Jesus and Mohammed Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Jesus and Mohammed - Essay Example The lives and deaths of these two individuals had a tremendous impact on their respective religions. On the one hand, Jesus' death was essential to the central doctrine of Christianity whereby Christ is believed to have died in order to save God's children from their sins. On the other hand, Mohammed's life was more important than his death in terms of spreading Islam, as he became the leader of an effort to spread the doctrine of the new religion based upon God's revelations that were believed to have been communicated to him through the Angel Gabriel. Jesus did not purport to espouse a new religion, but rather sought to teach a new covenant of Judaism whereby God's will would become clearer to his fellow Jews. It was Jesus' followers after his death that spread the teachings and the story of his life, death and resurrection as a distinct religion from Judaism in its own right. By contrast, Mohammed, with knowledge of the new Christian religion and its Jewish precursor, affirmatively sought to establish and aggressively spread Islam as a new religion during his own life. Thus, the lives of Jesus and Mohammed had a wholly different kind of influence on the religions each spawned. The lives of JThe Lives and Teachings of Jesus and Mohammed The lives of Jesus and Mohammed were marked by some very key and fundamental differences. The choices both individuals made regarding their lifestyles and their teachings evidenced dramatically different attitudes and values pertaining to violence, sin and repentance, the place of women, and their overall views regarding the will of God. Their teachings and example are so profoundly different that it may be difficult to understand how they can both purport to convey the word and will of the same God. Even their dying words illustrate a quite different attitude toward nonbelievers, with Jesus praying that they be forgiven "for they know not what they do," while Mohammed cursed and blamed the Jews and Christians upon his death for building "the places of worship at the graves of the prophets" (http://answering-islam.org.uk/Silas/founders.htm). Essentially, the attitude both men had toward those whom they perceived as misguided nonbelievers were exactly the opposite in tone. "Christ asks God to forgive His enemies, while Muhammad utters a bitter curse against those who rejected his assertion of prophethood." Their views on slavery were also fundamentally different. Jesus did not own slaves, and the New Testament specifically lists the trading of slaves as being criminal in nature. 1 Timothy 1:8-10 states, "law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers..." The so-called "Golden Rule" of the Gospel of Luke (6:31), whereby Jesus teaches to "do to others as you would have them do to you," could also be construed as a directive against enslaving people. By contrast, Mohammed owned many slaves and specifically condoned their less than dignified treatment. The Koran is replete with examples of Mohammed's practice of enslaving many different types of people, and condoning the mistreatment of them. For example: