

Why I’m staying in Afghanistan - Mz
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/08/the-expats-who-call-afghanistan-home

======
vidarh
> To Father Moretti’s Afghan friends, the bishop of Kabul is “mullah sahib”, a
> token of respect for his status as a man of God, even if his God is not the
> one they believe in.

This always annoys me, given that it is a central part of Islam that its goes
back to Christianity, that it shares the same god as Judaism and Christianity,
and that Jesus is a prophet and bringer of Gods word.

Christians, Jews, and others who includes the Old Testament / Torah in their
holy texts are explicitly called out as "People of the book", and are
explicitly given the opportunity to enter heaven if they believe and are good
people.(While poor atheists like me are condemned to burn in hell). The Quran
makes a rather big deal out of this, since presumably it was an important
recruitement tool.

So it should not be surprising that a Christian priest is treated as a man of
God by muslims, as long as he is not proselytizing, as conversion from Islam
is a big deal.

Christians seem to very rarely realise just how much of muslim faith is lifted
straight from the Bible.

~~~
comrh
> Christians seem to very rarely realise just how much of muslim faith is
> lifted straight from the Bible.

Couldn't you say a similar statement about Christianity lifted from the Torah?
The first half of the Bible is just from those stories if I remember
correctly.

~~~
vidarh
It's a bit different. Islam acknowledges the Torah as a holy script - it is
explicitly mentioned in the Quran. Repeatedly. While exactly pointing out that
it is a common source for Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

The Christian Bible incorporates the Torah pretty much in the form of the Old
Testament..

However when I mentioned that muslim faith is largely "lifted" from the Bible,
part of my point is that Islam goes further: A lot of the Quran itself
consists of fragments of Biblical stories adjusted to fit the message the
Quran is intended to convey. Whereas the New Testament of the Bible is
reasonably original in content (the Old Testament / Torah borrows from all
kinds of preceding religions), in the Quran, the Bible references are woven in
all over the place.

Of course this makes fully sense under the muslim premise that Jesus was a
prophet, and that the Bible is simply an imperfect version of Gods word,
whereas the Quran is intended to be Gods actual words dictated word for word
to Muhammed - even if the Bible has been "corrupted" by human retelling, it'd
make little sense if the Quran was "all new stuff".

But a lot of christians have no idea how many of "their" stories that muslims
also believe in, and just how closely the two religions are related. Some I've
talked about the subject with even finds the idea preposterous and offensive,
which is just bizarre.

