In a recently closed rhread "What is Islam" the thread creator.said :
Islam is the same the religion of Adam, Noah, Moses, and Jesus (peace bs upon them all) but with more detail
While the above statement expresses what many, most Muslims, I challenge the accuracy of thre above starment, both in the claim that Islam is the same religion as Moses and Jesus, and rhar it has more detail.
1. "The same" religion:
What is meant by the "same religion" is open ro interpretation. Jesus.was a Jew, and believed as divinely inspire and aurhoritive rhe Old Testament as we have it today and lived and practiced as a Jew, including celebrating Jewish festivals and holy days such as Passover. Islam does not celdbrate these Jewish holidays, nor does it follow Jewish customs, nor does Islam accept the Old Testament that Jesus beliieved in. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating from around the time of Jesus, is essenrially the same as today's Old Testament and contradicts the Koran and what Muslims believe in a numbsr of major points. For exampe, unlike the Koran and what Muslims believe, it was Isaac, not Ishmael, that God.commanded Abraham ro offer as a sacrifice.(God was just testing Abraham, and did not allow.the sacrifice), for example. The oft made Muslim claim that the Old and New Testament were corrupted anx changes is not supported by the evidence - there was never any versions od rhe Bible that support what Muslims claimed. I
Simply because a religion borrows, plagarizes and rips off elements of another religion does not make it the as the religion it is plagarizing. Jesus appears in the Manichaeism, but Manichaeism did not evolve from Christianity, and no scholar thinks Manichaeism is the same religion as Christianity. Christianity was popular at the time of Mani, founder of Manichaeism, and so he incorporated some of the teachings of Jesus, and Buddha and Zoroaster into religions. Likewise, Hong Xiaquan, who claimed to Jesus' younger brother, incorporated Christian elements along with beliefz of tradirional Chinese relifions into his movement, but was never a Christian. Because Muhammad borrowed heavily from the 2 mosr popular religions of his time, Judaism and Chrisrianity, does not make Islam the same as them, any more than Manichaeism is the same as Christianity. Most Muslims would reject the claim that the Baha'i fairh is the same religion as Islam. Many Christians and Jews feel about Muslims claim that Islam is thd same religion as Muslims would feel if adherents to Baha'i said it was the same Islam.
2. The claim that Islam gave more detail is also a debatable point. Thr Koran includes none of Jesus actual teachings, no "turn the other cheek", "love your neighbor as yourself", "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", "forgive those who sin against you", "judge not (others) lest you be judged", "those who live by the swoed shall die by the sword", nor any of Jesus wonderful parables like Good Samaritan. Nor any of the details of Jesus healing miracles given, no details of giving sight to the blind, of how he made rhe lame.walk. There is nothing like the story of Jesus healing the epilectic boy in Mark 9:14- 29 to be found in the Koran. The desperate father who is at his wits end comes to Jesus begging for help, asking Jesus to have pity and heal his boy if Jesus can, which Jesus tells the father all things are possible to those who believe, at which point the believes and ask Jesus to overcome his doubts. It tells believers the important point that if you want God to perform miracles you need to have fairh God perform miracles, a detail the Koran leaves out. Unlike the Gospels, the Koran tells us neither why a particular was performed or rhe lesson associated with the miracle.
And rhe Koran tells us nothing about Jesus arrest, trial or crucifixion. While the Koran asserts that Jesus wasn't crucified or died on the cross (a claim contradicted by everybody else, Christians, Jews, and pagans), it gives us no details of how that happened. In contrast to Islam's assertion without details, the Gospels give a kinds of details. We are told when Jesus was arrested (very early Friday*), when his trial and execution (Friday at the time of Passover), who tried him and who executed him (Pontius Pilate, and the Roman soldiers). Islam has less details, not more.
That that Islam gives less details is not surprising, since rhd Koran is only as long as the New Testament, but has to cover Old Testament, New Testament, and the time of Muhammad. Worse, not only is the Koran much shorter than thd Bible, but it waste space giving directions on how to divide up inheritance that has no relevance outside of 7th Arabia, and tells us nothing about the divine nature or character of the eternal almighty God. Islam tells us nothing that Jews and Christians didn't already know.