Articles on Islam, the Qur'an and other Islamic sacred texts, and Muslim faith, theology, customs and traditions.
This article examines the Catholic response to the growth of Islam in the West in light of the Church’s vision for interreligious dialogue and evangelization. Does the Catholic Church have a coherent strategy in respect to Islam? Is this strategy working? Is it realistic? Is it biblical?
Are we witnessing today a phenomenon of nameless "religious extremists"—whether Christians, Jews or Muslims—spreading violence in the name of "religion"? Or is reality quite different?
Read more: Islam, Religious Extremism and Religious Relativism
Although Islam and Christianity seem to have certain points of doctrine in common, there is an enormous difference between them, not only in beliefs about salvation and Christ but in many other areas affecting daily life, human behavior and attitudes.
Read more: Christianity and Islam: Doctrines and Beliefs Compared
Based on countless Qur'anic verses and oral traditions attributed to Muhammad, Islam's learned officials, sheikhs, muftis, and imams throughout the ages have all reached consensus—binding on the entire Muslim community—that Islam is to be at perpetual war with the non-Muslim world until the former subsumes the latter.
Read more: Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam?
In "Evangelii Gaudium," Pope Francis dictates the rules for the relationship with Muslims. The Jesuit Islamologist Samir Khalil Samir examines them one by one. And he criticizes their limitations.
Jesus and Muhammad could hardly have been more different in how they lived or in what they taught others. Why should we not expect starkly contrasting legacies - from the conduct of their closest companions to the livability of modern-day countries influenced by the predominance of one founder's teachings over the other?
The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text. They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subjective as anything else in the Quran.
For dyed-in-the-wool jihadi warriors, an asymmetrical approach to warfare with Israel - one which results in many Gazan civilian casualties - is actually a gateway to religious merit and reward. This is not a cycle of violence, or simply a deep animosity between Isaac and Ishmael. It is a fight between (on one hand) Islamist kamikazes who don't surrender, a group of post-Hiroshima-like zombies, and (on the other hand) the Jewish people returning to their Promised Land in fulfilment of ancient Hebrew prophecies.