Why Islam is not Christian

[Colin]

Some of our regulars on here have called it a Christian heresy.

Which regulars on here said that ?

 

[Michie]

Which regulars on here said that ?

Mark did I think.

 

[dzheremi]

The view that Islam is or was essentially a Christian heresy is found among many of the earliest Christian sources dealing with that religion. Most prominent among them from the Chalcedonians is probably John of Damascus, who was contemporaneous with the early Muslim generations (he died in 749), and wrote "On the Heresy of the Ishmaelites" as a chapter of his larger work The Fount of Knowledge. There he contrasts the Christian faith he knew against the objections of the Muslims he was surrounded by, noting those things the Muslims accept and giving responses to the things that they do not. It is probably important here to note that the root of the word 'heresy' is in the Greek word for 'choice', making this approach to Islam quite reasonable for people who would've seen Islam as nothing more than another in a long line of heresies that distorted the truth of Christianity by mixing truth with lies (seeing as how Muslims affirm Christ being God's word, as well as His virgin birth and His second coming, but deny His divinity and His death and resurrection).

From outside the Chalcedonian world, there is the legend of (Sergius) Bahira, which is found in early Muslim sources such as Ibn Hisham (d. 828) and Al Tabari (d. 923), but also in early Syriac sources of the 8th century, by authors in that part of the world who were contending with the new Muslim administration. Syriac versions of the legend tend to describe Muhammad as misled into believing his 'prophethood' by a Nestorian monk (indicating that the authors themselves were Orthodox Syriacs, as no Christian worth his salt then or now would want to claim Muhammad or his religion), who imparted to Muhammad his own confused Christology from which Muhammad drew conclusions about Christianity which are responsible for the...let's say fanciful understanding of Christianity found in the Qur'an itself. There have also been various polemical works by Chalcedonians which have laid the fault for Islam on my own church, such as referenced in O'Leary's How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs (I don't have my books at hand right now or else I'd just reference the original work from which O'Leary draws), which would likewise make it essentially a Christian heresy (that is, if you believe that non-Chalcedonians are Christians ).

And finally there is the fact that some of the material actually found in the Qur'an itself (e.g., the story of Jesus speaking from the cradle about his supposed Islamic mission in Surah 19) has been rather uncontroversially accepted for a long time to have come from earlier Christian apocryphal sources, albeit obviously tweaked to fit Islam's distinctive prophetology. From wikipedia (a horrible source, I know, but good for a quick comparison like this in a simple internet messageboard post), we can compare the two. First the Arabic Infancy Gospel (translated from the 5th century Syriac original; keep in mind that Muhammad was only born in the 6th century, so obviously this would've predated the invention of Islam), we read:

[v2] "He has said that Jesus spoke, and, indeed, when He was lying in His cradle said to Mary His mother: I am Jesus, the Son of God, the Logos, whom thou hast brought forth, as the Angel Gabriel announced to thee; and my Father has sent me for the salvation of the world."

And from the Yusuf Ali translation of the Qur'an, we read:

[19:29-34] "But she pointed to the babe. They said: "How can we talk to one who is a child in the cradle?" He said: "I am indeed a servant of Allah: He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet; And He hath made me blessed wheresoever I be, and hath enjoined on me Prayer and Charity as long as I live; (He) hath made me kind to my mother, and not overbearing or miserable; So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life (again)"! Such (was) Jesus the son of Mary: (it is) a statement of truth, about which they (vainly) dispute."

Gee! What a surprise! In the Christian version, which predates the Muslim one, He says distinctly Christian stuff, while in the Muslim version, He says distinctly Islamic stuff!

