Through Force or Faith? — Page 259
Chapter 7 — Novelty in the Teachings of Muhammad 259 added such attributes that no other religion had ever mentioned before. For example, before Islam no religion had stated that ‘God is Swift at reckoning’ ( S u rah an-N ū r, 24:40), ‘God is Capaciously Bountiful’ ( S u rah al-Baqarah, 2:116), He is ‘Appreciating’ ( S u rah al-Baqarah, 2:159), etc. Not only Islam has enumerated more attributes of God, it has removed the errors about the attributes that were already known in other religions. All religions acknowledge, in one way or the other, that God is Merciful, Forgiving, Creator, and Master. But, regretfully, ‘they do not make a just estimate of God’. (S u rah al-An‘ ā m , 6:92). In Hinduism, some thought that God could cre- ate everything but he could not create souls. Christianity thought that God has the power and ability to do all things, but was una- ble to forgive man’s sin and He needed to make Jesus an escape goat to forgive sins of man. According to Christian doctrine, God is just in other matters, but he did not do so in the matter of sin of Adam, and He has punished all of his progeny till the Day of Judgment. So, Muhammad s as , the Messenger of Allah, not only gave the world new teachings about God and His attributes, he also corrected many errors prevalent about the attributes of God in previous religions. Earlier religions were mistaken even about the person of God. The Jews had made God specially attached to them alone, as if He was their relation; that He only cared for them, and was not concerned with other people. A vast majority of Christians had taken Jesus to be the son of God, and had denied the Oneness of God, while these doctrines are against the basic teachings of their own religion, and are logically and rationally untenable as well. In contrast to these teachings, Islam presented the teachings about