Major similarities between Islam, Christianity and Judaism
There are important similarities among the divine concepts of the ancient Hebrews, the Early Christians and Islam. While at the surface, you will find several differences that are political and cultural in nature, deep inside there exist several similarities among the three. First of all, the three are monotheistic religions; they believe in the existence of one God. Apart from it, these religions are scriptural. They believe in divine revelations through the divine scriptures.
In the three religions, scriptures and sacred writings are terms that are generally used interchangeably. In both Islam and Judaism it is believed that God gave the law or the Torah and Moses wrote it down. Jesus did not create any new scriptures or books. His accounts can be found only in the Gospels. The Christians believe that Jesus had not brought any message but he himself was the revelation.
The book that God gave Prophet Muhammad; He asked the prophet to call it the Recitation. It came to named Al Quran in Arabic. Al Quran contains a series of messages that Angel Gabriel delivered to the Prophet. Quran is given a canonical status and is in the form of three sets of scriptures. However, the Bible and the New Testament could not achieve the same status easily. They had to go through a long process before the community conferred upon them their current status. These sacred scriptures are held as authoritative statements that dictate the conduct of human beings in their respective communities.
Another important similarity between the three monotheistic religions is that their sacred scriptures are believed to have originated from the same sources. Though there are major differences between the contents of the Quran, the New Testament and the Bible, it is believed their source of origin is the same. The three religions believe in the existence of a single God, He is beyond the comprehension of the ordinary human beings and still he is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient.
In Christianity it is a popular belief that He created people in his own image. However, Islam rejects this idea and believes that God being outside the comprehension of the common beings is also quite unlike them. All the three religions still hold a common belief that God punishes the non- believers. Thus, you can see that there are some important similarities between the three religions. However, the differences regarding their scriptures and beliefs also abound. These were only the major similarities.