Muslims had 'contempt towards the gospel,' as Smith said in 1835, drawing on his experience in Turkey. Starbuck concluded in 1892, 'Christendom and Mohammedanism have been misled by no false…

Muslims had ‘contempt towards the gospel,’ as Smith said in 1835, drawing on his experience in Turkey. Starbuck concluded in 1892, ‘Christendom and Mohammedanism have been misled by no false instinct in their unconquerable and deadly antipathy to each other.’ ‘The Gospel in the Mission Field has no more powerful or bitter foe than Islam, or the religion of the false prophet Mohammed,’ as a CMS article reported the same year. In its competition with Islam in West Asia, Christianity ‘was driven to the wall and lost nearly everything.‘

Evidence

What Christians now confronted was a religion that was similar to theirs but that challenged the primacy of their belief system. The God of Christianity is the same God of Abraham worshiped in Islam, but Christianity claims that God’s revelation in Jesus marked the end of revelation and of prophecy. Islam makes a similar claim but argues that Muhammad was the last prophet who received the final and correct Word of God. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 64 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Islam threatened Christianity because it mounted a rival revelatory claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 64; The successful resistance of Muslims to conversion and flourishing Islamic proselytizing seemed twin roadblocks to the cherished goal of Christianizing humanity. Without any apparent sense of irony, Hume wrote, ‘We are well aware that Mohammedans, wherever found, constitute a difficult, and hitherto a comparatively unfruitful field…They regard themselves as God’s peculiar people, and look with feelings of hatred and contempt upon all opposing religions.’; The view of this inherent, ultimate conflict persisted into the twentieth century (and longer), especially in British India where missionaries from throughout the Anglo-American world labored. The Canadian Presbyterian missionary Wilson believed ‘There is ground for the opinion that the final struggle for the religious conquest of Eastern nations will be between Christianity and Islam.’ (+1 more)

Related

• Islam threatened Christianity because it mounted a rival revelatory claim (similarity 0.85)
• Antebellum writers framed Islam as Christianity’s cosmic mortal enemy. (similarity 0.83)
• Christianity and Islam differ fundamentally over how revelation unfolds (similarity 0.83)
• The view of this inherent, ultimate conflict persisted into the twentieth century (and longer), especially in British India where missionaries from throughout the Anglo-American world labored. The… (similarity 0.81)
• Anglo-American discourse framed Islam as Christianity’s inherent and inexorable nemesis. (similarity 0.81)
• Mass Christian conversion to Islam forced Christians to view Muslims as religious rivals (similarity 0.80)
• Islam’s entanglement with Christianity’s history has blocked objective Western study of it. (similarity 0.79)
• Islam’s proximity and shared sacred geography made it a unique spiritual threat to Europe. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The view of this inherent, ultimate conflict persisted into the twentieth century (and longer), especially in British India where missionaries from throughout the Anglo-American world labored. The… #expands (0.85)
• The successful resistance of Muslims to conversion and flourishing Islamic proselytizing seemed twin roadblocks to the cherished goal of Christianizing humanity. Without any apparent sense of… #corroborates (0.70)
• Islam threatened Christianity because it mounted a rival revelatory claim #expands (0.65) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 64