God told them all to bow before Adam but Iblis refused, and was banished from Eden, and destined to be "cast into the lake of fire" upon Judgement Day.
I forgot to say that there is no lake of fire in Islam. There is Hell.
Islam has teachings that are not in the Quran.
All the sciences of Islam, and they are endless in quantity and endless in content are hidden within the Qur'an. Not only that, but all the sciences in the world are derived from the Qur'an. The Qur'an is their source. Take for instance the fact that the Qur'an mentions explicitly scientific truths, like the earth being round, while no other religious scripture does. The Qur'an says, in the 7th century: "He merges the night into the day and He merges the day into the night...", in other words, the earth is round. The church struggled when confronted with the fact that the earth was not flat.
Islamic theology teaches that God still makes the final decision as to a person's eternal destination.
Regardless of how righteous of a life a person has lived. ......
You are wrong. One is asked to increase hope instead of fear when death approaches, precisely because God acts according to what one thinks of Him. If you think He will forgive you, then He will. But it is impossible to have (real) hope and not fear at the time of death, because Satan comes to one at that time, and there is no chance to have the edge.
This is why we fight Satan in our lifetimes, so that after due fighting we defeat him. This is only possible using the help of God, not by oneself. Once you reach God, Satan will leave you, and he will not assault you at the time of death. Once you reach God, God does not throw you away from His Court.
the problem is we know that the Qur'an was compiled during the reign of the caliphs because of the variant texts going around. And we have no reason to believe it was the originals that survived
The Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) during his lifetime in 7 different versions, all of them being true. When it was decided to put together the Qur'an into one book, only one form was kept.
Is it only the Shia tradition then that permits lying when it advances the Muslim Ummah or protects Muslims from being killed for their faith?
Taqiyya - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
There is no lying in Islam for the sake of advancement of the Umma (the Nation). In addition there is no concept as such as "advancement" of the Umma. The word Umma pertains to three levels: the Umma of Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) also includes anyone who lived after Muhammad, Muslim or not.
Shia is a minority in Islam. They are considered Muslims because they believe Muhammad is a prophet of God. Islam however considers their doctrines as being out of Islam. Nonetheless, what the Shia say (and I learnt it from your Wikipedia link) pertains mainly to torture, not killing.
Granted that is also the case in Christianity. People are saved by grace not choice. Our choices relate to receiving Gods grace or blocking it. But a Christian can have assurance about their salvation based on Gods promises and that is something that appears to be missing in Islam.
Christianity says people are saved by their choice of being Christians. That's very childish. Men hav responsibilities. Also, choosing is an action, not of the limbs but of the heart; so just as you know you your bodily actions can never reach the Purity of God, so also your personal choices can never reach the Purity of God.
