You are correct. Thank you for saving me the effort.
When I first began to study Islam it was from an entirely hostile perspective, but as I became more acquainted with its actualy teachings I found it to be more consistent with an 'Old Testament' view of God and religion, certainly more consistent than the liberal heresies that we have posing as Christians today.
The Prophet Daniel foretold of a great kingdom that would come in the time of the empire of clay and iron, which is commonly understood to have been Rome. This kingdom would shatter the kingdoms of the Earth and replace them with a growing kingdom that would dwarf all the others and the only thing that would seem to fullfill this prophesy is the Muslim Caliphate. The church is a spiritual kingdom that is not of the same category of nations and empires that Daniel was referring to.
As to the Quran, I think it is an inspired work in some way that goes well beyond mimicry of the Bible. Were it not for the sections of the Hadith that deny the resurrection of Jesus I would have probably converted from Catholicism.
But there is no need for me to convert as Islam recognises the validity of other faiths and for people to serve God in the way that they best know, as I understand it.
Wow that's interesting... And they are very similiar.
And to be honest with you some Muslim scholars believe he did die but they won't discuss it that much..Some say he died and then was raised up...but they do not believe he is divine or son of god but we call him ruhallah which means spirit of God but not that he is part of God, it just means he is so holy and clean because his virgin birth.
And Islam doesn't really say you have to convert....it says you need to believe Muhamad was a prophet and believe his ways...to basically learn from what he said because he was the newest Prophet..
In what westerners call the middle ages, it was Islamic scholarship that passed on much of what we now know about the Greek philosophers because many of them also valued these philosophers. The Greek emanationists had subscribers among these scholars as well in which the Apostle John referenced when he described Jesus as the Logos of God.
The Trinity is a very complex concept and I am not surprised that Muslims reject it as it is usually not conveyed acurately. It wasnt until about 2004 before I feel like I really grasped the basic idea of a 'Godhead' of three persons in One God. The Greek emanationists saw these emanations as persons in their own right, but the philosophical debates with the Arians (who in efect agreed with Muslim view) caused a rigidity in the orthodox view that is not only uncompromising it is hostile to any further discussion on the topic.
So we have a series of Paradoxes regarding Jesus Christ even among Western scholars and the attempts to make these apparently opposite concepts work together in a rational way has been a challenge that many think was never acheived, as I understand it.
Still, from my understanding of the Trinity, Jesus is not 'a' god, but part of His nature was a direct part of God. He was at the same time both entirely Divine and entirely human as well.
I cannot blame nonChristians for having trouble accepting and even openly rejecting this concept as it is very non-intuitve and may be easily taken as religious double talk.
I spent many sessions in discussion with my priest before I understood it. Later God took him as a martyr to the faith and I love even the simple memory of that man. He was a good man with obviously tons of patience. I was not an easy person to persuade.
Jesus is not God in the way that Islam speaks of God, but he is considered Divine and an eternal part of God as the emanationists would understand it.