Given the obviously self-serving recension/stealing from Muhammad here, it's pretty easy to see how early Christians could've considered Islam to essentially be a Christian heresy. In fact, I'm not sure when exactly this view fell out of favor. Probably among different people at different times. I've known some EO people who still call it that, with a nod towards John of Damascus, who is a saint in their communion. I don't think that's terribly common in my own church, however, given how turned off we generally are from associating anything Islamic with our religion (1400 years of being ruled by these people and their false religion will do that). But the fact is that they are associated -- from Islamic historians flipping around history and apocryphal legends of Assyrian monks in Muhammad's favor, and Muhammad himself -- errr....excuse me...the writer of the Qur'an -- doing the same with apocryphal Christian gospels, as with the Syriac/Arabic Infancy Gospel example given above. By far the lion's share of Jefferey's seminal 1938 work on foreign (non-Arabic) vocabulary in the Qur'an is taken up by words derived or directly borrowed from Syriac, too, meaning that a lot of the terminology that Muslims consider to be "pure, clear Arabic", including even religious terminology, is also (ahem) 'borrowed' from preexisting Christians and refashioned to fit Islam. And this only makes sense (similar to how we inherited much from the Jews, while of course putting out own spin on things), as despite Islamic apologists' insistence to the contrary, there were plenty of Christians present among the Arabs before Islam. It was not just pagans, Jews, and a few scattered Christians here or there. Granted, Christianity never took off among the Arabs as a whole in Arabia proper (for the many interesting sociological and linguistic reasons for this, see Trimingham 1979 Christianity Among the Arabs in Pre-Islamic Times), but plenty of individual tribes were Christian, or became mostly Christian in the centuries before Muhammad. In Arabia proper, there were the Banu Taghlib (in Bahrain) and the Kalb (descended from Yemenites), as well as the more well-known Ghassanids (also originally Yemenites) and Lakhmids (ditto). The Lakhmids founded the first Arab kingdom outside of Arabia proper at Al-Hira, in what is now Iraq, c. 300 AD. Even the Qur'an itself testifies to a historical Christian presence in the Najran region of what is today Saudi Arabia through its retelling of the Christian martyrs killed there by Dhu Nawas, the last Himyarite (Yemenite Jewish) king. Granted, there (in Sura Al-Buruj; popularly known as "The People of the Ditch" story) they are stripped of their distinctly Christian identities and are only referred to as "believers in God", but we know they are Christians because of pre-existing, pre-Qur'anic accounts of their martyrdom which match what information is found in Islamic sources in terms of year and place (collected and translated from Syriac sources in, e.g., Brock and Harvey Holy Women of the Syrian Orient).

 

[Colin]

Mark did I think.

This is one of the big problems on this forum , Michie .

You aren't sure .

Too often there is a dearth of facts .


It was said that some of our regularS on here have called it a Christian heresy.

I would like to know who these regulars are .

It's not the first time in recent days that the alleged words of members have been used as a source for new threads .

When asked about what these members actually said it's been errrrr , well mmm , well they didn't really say that .

 

[Michie]

This is one of the big problems on this forum , Michie .

You aren't sure .

Too often there is a dearth of facts .


It was said that some of our regularS on here have called it a Christian heresy.

I would like to know who these regulars are .

It's not the first time in recent days that the alleged words of members have been used as a source for new threads .

When asked about what these members actually said it's been errrrr , well mmm , well they didn't really say that .

I read it myself. Unfortunately I have not had time to search it out.

 

[LivingWordUnity]

I would like to know who these regulars are.

We'll see who as the thread goes on.

 

[Michie]

It was post 113 if the how many paths to God thread.

 

[LivingWordUnity]

The view that Islam is or was essentially a Christian heresy is found among many of the earliest Christian sources dealing with that religion. Most prominent among them from the Chalcedonians is probably John of Damascus, who was contemporaneous with the early Muslim generations (he died in 749), and wrote "On the Heresy of the Ishmaelites" as a chapter of his larger work The Fount of Knowledge. There he contrasts the Christian faith he knew against the objections of the Muslims he was surrounded by, noting those things the Muslims accept and giving responses to the things that they do not. It is probably important here to note that the root of the word 'heresy' is in the Greek word for 'choice', making this approach to Islam quite reasonable for people who would've seen Islam as nothing more than another in a long line of heresies that distorted the truth of Christianity by mixing truth with lies (seeing as how Muslims affirm Christ being God's word, as well as His virgin birth and His second coming, but deny His divinity and His death and resurrection).

From outside the Chalcedonian world, there is the legend of (Sergius) Bahira, which is found in early Muslim sources such as Ibn Hisham (d. 828) and Al Tabari (d. 923), but also in early Syriac sources of the 8th century, by authors in that part of the world who were contending with the new Muslim administration. Syriac versions of the legend tend to describe Muhammad as misled into believing his 'prophethood' by a Nestorian monk (indicating that the authors themselves were Orthodox Syriacs, as no Christian worth his salt then or now would want to claim Muhammad or his religion), who imparted to Muhammad his own confused Christology from which Muhammad drew conclusions about Christianity which are responsible for the...let's say fanciful understanding of Christianity found in the Qur'an itself. There have also been various polemical works by Chalcedonians which have laid the fault for Islam on my own church, such as referenced in O'Leary's How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs (I don't have my books at hand right now or else I'd just reference the original work from which O'Leary draws), which would likewise make it essentially a Christian heresy (that is, if you believe that non-Chalcedonians are Christians ).

