We (cultural Muslim, I am still quite fond of Muhammad and Islamic cultural heritage) basically treat the OT and NT as very rough outlines of what happened canonically, because we believe priests have been distorting everything to fit their current interests. It’s tainted evidence, so to speak. So, while Allah (lit. “The [One] God”) and Jehovah may be the same person, they do not share the same personality. Allah is characterized much more of a “stric, but fair God”, and far less of a monster than Jehovah. He is also much more aloof, distant, and inhuman, almost an abstract concept rather than a “person”. I refer you to wikipedia if you are really interesting to learn more: I have found there articles that were enlightening even to me, and there is much there that the average fundamentalist muslim is not aware of.
Sorry if I am being redundant, I just can’t shake the feeling that my writing might have been a bit ambiguous in the original post: I must insist that all the corporeal punishing and the woman patronising are in fact NOT practiced by most Muslims, and the numbers of those who DO practice it are steadily diminishing as we speak. It’s just that people refuse to think about it. I, on the other hand, was determined to be a true, honest Muslim, regardless of convenience or social convention, as well as a good man, and that truly tore my heart apart.
Just curious—I was under the impression that Muslims considered their god to be the same entity as the Christian/Jewish god. Is that not the case?
We (cultural Muslim, I am still quite fond of Muhammad and Islamic cultural heritage) basically treat the OT and NT as very rough outlines of what happened canonically, because we believe priests have been distorting everything to fit their current interests. It’s tainted evidence, so to speak. So, while Allah (lit. “The [One] God”) and Jehovah may be the same person, they do not share the same personality. Allah is characterized much more of a “stric, but fair God”, and far less of a monster than Jehovah. He is also much more aloof, distant, and inhuman, almost an abstract concept rather than a “person”. I refer you to wikipedia if you are really interesting to learn more: I have found there articles that were enlightening even to me, and there is much there that the average fundamentalist muslim is not aware of.
Sorry if I am being redundant, I just can’t shake the feeling that my writing might have been a bit ambiguous in the original post: I must insist that all the corporeal punishing and the woman patronising are in fact NOT practiced by most Muslims, and the numbers of those who DO practice it are steadily diminishing as we speak. It’s just that people refuse to think about it. I, on the other hand, was determined to be a true, honest Muslim, regardless of convenience or social convention, as well as a good man, and that truly tore my heart apart.