# Major Differences Between Modern-Day Judiasm and Modern-Day Islam? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 9, 2011, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-differences-between-modern-day-judiasm-and-modern-day-islam/581330 "2011-05-09T21:29:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-differences-between-modern-day-judiasm-and-modern-day-islam/581330/161 "2011-05-13T01:02:53Z")
Can someone explain what bedrock-basic is? Judaism didn’t start as _strictly monotheistic_ religion. It recognized other gods – just thought them inferior. That’s pretty prevalent in the Torah. It evolved into the monotheism we know today, which, I assume, has been stamped and sealed by Rambam but is still somewhat open. (Again, we had the discussion of “How can you not believe in God and be a Jew?” awhile ago.) [quote=“blinkthrice, post:156, topic:581330”] I’m muslim and after reading through this thread I though I’d make a few points: -Muslims don’t believe in three prophets, we believe in every prophet mentioned in the Torah. There are distinctions between “nabi’s’” and “rasools” in that rasools are given scripture and new laws for their respective nations to follow. Nabi’s’ are minor prophets, and more or less warners. Moses(Torah) Jesus(gospel) and Muhammad(Quran) were all rasools. All rasools are nabi’s’, but all nabi’s’ are not rasools. A perfect example of a nabi would be someone like lot, or Joseph. ^^ yeah, that. we have minor and major prophets as well. I guess if I were to make a (weak) analogy, I’d say Moses is to Jews as Muhammad is to Muslims. > [@](#): > > -it’s pretty pointless arguing about which religion is closer to the other, as Islam is considered by Muslims to be the middle path. In my opinion if we are going to talk about the similarities between Judaism and Islam and how they relate to each other, we should bring up the interesting fact that according to Jewish law, it is permissible for a Jew to pray inside of a mosque, since both religions are monotheistic and worship the God of Abraham. It is not permissible for a jew to offer his prayers inside of a church, since both Jews and Christians see Christianity as a subtle form of idolatry. These points are far more intriguing than the whole kosher/halal thing IMO. A Jew can pray anywhere. A Jew cannot pray to another god or enter a house of idolatry, however. I think that the rulings on Islam in the early rabbinic law is because Jews lived in Muslim lands. I wouldn’t pray _in_ a mosque because that seems rather odd - Islam today isn’t what it was 13000 years ago. Nor is Judaism. I’d wager that Jews today don’t see Muslims as _sons of Ishmael_ (+ your religion says that Ishmael was the original sacrifice, right?) but rather,\* followers of Muhammad\* (because of the controversy, change, and politics over the last thousand years). Still, if Islam is not a house of idolatry (as Christianity was viewed), I suppose it would be acceptable to _enter_ a mosque if you were an Torah-following observant Jew…though Torah-following Jews argue on plenty, so meh. Rambam kind of sealed the _God is One_ deal (possibly in response to the political climate of the time - monotheistic rulers and dualist oppressors) but Rambam’s 13 Principles of Faith is something that’s not canon in all streams of Judaism. It’s minor, actually. The way that Islam came about in early Jewish history was a relief for many Jews - while they didn’t recognize it as ‘equal’, they did find relief in another religion that wasn’t ‘pagan’. The fact that Muslims decreed that _there was only one God and His name ain’t Jesus_ was huge in the rabbinic period. I think Malthus and Dio are saying that _belief that only one God exists_ is the core center of Judaism that has always been there. That’s not true. The Jewish God was one that did not need an earthly idol (not that it wasn’t done). The Jewish God has a relationship with Jews. It is not aloof to the world. _That_ kind of idea is the one we share with Muslims. It doesn’t mean our opinions on what God wants or what He does or what He thinks is alike. It just says that we both have an affinity for an idea of a personal big G god that cannot be split from himself. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-differences-between-modern-day-judiasm-and-modern-day-islam/581330/162 "2011-05-13T01:07:02Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Islam today isn’t what it was 13000 years ago. Nor is Judaism. Heck, even Scientology isn’t what it was 13,000 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-differences-between-modern-day-judiasm-and-modern-day-islam/581330/163 "2011-05-13T01:10:11Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Can someone explain what bedrock-basic is? It’s the language Fred Flintstone’s Commodore 64 came with. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-differences-between-modern-day-judiasm-and-modern-day-islam/581330/164 "2011-05-13T01:21:16Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Seems pretty authoritative to me. I’d never heard of this particular issue being raised before, but the resolution, as described in your link, absolutely makes sense - as, of course, the most significant issue for Jews is the adherence to monotheism. > > I did know that Muslims were considered to qualify for being “Noahides” under Jewish law, whereas there is great debate whether Trinitine Christians would. > > [The “Noahide” laws are the seven basic laws that, in Jewish tradition, are binding on all of humanity: non-Jews who are good “Noahides” are, in Jewish tradition, considered fully as righteous as good observant Jews, even though they are not Jewish. The seven laws are: > > Prohibition of Idolatry > Prohibition of Murder > Prohibition of Theft > Prohibition of Sexual immorality > Prohibition of Blasphemy > Prohibition of eating flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive > Establishment of law courts > > The term “Noahide” derives from the fact that these laws were binding on Noah, who though clearly a righteous person, was of course not a Jew; therefore, logically, someone who acted as Noah did must also be “righteous”, even if not a Jew. ] > > The problem, for Christians, is the “no idolitary” law. The issue is whether believing in the Trinity violates that _ab initio_. Here is an interesting discussion of the debate (in summary, some say yes and some say no): > > [http://www.wikinoah.org/index.php/Christianity\_and\_Noahide\_Law](http://www.wikinoah.org/index.php/Christianity_and_Noahide_Law) > > Compare with Islam - almost all commentators agree a Muslim can be a Noahide. > > [http://www.wikinoah.org/index.php?title=Islam\_and\_Noahide\_Law](http://www.wikinoah.org/index.php?title=Islam_and_Noahide_Law) Don’t forget the Druze! 😛 In today’s times, a Righteous Gentile can be applied to Christians. It’s not really a debate unless you’re on the fringe. Consider the nature of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the times of the Talmud. Then consider the political climate of Rambam and the context in which he was familiar with Christianity. (He wrote the Mishneh Torah in the 1100s, and he’s responsible for the 13 Principles and the texts on Christianity and Jews.) ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-differences-between-modern-day-judiasm-and-modern-day-islam/581330/165 "2011-05-13T01:25:17Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Heck, even Scientology isn’t what it was 13,000 years ago. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-differences-between-modern-day-judiasm-and-modern-day-islam/581330/166 "2011-05-13T01:29:22Z")
> [@](#): > > there was only one God and His name ain’t Jesus If I didn’t already have the best sig… ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-differences-between-modern-day-judiasm-and-modern-day-islam/581330/167 "2011-05-13T13:59:55Z")
[quote=“CitizenPained, post:161, topic:581330”] Can someone explain what bedrock-basic is? Judaism didn’t start as _strictly monotheistic_ religion. It recognized other gods – just thought them inferior. That’s pretty prevalent in the Torah. It evolved into the monotheism we know today, which, I assume, has been stamped and sealed by Rambam but is still somewhat open. (Again, we had the discussion of “How can you not believe in God and be a Jew?” awhile ago.) > [@blinkthrice](#): > > I’m muslim and after reading through this thread I though I’d make a few points: > > -Muslims don’t believe in three prophets, we believe in every prophet mentioned in the Torah. There are distinctions between “nabi’s’” and “rasools” in that rasools are given scripture and new laws for their respective nations to follow. Nabi’s’ are minor prophets, and more or less warners. Moses(Torah) Jesus(gospel) and Muhammad(Quran) were all rasools. All rasools are nabi’s’, but all nabi’s’ are not rasools. A perfect example of a nabi would be someone like lot, or Joseph. > > ^^ yeah, that. we have minor and major prophets as well. I guess if I were to make a (weak) analogy, I’d say Moses is to Jews as Muhammad is to Muslims. > > A Jew can pray anywhere. A Jew cannot pray to another god or enter a house of idolatry, however. I think that the rulings on Islam in the early rabbinic law is because Jews lived in Muslim lands. I wouldn’t pray _in_ a mosque because that seems rather odd - Islam today isn’t what it was 13000 years ago. Nor is Judaism. > > I’d wager that Jews today don’t see Muslims as _sons of Ishmael_ (+ your religion says that Ishmael was the original sacrifice, right?) but rather,\* followers of Muhammad\* (because of the controversy, change, and politics over the last thousand years). Still, if Islam is not a house of idolatry (as Christianity was viewed), I suppose it would be acceptable to _enter_ a mosque if you were an Torah-following observant Jew…though Torah-following Jews argue on plenty, so meh. > > Rambam kind of sealed the _God is One_ deal (possibly in response to the political climate of the time - monotheistic rulers and dualist oppressors) but Rambam’s 13 Principles of Faith is something that’s not canon in all streams of Judaism. It’s minor, actually. The way that Islam came about in early Jewish history was a relief for many Jews - while they didn’t recognize it as ‘equal’, they did find relief in another religion that wasn’t ‘pagan’. The fact that Muslims decreed that _there was only one God and His name ain’t Jesus_ was huge in the rabbinic period. > > I think Malthus and Dio are saying that _belief that only one God exists_ is the core center of Judaism that has always been there. That’s not true. The Jewish God was one that did not need an earthly idol (not that it wasn’t done). > > The Jewish God has a relationship with Jews. It is not aloof to the world. > > _That_ kind of idea is the one we share with Muslims. It doesn’t mean our opinions on what God wants or what He does or what He thinks is alike. It just says that we both have an affinity for an idea of a personal big G god that cannot be split from himself. Naw, the Jew thing isn’t that only one god _exists_, but that you should only _worship_ the one God. Originally, this one God was simply the tribal god of the Jews (perhaps the head god of a pantheon, or at least, one with a consort-godess). He sort of resembled a tribal chief or patriarch in personality - only, writ large. As time went on, and rabbinically-minded Jews became interested in Greek philosophy and the like, they mingled their notion of a jealous tribal chief-god with concepts of perfection and universality. Their crabby tribal chief-type god (perhaps equipped with a goddess-wife) became the universal god-principle, incoporeal, single, awesome and unimaginable, that we all know and love from the Book of Job. Naturally, this posed all sorts of philosophical problems, not least how to deal with other peoples - and their gods. Are they following false gods, or lesser gods, or what? The decision seems to have been made at some point that there was only one True God™, and that idolitary - worship of the object rather than the actual - was bad and wrong. However, Judaism remained open to the notion that other people, in worshiping their own god, may not be committing idolitary - hence, the Noahide laws. It was easier for Jews to accept this of Muslims (and Druze!) than of Christians, and easier to accept this of Christians than (say) of Hindus … for the simple reason that the concept of God is very similar in Islam, not so similar in Christianty (but still "akin’ as Christianity of course derived from Judaism), and of a different origin in Hinduism. However, reluctantly, over the centuries (and increasingly these days) Jewish thought is moving towards a sort of syncretism in its notion of God - if God is really the awesome and incoporeal creator of the universe, rather than some obscure iron-age tribal chiefdom-deity of a small and unremarkable tribal nation, then “he” is simply worshipped in different guises by different folks - he’s not only God, but Allah and Jesus … and Brahma (and presumably Zeus and Odin) … so long as those who worship “him” are, broadly speaking, doing so in ways that are universally seen as morally good. That’s the logical trajectory of the Noahide laws. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-differences-between-modern-day-judiasm-and-modern-day-islam/581330/168 "2011-05-14T00:55:57Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > What you are missing is that pagans were not “wiped out”. Most accepted conversion to Christianity easily, and from the “top down”: that is, the leaders, convinced of the benefits of joining Christianity, converted, and soon so too did their followers. > > There were actually reasonably few _forcible_ conversions to Christianity - for example, the forcible conversion of the Saxons by Charlemagne. In most cases, conversion within Christianity was actually reasonably peaceable, and in all cases it was reasonably swift; and it in no way resembled the centuries-long oppression of the Jews. > > Indeed, the very notion of the Inquisition was originally triggered, not by pagans, but by Christian heritics - the Cathars; and soon it focused on the Muslims and Jews of Spain in the post-reconquista. > > The conversion of the pagans was made easier by the fact that Christianity is easy to make “local” by the inclusion of local saints and the like. The idea that the pagans were _exterminated_ is laughable - I mean, there are no Germans any more? No Anglo-Saxons? The modern royalty of Britian still traces its ancestry, ultimately, to Wotan. 😃 I actually specifically noted the people did not disappear. However I think just within the past month on these very forums there was a thread in which Jews said it would be “sad” if the next generation of Jews abandoned Judaism. If all Jews totally abandoned the cultural and religious aspects of being Jewish, what exactly is left at that point? Vaguely defined ethnic connections? That’s precisely what happened to pre-Christian European cultures, they were destroyed. It’s also very disingenuous to talk about how it was bloodless. You are correct that there was very little “I’m King Henry the Christian I will now slaughter all my pagan subjects until they convert!” Because that isn’t how Dark Ages and Middle Age Europe worked. What instead happened was Christian rulers waged countless wars against pagan rulers. As pagans they were afforded no real respect or protection, and no one cared if you waged war on them. These pagan rulers saw that if they converted to Christianity it became a bit more difficult for other Christian rulers to just grab their land on the basis of the fact that pagan rulers have no special right to own land. Once you entered into the community of Christian rulers by and large it meant people had to find torturous legalistic or inheritance based excuses to take your land. Obviously it didn’t mean other rulers didn’t take your land, but it became more difficult and you gained a degree of predictability to your situation. Further, as a member of the Christian community you could more easily swear fealty to a more powerful neighbor who was a Christian. Without becoming Christian you couldn’t pledge fealty to a powerful Christian ruler to avoid losing everything you had. Once you were a Christian you could just swear fealty, knock some money up the ladder and mostly be left alone, since society remained heavily decentralized in Europe until long past the time when paganism was wiped out. So the pagan rulers converted because the alternative was they didn’t get to be rulers anymore. Pagan subjects of those rulers converted because it was either convert, die, or flee. With the encroachment of the Christian world their options for flight were limited, and with the limited mobility of people in general their options for flight were limited. If they had simply refused to convert they _would_ have definitely been persecuted and killed. There was no option to establish “pagan religious” zones inside Christian lands, period. On the other hand many rulers throughout Germany and Poland openly enticed Jewish settlement, and while their communities were often lesser and their people afforded fewer rights, there was no comparable means for other non-Christian groups to have any form of life under Christian rulers. In some ways Christians actually treated Jews more leniently than they treated other Christians. If you adjust the scale, far more Christians died over disagreements about how to properly practice Christianity in European history than the number of Jews who were killed by Christian persecution. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-differences-between-modern-day-judiasm-and-modern-day-islam/581330.md?page=8)