And finally there is the fact that some of the material actually found in the Qur'an itself (e.g., the story of Jesus speaking from the cradle about his supposed Islamic mission in Surah 19) has been rather uncontroversially accepted for a long time to have come from earlier Christian apocryphal sources, albeit obviously tweaked to fit Islam's distinctive prophetology. From wikipedia (a horrible source, I know, but good for a quick comparison like this in a simple internet messageboard post), we can compare the two. First the Arabic Infancy Gospel (translated from the 5th century Syriac original; keep in mind that Muhammad was only born in the 6th century, so obviously this would've predated the invention of Islam), we read:

[v2] "He has said that Jesus spoke, and, indeed, when He was lying in His cradle said to Mary His mother: I am Jesus, the Son of God, the Logos, whom thou hast brought forth, as the Angel Gabriel announced to thee; and my Father has sent me for the salvation of the world."

And from the Yusuf Ali translation of the Qur'an, we read:

[19:29-34] "But she pointed to the babe. They said: "How can we talk to one who is a child in the cradle?" He said: "I am indeed a servant of Allah: He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet; And He hath made me blessed wheresoever I be, and hath enjoined on me Prayer and Charity as long as I live; (He) hath made me kind to my mother, and not overbearing or miserable; So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life (again)"! Such (was) Jesus the son of Mary: (it is) a statement of truth, about which they (vainly) dispute."

Gee! What a surprise! In the Christian version, which predates the Muslim one, He says distinctly Christian stuff, while in the Muslim version, He says distinctly Islamic stuff!

Given the obviously self-serving recension/stealing from Muhammad here, it's pretty easy to see how early Christians could've considered Islam to essentially be a Christian heresy. In fact, I'm not sure when exactly this view fell out of favor. Probably among different people at different times. I've known some EO people who still call it that, with a nod towards John of Damascus, who is a saint in their communion. I don't think that's terribly common in my own church, however, given how turned off we generally are from associating anything Islamic with our religion (1400 years of being ruled by these people and their false religion will do that). But the fact is that they are associated -- from Islamic historians flipping around history and apocryphal legends of Assyrian monks in Muhammad's favor, and Muhammad himself -- errr....excuse me...the writer of the Qur'an -- doing the same with apocryphal Christian gospels, as with the Syriac/Arabic Infancy Gospel example given above. By far the lion's share of Jefferey's seminal 1938 work on foreign (non-Arabic) vocabulary in the Qur'an is taken up by words derived or directly borrowed from Syriac, too, meaning that a lot of the terminology that Muslims consider to be "pure, clear Arabic", including even religious terminology, is also (ahem) 'borrowed' from preexisting Christians and refashioned to fit Islam. And this only makes sense (similar to how we inherited much from the Jews, while of course putting out own spin on things), as despite Islamic apologists' insistence to the contrary, there were plenty of Christians present among the Arabs before Islam. It was not just pagans, Jews, and a few scattered Christians here or there. Granted, Christianity never took off among the Arabs as a whole in Arabia proper (for the many interesting sociological and linguistic reasons for this, see Trimingham 1979 Christianity Among the Arabs in Pre-Islamic Times), but plenty of individual tribes were Christian, or became mostly Christian in the centuries before Muhammad. In Arabia proper, there were the Banu Taghlib (in Bahrain) and the Kalb (descended from Yemenites), as well as the more well-known Ghassanids (also originally Yemenites) and Lakhmids (ditto). The Lakhmids founded the first Arab kingdom outside of Arabia proper at Al-Hira, in what is now Iraq, c. 300 AD. Even the Qur'an itself testifies to a historical Christian presence in the Najran region of what is today Saudi Arabia through its retelling of the Christian martyrs killed there by Dhu Nawas, the last Himyarite (Yemenite Jewish) king. Granted, there (in Sura Al-Buruj; popularly known as "The People of the Ditch" story) they are stripped of their distinctly Christian identities and are only referred to as "believers in God", but we know they are Christians because of pre-existing, pre-Qur'anic accounts of their martyrdom which match what information is found in Islamic sources in terms of year and place (collected and translated from Syriac sources in, e.g., Brock and Harvey Holy Women of the Syrian Orient).

