theomise wrote:
But is it any more a 'form of Islam' than Christianity was a 'form of Judaism' circa 114AD?
This is where the comparison begins to break down. I think Judaism in the second temple era and beyond (into the mid/late second century even) was not a "monolithic" religion as Judaism clearly was from the fourth century on and as Christianity and Islam are.
By our standards of what constitutes a separate religion then certainly Christianity with its worship of Christ from its very earliest decades as the creator and sustainer of the cosmos and personal mediator and saviour of all who believe and a hypostasis or whatever of God was very much a separate religion. The Gospel of John effectively makes this clear, I think.
That's not the sort of religion (with respect to its founder or in this case trigger Fard) that we find in the NoI. The comparison would be, I think, if Christianity virtually reduced Jesus to a historical footnote and gave all focus on conversion to Yahweh.)
Yes Fard was inhabited or such by Allah, but this sounds to me pretty much like a parallel to adoptionist christology. Yes, Jesus could say "I Am" in that case. But Fard did not follow in the wake of Jesus as the focus of worship after that moment.
I don't think this is a case of something I have always opposed elsewhere -- trying to discount parallels by focusing on differences. In this case I think the difference (just one) is fundamental to the point of the analogy.
I am not denying parallels in the narratives, by the way. I think they are real. But I have tended to think that the modern or recent historical case-studies actually support the notion that the rationalised narrative of Jesus really does not do the job of explaining Christianity.
