The Jainist, like the Buddhist and the pantheistic Brahmin, takes for granted the doctrine of Karma and its implied rebirths. He, too, views every form of earthly, bodily existence as misery. Freedom from rebirth is thus the goal after which he aspires. But, while the pantheistic Brahmin and the primitive Buddhist looked for the realization of the end in the extinction of conscious, individual existence (absorption in Brahma, Nirvana), the Jainist has always tenaciously held to the primitive traditional belief in a final abode of bliss, where the soul, liberated from the necessity of rebirth on earth, enjoys forever a spiritual, conscious existence. To attain this end, the Jainist, like the Buddhist and the pantheistic Brahmin, holds that the traditional gods can aid but little. The existence of the gods is not denied, but their worship is held to be of no avail and is thus abandoned. Salvation is to be obtained by personal effort alone.
I can't imagine how you can link Jainism and Islam. I see no parallels here.
"God" would properly be translated into Arabic as "Ilah", not "Allah" (the latter being the proper name for a particular deity, translating it as "allah" is as serious a mistake as translating it as "Jupiter" in latin). The use of "Allah" by arab Christians is a symptom of Islamic domination of the region, nothing more, and that name was not used before Islam came along.
Christians who speak Arabic pray to "Allah". "Allah" means "God" in Arabic. Does that mean that God does not hear them because they have His name wrong (according to you)? And the name "Allah" has been found in archealogical digs as the name of the One Creator long before Islam existed.
So what about a satanists who believes that Satan was really the creator (and the Jewish god a pretender to the throne)? Is she actually worshipping the God she thinks is a false god? Does the act of worshipping a monotheistic god Make that god the true God?
What?!? I have no idea how this statement fits into our discussion.
OK. Here is the bottom line for me. Muslims have a mistaken notion about the characteristics of God. But so do a lot of other religions. Does God not hear their prayers because their beliefs about Him are wrong?
Are you possibly asking something else? Let's slightly re-word that sentence for the sake of clarity: "Does God not answer their prayers because their beliefs about Him are wrong?"
I am not trying to link Jainism and Islam, I'm simply asking the question of whether you believe that Jainists worship the same God as Judeo-Christians. Since all the ones I have met worship a single, monotheistic Creator, it seemed to fit the weak requirements you were placing upon the legitimacy of the Islamic deity Allah.
Christians who speak Arabic pray to "Allah". "Allah" means "God" in Arabic.
No it does not. "Ilah" means God in Arabic. "Allah" is a proper name. As I mentioned before, the only reason some Arab Christians pray to "Allah" is cultural contamination. Before the spread of Islam to dominate the middle east, this was not the case. Of course, at this point "Allah" has come to mean in common Arabic the name of God, but it is still a proper name (a good analogy is the name Caesar. Over time it might have become a title, but it, like Allah, was originally a proper name. And in the same way that later rulers taking the title only made them the ruler and not really Julius, using the name "Allah" for God does not make the original owner of that proper name, the tribal deity of Mohammed's family, actually God).
And the name "Allah" has been found in archealogical digs as the name of the One Creator long before Islam existed
While you are wrong on one point (which I will mention in a moment), otherwise that's my whole point! The problem is that pre-Mohammed, "Allah" NEVER referred to the Judeo-Christian deity, and DID refer to a deity in other pantheons, whose basic nature, as well as actions, personality, and history, were fundamentally incompatible with the Judeo-Christian God. The mistake you made is saying that the pre-Mohammedan "Allah" was a lone Creator. He was not. From both archeology and written history, we know that he was actually just one member of a pantheon of 360 deities worshipped at the Kaaba.
What?!? I have no idea how this statement fits into our discussion.
I'm trying to get you to answer a question. It is the same reason I asked about the Jainists. Does (in your opinion) the worship of a lone creator deity (or a deity that you believe is the lone creator deity) mean that you are worshipping the one true God? Since at least one Gnostic sect believes in a "luciferian" deity (a light-bringer whose true nature is hidden by a false-god who is worshipped as the creator even though they believe the fallen luciferian deity is the real creator), the question was asked, once again, to make the point that just because you worship a being that you think is the Creator doesn't actually make him the creator.
OK. Here is the bottom line for me. Muslims have a mistaken notion about the characteristics of God. But so do a lot of other religions. Does God not hear their prayers because their beliefs about Him are wrong?
Does God hear the prayers offered to idols? What if the person praying really believes the idol is the one true God?