If Islam can be called a Christian heresy then nearly every religion can since nearly every religion has something in it that can be compared to something in Christianity. I think calling Islam a Christian heresy is pure wishful thinking. For something to be a Christian heresy it has to at least claim to be Christian. Islam makes no such claim. And Islam teaches directly against Christianity in the Quran and calls Christians misled for believing in the core beliefs that make us Christians.

 

[Michie]

I agree.

If Islam can be called a Christian heresy then nearly every religion can since nearly every religion has something in it that can be compared to something in Christianity. I think calling it a Christian heresy is pure wishful thinking. For something to be a Christian heresy it has to at least claim to be Christian. Islam makes no such claim. And Islam teaches directly against Christianity in the Quran and calls Christians misled for believing in the things that make us Christians.

 

[topcare]

I have never considered Islam Christian anything. The beginnings of its history testifies to that. It is a grab bag of this and that to suit it's founder.

I do not even believe they worship the same God as Christians

 

[topcare]

The charge that I created this thread to hate on Muslims is simply not true

Anything that comes against something that they don't like automatically say we hate people in that group, it's a way to vilify us.

 

[Michie]

I do not even believe they worship the same God as Christians

I really struggle understanding how they could given the way they have perverted Christianity. I can see Jews worshipping God the Father as depicted in the OT but I cannot reconcile it at all in Islam.

 

[dzheremi]

If Islam can be called a Christian heresy then nearly every religion can since nearly every religion has something in it that can be compared to something in Christianity. I think calling Islam a Christian heresy is pure wishful thinking. For something to be a Christian heresy it has to at least claim to be Christian.

That's fine. I don't personally think of it as one, either. My only point was that historically and to some extent presently it has been thought of as one. And it's not that something can be compared to Christianity that makes it heresy; it's that it claims whichever bits and pieces of the Christian narrative and belief that it agrees with while disregarding or warping other parts to fit its own purposes that makes it one. Hence 'heresy' comes from 'choice' (αἵρεσις), i.e., to follow a sect or splinter group with its own theology and practice set against that of the majority/Orthodox party, or to put forth an opinion that does that. Islam certainly fits these definitions. And neither does a heresy need to claim to be Christian in order to be called heresy by the early Church. The Patristic use of the word heresy includes not only false teachings arising from within the Church, but also things from outside the Church like Manichaeism. Mani was never a Christian and never claimed to be one or to teach Christianity, and yet Eutychius of Alexandria (EO Patriarch), St. Ephrem the Syrian, and others within various Christian traditions wrote against it. Most famously among the Latins (and so, most important to people on this board, I would think), St. Augustine wrote several works against Manichaeism and its followers. Here is a partial list of his works dealing with Manichaeism, from Schaff's History of the Christian Church:

"St. Augustine (d. 430, the chief Latin authority next to the translation of Archelaus). [Besides the treatises published in Clark's series, Contra Fortunatum quendam Manichaeorum Presbyterum Disput. I. et II., Contra Adimantum Manichaei discipulum, Contra Secundinum Manichaeum, De Natura Boni, De duabus Animabus, De Utilitate Credendi, De Haeres. XLVI. Of these, De duabus Animabus, Contra Fortunatum, and De Natura Boni are added in the present edition, and De Utilitate Credendi has been included among Augustine's shorter theological treatises in vol. III. of the present series. In the Confessions and the Letters, moreover, the Manichaeans figure prominently. The treatises included in the present series may be said to fairly represent Augustine's manner of dealing with Manichaeism. The Anti-Manichaean writings are found chiefly in vol. VIII. of the Benedictine edition, and in volumes I. and XI. of the Migne reprint. Augustine's personal connection with the sect extending over a period of nine years, and his consummate ability in dealing with this form of error, together with the fact that he quotes largely from Manichaean literature, render his works the highest authority for Manichaeism as it existed in the West at the close of the fifth century.] Comp. also the Acts of Councils against the Manichaeans from the fourth century onwards, in Mansi and Hefele [and Hardouin]." (more at source)

 

[LivingWordUnity]

I really struggle understanding how they could given the way they have perverted Christianity. I can see Jews worshipping God the Father as depicted in the OT but I cannot reconcile it at all in Islam.

Calling God our Father is something that Christians and Jews share in common. But Muslims call it blasphemy. The religion of Islam is against the core teachings of our faith, and it denies that the Jews are God's first chosen people.

