Islam is the religion of all prophets and the true and everlasting religion.
Islam is the only divine faith. God does not accept anything else from any one of His servants, be they human or jinn.
Islam is the religion of all prophets and the true and everlasting religion.
Islam1 is the only divine faith. God does not accept anything else from any one of His servants, be they human or jinn. He says:
‘He who seeks a religion other than self-surrender to God, it will not be accepted from him’. (3: 85)
‘The only true faith acceptable to God is [man’s] self-surrender to Him’. (3: 19)
Islam is the faith preached by all prophets. God says:
‘Before your time We never sent a messenger without having revealed to him that there is no deity other than Me. Therefore, you shall worship Me alone’. (21: 25)
‘We have sent revelations to you just as We sent revelations to Noah and the prophets after him; as We sent revelations to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants, Jesus, Job, Jonah, Aaron and Solomon, and as We vouchsafed to David a Book of divine wisdom, and as [We inspired other] messengers whom We have mentioned to you previously, as well as other messengers whom We have not mentioned to you. And God has spoken His word directly to Moses. [These] were messengers sent to bring good news and to give warning, so that people may have no argument against God once these messengers [had come]. God is almighty, wise’. (4: 163–5)
In another surah God mentions by name the following prophets: Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, Job, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Zachariah, John, Jesus, Elijah, Ishmael, Elisha, Jonah and Lot. He then says:
‘Those are the ones whom God has guided. Follow, then, their guidance’. (6: 90)
The religions of all prophets are the same in their fundamental concepts and principles, but they vary in some details, but not all. So, details may be different but the fundamentals are the same. Both Moses and Jesus were sent with divine messages to the Children of Israel. As God gave the Gospel to Jesus as His message, He abrogated some of the rules that were in the Torah revealed to Moses. Defining his message, Jesus said to his people:
‘And [I have come] to confirm that which has already been sent down of the Torah and to make lawful to you some of the things which were forbidden you. I have come to you with a sign from your Lord; so remain conscious of God and obey me’. (3: 50)
Both prophets, Moses and Jesus, were sent to the same community yet some of the details of their messages differed. All the more reason that other messages may have differences in detail as well.
Every divine law suffered distortion and alteration. God says: ‘There are some among them who twist their tongues when quoting the Scriptures, so that you may think that [what they say] is from the Scriptures when it is not from the
Scriptures. They say:
“It is from God”, when it is not from God. Thus, they deliberately say of God what they know to be a lie’. (3: 78) ‘They take (revealed) words out of their context’. (4: 46)
Thus people could not know the truth as God revealed it. The proper way to correct the situation was to send a new prophet. Hence, God re-established His true faith with the prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him). This meant that there is no true self-surrender to God and no true faith except that of Prophet Muhammad:
‘He who seeks a religion other than self-surrender to God, it will not be accepted from him, and in the life to come he will be among the lost’. (3: 85)
God gave His message to all communities: Arabs and non-Arabs; human and jinn: ‘We have sent you to all mankind so that you bring them good news and give them warning’. (34: 28) In an authentic hadith, Abu Hurayrah reports that the Prophet said: ‘By Him who holds Muhammad’s soul in His hand, any human being, Jew or Christian, who hears of me but dies without believing in that with which I have been sent shall be among the people of the Fire’.2 God has guaranteed to keep the Qur’an safe from distortion and alteration. He says: ‘It is We Ourselves who have bestowed this reminder from on high, and it is We who shall preserve it intact’. (15: 9)
References
- The linguistic meaning of Islam is ‘self-surrender, submission, etc.’
- Related by Muslim, 153.