Not all Muslims are extremist. Their perception of God is different, twisted, as you say my Catholic perception is. I do believe that the God of Abraham listens to a heartfelt prayer: a mother asking for help for a sick child, for example. He heard Hagar in the wilderness, did He not? She was not Muslim of course, but Egyptian, a pagan nation. Yet, for the sake of His promise to Abraham, God heard her prayer. God knows what is in His children’s hearts, and answers according to His Will.
Not all Muslims are extremist. Their perception of God is different, twisted, as you say my Catholic perception is. I do believe that the God of Abraham listens to a heartfelt prayer: a mother asking for help for a sick child, for example. He heard Hagar in the wilderness, did He not? She was not Muslim of course, but Egyptian, a pagan nation. Yet, for the sake of His promise to Abraham, God heard her prayer. God knows what is in His children’s hearts, and answers according to His Will.
Unresolved sin is a block to God answering our prayers, and the Muslim rejection of Jesus as the Son of God and risen Savior most certainly is sin
If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:
(Psalms 66:18)
Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
(Isaiah 59:1-2)
The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.
(John 9:30-33)
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
(Luke 18:10-14)
In this last example, the man who thanks God for his righteousness is, according to Jesus, exalting himself, and by so doing putting himself in a place where God will not hear him. This is a person whose outward conformity to the one true religion did not protect him from the pride of self-accomplishment.
But whom did God hear? Whom did God justify? The one who came crying for mercy, and offering nothing of his own supply of good works, but relying totally and utterly on the grace of God, a man who had somehow come to the place in his life where, like the Picture of Dorian Gray, he had finally confronted the empty ugliness within. He knew he had nothing to offer God. If he would be justified, it would only be by God's grace, and that was his true heart cry, groveling for mercy before the King of the Universe. And that was heard, and he went home, not on a path to eventual justification, but justified.
As for Hagar, we have no definite information on her religion. She had been rejected from the messianic line, true, but that does not mean with certainty that she was a pagan. Furthermore, we learn in Genesis 21 that God had already decided to bless Ishmael, for being Abraham's seed. And if you read the passage carefully, you'll see that Hagar did not in fact pray to God in her moment of crisis. Instead, it was God Who initiated the relationship, hearing the child crying, and visiting Hagar by an angel, to say that the child would survive and become a great nation.
So God can and does dispense His mercy as He sees fit, but the Scripture cannot be broken, as Jesus says, and if someone is in ongoing rebellion to God in some form, and especially if they are not in ignorance of the truth, but have simply rejected it, then why should a holy God give them the time of day? In fact the Scriptures cited above and many others suggest He won't hear the prayers of such rebels, at least not until it is the prayer of repentance, the prayer for mercy. That prayer He will always hear. The door is always open for the prodigal son to come home.
Peace,
SR