Questions

Set aside the classical European example. Who can honestly say that Europe is Christian today? They belong to the religion of liberalism today.

When Islam emerged, Christianity already existed. According to the Qur'an, Jesus and Moses are also accepted as prophets, although the Qur'an states that the scriptures were altered. Nevertheless, Christians and Jews are referred to as the People of the Book. After Muslims became dominant, they placed Christians in a legally better position than polytheists; in a sense, Christians were the “lesser evil.” They translated Syriac texts and the Jewish Talmud and made use of these sources.

Any Muslim who reads the Qur'an encounters Christians and learns how they are understood within Islam.

But Islam did not exist during the formative period of Christianity. Therefore, Christians initially regarded Muslims as an extremely foreign group. So much so that they sometimes preferred the Mongol invaders to Muslims. They regarded Muslims as infidels and launched the Crusades against them. They may even have been unaware that Islam drew from the same Abrahamic tradition.

Be honest: for many Christians, “Muslim” simply means a group of people who behead people, set off bombs, and are associated with pedophilia.

!!! We should acknowledge the deep and extraordinary research the British conducted on the Eastern world through Orientalism, but this was not primarily theological; it was essentially for the purposes of their colonial empire!!!