Christianity Judaism and Islam

Each of the three religions, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, preach tolerance toward other religions. However, these teachings are not always followed. Each is a peaceful religion, but each has fought wars in the name of their religion or their God. This is an interesting occurrence since each of the religions pray to the same God. The relationship between the three has been, at times, a strained one. There are several reasons for this. The Jewish people, although believing that a messiah will one day come, do not believe Jesus to be him. The Christians for whom Jesus is the son of God are angered by this, furthermore, Christian teaching have blamed the Jews for the murder of Jesus. The Christians are also upset with the fact that Muslims do not recognize Jesus as the son of God; they see him as a prophet just like Muhammad and Abraham. The Jewish people are also upset with the way Muslims view the prophets. The Qur'an states that "Abraham was not a Jew, nor yet a Christian; but he was an upright man who had surrendered (to Allah), and he was not of the idolaters." This angers the Jews who name Abraham as the father of Judaism.

The main problem with viewing tolerance with in these religions is that the religious extremists are the least tolerant in each religion, yet they are the most vocal. This gives each religion a bad name in the eyes of the others. The prime example of this today can be seen in the radical members of Al Qaeda. Their extremist views in no way represent the views of the common Muslim however, they give the appearance that all Muslims want to kill all Jews and Christians. If one were to rank the three religions from most tolerant to least it would be: Judaism, Islam, Christianity. The Jewish people have a long history of oppression and while their doctrine of marriage only between a man and woman of the same religion gives the appearance of being intolerant, they tend to be more accepting of other religions. Both Christianity and Islam believe in the teachings of the Torah and both view Abraham as an important person in their religions. The Jewish people however, do not agree with the teachings of either of them. There were some occurrences in the past of the Jewish people trying to stop the spread of Christianity and Islam. Both of these religions spread their word in the Jewish community attempting to convert the Jews. They each taught their religion as the proper extension of Judaism. Jews rejected this and tried to prevent it to save their own religion.

On of the central teachings of Islam is that Christians and Jews are "people of the book". The religion recognizes the Torah and the Bible as the word of God but believe that the Quran supersedes both as the final word of God. Muslims also believe that parts of the Gospels, Torah and Jewish prophetic books have been forgotten, misinterpreted, or distorted by their followers. There have been several instances in the past of Muslims oppressing other religions. Muhammad expelled non-Muslims from the Ka'aba in Mecca; they also drove Christians and Jews from Jerusalem, a holy place in all three religions. The Quran explicitly prohibits persecution, but a few claim that the later appearance of the more antagonistic verses is an abrogation of the former, implying God changed his mind. Most of the more