I know it will sound weird coming from a Catholic when so many around here think I'd stand on my head if the Pope told me to but -- as a believer -- I believe a true test of heresy is how closely associated with or founded on a single man is the sect.
The Pope is a bishop and his power comes from sitting in Peter's chair. Mohammed -- like Calvin or Luther -- is an individual who Systematized his faith and imposed his personal interpretation on others.
I'm also taken by your observations on the literal nature of the texts and the exclusivity inherent in one tongue. I'm hopeful a Muslim will weigh further in on that.
I can understand their concern ... it's the primary reason the Church lays it all down in Latin and simply translates into every other language ... but didn't realize there was any problem with translation, however perfect, being less than authoritative or true.
I guess that's the trouble with having no Magisterium for quality control ... =)
I best lay off else RnMomof7 will get me for propagandizing! Regards.
Sorry, but I can't let this one stand. It's great to have a civil discussion on Islam to try to understand it, but for someone from one of the most hierarchial authoritarian religious systems on earth to compare the bloody General Mohammed to theologians Calvin and Luther is just too much. Last I checked it was the Roman church who first burned Protestants and just recently (officially) ended the Inquisition. No one used force to make the first Evangelicals (the original name for Protestants) follow Luther or Calvin--they did because for the first time they could read the Bible--in their own language no less. No historian will dispute it was the power of the Reformers' ideas (straight from Scripture), that won converts not the power of the sword like Mohammed.
Yes later Protestants, like the Romanists at the time, used force--regretably, and wrongly--and Calvin did go along with Geneva's government in executing one heretic (while the Roman Catholic church was burning them by the dozens), other than that, both Luther and Calvin were wholey against using force to propagate the good news of the finished work of Jesus.
To be fair to those of you following the Bishop of Rome, no matter what your feelings are either way, there simply is no comparision in how Islam was and is spread--by warfare--and how persons, for the most part have freely chosen the Christian faith, be it Roman, or Evangelical.