- Torah and Jewish Thought
- General Questions
Question
I am writing this because of my interest in the other Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Judaism, particularly following The Noachide Laws, but I am afraid this will lead to me going to hell. I wanted to ask, what is your stance on Muslims, regarding monotheism?
Do you believe that they will all go to hell because they do not directly follow the Seven Laws of Noah, and reject the legitimacy of the Torah - Or do you think that there is more to it?
Also, do you think that it would be worthwhile looking into Noachidism, and perhaps following that to a T instead of Islam?
Answer
Judaism considers Islam as monotheistic, that they believe in the One and only God, which is obviously the same “One and only God”. So the God is the same, but some of their teachings are very very different! The most significant difference is that Judaism believes strongly in peace, freedom and tolerance, and is very much against even philosophically convincing anyone to accept Judaism. We have no interest whatsoever for any Moslem or Christian to be Jewish, and actually prefer convincing them not to do so! On the other hand, much of the world suffers from the Islamic ideal of having the entire world become Moslem, and their terror or holy war (Jihad), similar to the primitive Christian crusades, are very much against the Jewish ideology of freedom, tolerance and peace, not to mention contradict logic and morality. Murder is a gross transgression against one of the 7 Noachide laws and the Ten Commandments, so ironically, what should be the easiest, for the Hamas, ISIS and some of their friends, is the most difficult.
Accordingly, you are apparently asking regarding the anti-violent Moslems, and there are 2 levels. One who observes the Seven Noachide laws out of logic and conscience is considered a "Chacham" (wise person), while one who accepts them also because they are commanded in God's Eternal Torah given to Israel at Sinai, is on a higher level, that of: "Hassid" (righteous).
The prerequisites are observing the seven Noachide commandments (adultery, idolatry, murder, not eating flesh taken from a live animal, not cursing God, stealing, and making sure there is a justice system in your locale), in all of their details (which can be found easily on the internet).
Simply put, it would be better to be a Noachide rather than a Moslem (there are also other problematic ideas which we didn't mention), but if your surrounding Moslems might endanger your life or make it difficult for you and your family if you publicly leave them, then you don't have to leave Islam, but just study and observe the Noachide ideas in depth.