 

[MoonlessNight]

If Islam can be called a Christian heresy then nearly every religion can since nearly every religion has something in it that can be compared to something in Christianity. I think calling Islam a Christian heresy is pure wishful thinking. For something to be a Christian heresy it has to at least claim to be Christian. Islam makes no such claim. And Islam teaches directly against Christianity in the Quran and calls Christians misled for believing in the core beliefs that make us Christians.

An important test case for considering whether Islam is a Christian heresy is to consider whether Mormonism can be called a Christian heresy. Both profess all sorts of doctrine which is completely incompatible with any common Christian teaching, but at the same time both have their roots in Christian thought. Without the Bible there would be no Quran and no Book of Mormon.

The sticking point for me is whether we must consider followers of a Christian heresy Christians. At first it might seem like we obviously should, but imagine a world where the Gnostic heresy had not been quashed and was still a major part of today's world. Its doctrines were incompatible with Christianity and if they had been allowed to develop further would almost certainly have moved further from their source, to the point where it would be absurd to call a modern Gnostic a Christian. Yet at the same time Gnosticism has always been considered a heresy of Christianity. It is in this sense that we can consider Islam (or Mormonism for that matter) a heresy.

A heresy is marked by its perversion of its source, and in particular the way that it attacks the doctrine as a whole by emphasizing or increasing special features. The word "heresy" even is derived from the word for "choice;" a heresy "choose" part of the truth to destroy the rest. So the gnostic heresy choose the truth that our spiritual concerns should be foremost, but distorted this into a teaching that the material world was evil (eventually even calling God, or at least actions of God, evil). Similarly Pelagianism took the truth that the free will was good and distorted that into saying that it was so good that man did not God's aid, Donatism took the truth that we should strive to be saints and distorted that into a requirement that the Church be run entirely by saints, Arianism took the truth that God created all things and that Jesus was a man and distorted that into a teaching that Jesus was a created being, and so on. After the distortion what remains often does not resemble where it started from.

Islam chiefly differs from its emphasis of God's supremacy. It is true that God is supreme over all and has authority over all, but Islam cannot bear anything which even seems to question God's authority (even if it does not). So they cannot allow that God took the form of a slave, because such a form would not be fitting for such a supreme being. But at the same time, they cannot consider the hypothetical question of whether God could do evil in principle (but in practice does not), and avoid it by saying that whatever God does is good simply because God does it. Likewise there has never been the support for applying reason to theology, because to suggest that God could be understood even partially by human reason would be to bind Him to it (at least from the perspective of Islam). There is even a resistance to allowing there to be secondary causes in the world, because that would deny God the opportunity to be the only cause of all (and thus the teaching of occasionalism took root). All of these things initially seem disparate, but they have their origin in a single twist of Christian doctrine.

Saying that Islam is a Christian heresy is not really doing it much in the way of favors. In fact, if it is, it is more blameworthy for them to be ignorant of the truth, as compared to practitioners of wholly separate religions. From what little Chinese history I know, it would not surprise me to learn that Confucianism was far more receptive to Christianity, despite having fully distinct origins. I would also say that it does not necessarily mean that they are closer to Christianity or more receptive towards it: it is a statement of origins, not of current or future locations. There are times when Islam had some possibility of reconciling itself with Christianity, especially when it takes philosophy and reason seriously (such as the time of Avicenna). But due to its core nature it cannot bear such trends for long and in the long run will likely remain a bitter enemy of Christianity.

 

[MoonlessNight]

I really struggle understanding how they could given the way they have perverted Christianity. I can see Jews worshipping God the Father as depicted in the OT but I cannot reconcile it at all in Islam.

The first thing that we need to establish is how far a definition can differ from reality before it no longer has the same subject. For example, if someone referred to my brother and gave a description which was accurate in all details except for being off by an inch for his height, we would certainly say that this person was indeed talking about my brother. But if they said that my brother was a 100-year old midget from tasmania with three heads and seven eyes they would be completely off the mark. But the question becomes: are they describing an imaginary person with those characteristics, or are they just describing my brother extremely poorly?

I think that anyone who refers to the "God of the philosophers" (or God as He is described by classical theism) is describing God. That is, if they identify God as a the only true god, the creator of all, the source of all goodness and so on then they have identified God. Thus Aristotle knew of God, though he had no encounters with Christianity or Judaism. And Islam, for all of its numerous faults, does know God in this way.

Again, this is not necessarily to their benefit. If a polytheistic shaman describes the gods of the rivers and trees and animals, he does not misidentify God and so does Him no great disservice. If someone does know God on the other hand, but attributes things to Him which are abhorrent, that very well may be blaspheming even if the worshiper is not Christian.

 

[Michie]

God being all that is good and true is one thing but the God of Islam seems to condone deception.

The first thing that we need to establish is how far a definition can differ from reality before it no longer has the same subject. For example, if someone referred to my brother and gave a description which was accurate in all details except for being off by an inch for his height, we would certainly say that this person was indeed talking about my brother. But if they said that my brother was a 100-year old midget from tasmania with three heads and seven eyes they would be completely off the mark. But the question becomes: are they describing an imaginary person with those characteristics, or are they just describing my brother extremely poorly?

I think that anyone who refers to the "God of the philosophers" (or God as He is described by classical theism) is describing God. That is, if they identify God as a the only true god, the creator of all, the source of all goodness and so on then they have identified God. Thus Aristotle knew of God, though he had no encounters with Christianity or Judaism. And Islam, for all of its numerous faults, does know God in this way.

Again, this is not necessarily to their benefit. If a polytheistic shaman describes the gods of the rivers and trees and animals, he does not misidentify God and so does Him no great disservice. If someone does know God on the other hand, but attributes things to Him which are abhorrent, that very well may be blaspheming even if the worshiper is not Christian.

 

[MoonlessNight]

If Islam can be called a Christian heresy then nearly every religion can since nearly every religion has something in it that can be compared to something in Christianity. I think calling Islam a Christian heresy is pure wishful thinking. For something to be a Christian heresy it has to at least claim to be Christian. Islam makes no such claim. And Islam teaches directly against Christianity in the Quran and calls Christians misled for believing in the core beliefs that make us Christians.

Things like Shintoism or Buddhism are not Christian heresies, because they have no connection to Christianity in their origins. Islam does. While Mohammad was certainly not Christian, he was familiar with some form of Christianity and incorporated elements of it into his new religion.

Note that while Muslims do not call them Christians, they do view themselves as the true heirs of the Christian tradition.

As for teaching against Christianity and claiming that Christians are misled: that is what heresies do. If they were not against core dogma, they wouldn't be heresies. And since the distinction is so great they must claim that normal Christians are being misled. Gnosticism in particular made lots of claims along these lines, with Gnostics being the Christians with the "secret knowledge" of how things really were.

I should note that I think heresy is primarily a useful term for understanding the development of an idea. It is not a compliment. I have more respect for the completely non-Christian traditional Chinese teachings than I do for most heresies.

 

[Michie]

What do you mean they consider themselves true heirs to the Christian tradition?

Things like Shintoism or Buddhism are not Christian heresies, because they have no connection to Christianity in their origins. Islam does. While Mohammad was certainly not Christian, he was familiar with some form of Christianity and incorporated elements of it into his new religion.

Note that while Muslims do not call them Christians, they do view themselves as the true heirs of the Christian tradition.

As for teaching against Christianity and claiming that Christians are misled: that is what heresies do. If they were not against core dogma, they wouldn't be heresies. And since the distinction is so great they must claim that normal Christians are being misled. Gnosticism in particular made lots of claims along these lines, with Gnostics being the Christians with the "secret knowledge" of how things really were.

I should note that I think heresy is primarily a useful term for understanding the development of an idea. It is not a compliment. I have more respect for the completely non-Christian traditional Chinese teachings than I do for most heresies.

 

[MoonlessNight]

God being all thst is good and true is one thing but the God of Islam seems to condone deception.

Are you pointing to deception by Muslims or deception by God (because as far as I am aware, both are condoned)? If it by Muslims, that isn't enough certainly. There are many Christians who believe that lies can be justified, and we wouldn't say that they worship a different God.

If what worries you is deception by God, consider that in Islam it isn't really deception per se. That is, God is the arbiter of truth and goodness, so whatever God says is true by definition. Now I don't think that this is how things work, since it denies the honor God has in his agreements. That is, God maintains his faithfulness with Israel despite their continued rejection of Him throughout the history of that kingdom, whereas if God was apt to rewrite truth at a whim (as if God had whims) He could just wipe them out and remain faithful, since He sets the rules. But I think this is a mistake about what it means for God to be truth, not an identification of a completely separate God.

It is as if a small child heard that her uncle was an engineer, and imagined that he must run a train while in actuality her uncle worked with computers. Her mistake comes from recognizing something true about her uncle and misunderstanding what it means, not by mistaking some actual train engineer for her uncle.