – For Muslims, this is assigned or inherited. In the West, it is neither inherited nor attributed, but rather earned on one’s own merit.

Individualism – Muslims do not value independence, freedom, autonomy, but more the interdependence, and social and communal meaning of life. Therefore, they more easily support the dictatorships of their countries. Conformity and obedience are more important values to them.

Secularism – In Muslim countries Caesaro-papism is still accepted. Religion meddles in politics and vice versa. Religion in Western countries is a private matter, it does not come up in public life since Jesus said, "give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's", there is a sharp division between the two powers, the Church and the State.

Conclusion: Standing still in time, the Muslim world seems to have become trapped in the past, it looks to the present and the future with anxiety; it resists change and progress for fear that it will be robbed of its inner peace, security, and identity.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC