I can’t say I have a very high opinion of Muslims at the moment (as a group, not individuals) — (yes I’m admitting to a prejudice, get over it, you have them too) – so I see comparing Muslims and Mormons as comparing well … sour grapes and chocolate milkshakes.
Here’s one I’d be interested in comparing though: from my experiences with Mormons (mostly very positive), I have found that they absolutely will NOT let their fellow Mormons and/or neighbors/widows starve. They’re always doing stuff for each other, fixing roofs on houses, taking over a casserole, etc.
Do Muslims do stuff like that in their own communities?
It’s not just their fellow Mormons the LDS don’t let starve. Whole wards have been known, even in the extremely recent past, to provide for the needs of entire congregations of other faiths, even to the extent of providing a meeting hall for the other faith’s services.
Jomo & Dravin:
IIRC, the Islamic view of what the Messiah was is just that’s what the followers of Jesus (i.e., the Christians) called Jesus.
Yep. Alms-giving to the poor is one of the pillars of Islamic belief. The Muslim world generally, whatever else you can say about it, as far as I can tell has very well-developed philanthropic sensibilities. Indeed, one of the reasons for the popularity of Islamist groups in certain areas, is that they are often heavily involved in charitable works ( often rather more effectively than the central government ).
To add on to CalMeacham’s post, early Christianity also had a split between the family of Jesus and his followers. As in Islam and LDS, the “family” sect was greatly outnumbered, and pretty much died out. I’m not sure what to make of all of this, except that religions fracture, and that I can think of several reasons why followers would numerically triumph over family.