What Is the Muslim Religion?
Islam is one of the world's three major Abrahamic faiths, alongside Judaism and Christianity. Founded in 7th-century Arabia through the prophet Muhammad, Islam teaches that there is one God (Allah), that Muhammad is His final prophet, and that the Quran is the direct word of God revealed to Muhammad. The five pillars of Islam — declaration of faith, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage — form the framework of Muslim practice. Islam venerates Jesus as a prophet but rejects His divinity and the doctrine of the Trinity. Understanding what Muslims actually believe is essential for honest dialogue and for understanding where the Gospel differs.
Author | Shafraz Jeal
8
min read
Islam is one of the world's three major Abrahamic faiths, alongside Judaism and Christianity. Founded in 7th-century Arabia through the prophet Muhammad, Islam teaches that there is one God (Allah), that Muhammad is His final prophet, and that the Quran is the direct word of God revealed to Muhammad. The five pillars of Islam — declaration of faith, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage — form the framework of Muslim practice. Islam venerates Jesus as a prophet but rejects His divinity and the doctrine of the Trinity. Understanding what Muslims actually believe is essential for honest dialogue and for understanding where the Gospel differs.
There are approximately 1.9 billion Muslims in the world — making Islam the second-largest religion on earth. In the UK, Muslims represent around 6% of the population. Most Christians will have Muslim colleagues, neighbours, or friends. And yet the level of accurate understanding that most Christians have of what Muslims actually believe is low — shaped more by headlines than by genuine engagement with the faith itself.
This is not a good basis for either honest dialogue or clear evangelism. You cannot share the Gospel meaningfully with someone whose beliefs you have misrepresented. So — what do Muslims actually believe?
The Core of Islam
The word Islam means "submission" — specifically submission to the will of Allah (the Arabic word for God, used by Arab Christians as well as Muslims). A Muslim is "one who submits." The central declaration of Islamic faith — the Shahada — is: "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." To say this with genuine belief is, in Islamic teaching, to enter the faith.
Islam traces its origins to the 7th century CE, when Muhammad — born in Mecca around 570 CE — began receiving what he understood to be divine revelations. These revelations were compiled after his death into the Quran, which Muslims believe is the direct and uncorrupted word of God, preserved perfectly in Arabic. The Quran supersedes all previous scriptures in Islamic teaching — including the Torah and the Gospels, which Muslims believe contain true original revelations but have been corrupted through transmission.
The Five Pillars of Islam provide the practical structure of Muslim life: Shahada (declaration of faith), Salat (prayer five times daily facing Mecca), Zakat (giving 2.5% of accumulated wealth to the poor annually), Sawm (fasting during the month of Ramadan), and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime for those able). These are obligations, not suggestions — they constitute what it means to practise the faith.
What Islam Teaches About Jesus
This is where Christians often have the most questions — and the most misconceptions. Muslims do not reject Jesus. The Quran mentions Jesus (called Isa) more times than it mentions Muhammad. Islam teaches that Jesus was one of the greatest prophets — born of a virgin, able to perform miracles, raised from the dead at the end of time. Muslims regard Jesus with profound respect.
What Islam explicitly rejects is the Christian claim about who Jesus is: that He is the Son of God, that He is divine, that the crucifixion was real and redemptive, and that salvation comes through faith in Him. The Quran states that God does not have a son — that to attribute a son to God is shirk (association of partners with God), the most serious sin in Islam. The Quran also teaches that Jesus was not crucified — that God would not have allowed His prophet to die in such a way, and that someone else died in His place.
This is the central and irreconcilable difference. Christianity stands or falls on the person of Jesus — His divine nature, His death, and His resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15:17 (NKJV): "And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile." Islam explicitly denies all three of those claims. The Jesus of Islam is a great prophet. The Jesus of Christianity is the eternal Son of God, crucified for sin, risen from the dead. These are not compatible positions.
What Islam Teaches About Salvation
Islamic teaching on salvation differs fundamentally from Christianity. In Islam, there is no doctrine of original sin inherited from Adam — each person is born in a state of fitrah (natural purity) and is responsible for their own choices. Salvation is not achieved through faith in an atoning sacrifice but through faithful submission to God — obeying His commands, following His guidance, and hoping for His mercy on the Day of Judgment.
On the Day of Judgment in Islamic teaching, each person's deeds are weighed — good deeds against bad deeds — and God decides their eternal fate. Allah is described as merciful and forgiving, but His mercy is not mediated through the cross. There is no mediator between God and humanity in Islamic theology. 1 Timothy 2:5 (NKJV): "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." Islam would reject both the need for and the existence of such mediation.
How Christians Should Engage
The differences between Islam and Christianity are real, significant, and not to be minimised for the sake of politeness. At the same time, there is shared ground that makes genuine conversation possible: both traditions insist on the existence and unity of God, take the moral life seriously, honour the prophets, and hold eternity as a present reality shaping how you live now.
Honest engagement means being clear about the Gospel — that Jesus is not merely a prophet but the Son of God, that He was crucified and rose again, that salvation comes through faith in Him alone (Acts 4:12) — without contempt or caricature. A Muslim neighbour who has genuinely never heard the Gospel clearly presented deserves to hear it clearly, from someone who has taken the trouble to understand what they actually believe first. That is the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it.
Why the Difference Matters
John 14:6 (NKJV): "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." Islam regards this claim as blasphemous — the assertion that a man is God. Christianity regards it as the most important truth in history. There is no version of these two positions that can be reconciled without one of them ceasing to be what it is.
That is not a reason for hostility. It is a reason for clarity and for genuine love — the kind that does not reduce the Gospel to make it easier to say, and does not caricature a neighbour's faith to make them easier to dismiss. Islam is not what most newspaper coverage suggests it is. And the Jesus of the Bible is not who the Quran says He is. Both of those things need to be understood before the conversation can be genuinely useful.
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Author
Shafraz Jeal
Shafraz Jeal is the founder of By Design Ministry, created to help people discover Jesus, understand the Bible, and grow in faith. After encountering Christ in 2016, his life was radically changed, and that journey continues to shape everything he shares.
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