Islam Older than Christianity – A Short Answer

ChristianityEN - EnglishIslamic History

Is Islam older than Christianity? Is Christianity older than Islam?

We received this question a lot of times in private and would like to post the answer to it in public.

In short, Christians believe than Christianity is older because they think that Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) was the founder of Christianity and that Muhammad (peace be upon him) was the founder of Islam.

However, the truth is that neither Jesus was the founder of Christianity nor was Muhammad the founder of Islam, because, as most historians acknowledge (such as Michael H. Hart in his “The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History”), Paul the Apostle was the founder of Christianity, not Jesus.

According to them, for example, Jesus was a Jew, so how could anyone claim that he came with a new religion when he himself was, till the last breath, on another religion?

It’s not our topic now whether Paul’s teachings contradict those of Jesus, or whether Paul was an enemy of Jesus who attempted to destroy Jesus’ religion from within.

As for Islam, Muslims believe that God is the founder of Islam, and that Adam was a follower of Islam, not Judaism nor Christianity.

“Islam” means “submission [to God]”. Jesus never called himself “Christian” nor did he ever call any of his followers “Christian”. It was the enemies of his followers who called his followers “Christians” for the first time in Antioch (Turkey today), many years after Jesus’ ascension to heaven, as the Bible itself says.

Jesus also never called his religion “Christianity” or said that his religion was “Christianity”. The same thing with Judaism: none of the prophets ever said that they were “Jews” or that their religion was called “Judaism”.

“Judaism” simply means “the religion of those who lived in Judaea”, which is the area where the children of Israel lived. It’s like “Hinduism”, which is a name given by non-Hindus to refer to “the religion of those who lived in India”.

As for Islam, it’s the pure religion of all the prophets of God. They all taught Islam (submission to God), but after their departure from this world, their enemies distorted their messages and changed the name and teachings of their true religion (Islam), which is another, long topic.

If you are interested in learning about Christianity from the Islamic point of view, this website contains a lot of articles or books. Just search for the terms “Christianity“, “Christ“, “The Bible“, “The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ“, “The Divinity of Jesus Christ“, or “The Doctrine of Atonement and Original Sin” (for example), and you’ll get many results in multiple languages. Here are a few examples:

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