Similarities and Differences among the Scriptures (original) (raw)

Believing in supernatural is a part of being human. As such there are about 4,300 religions in the world. These can be broadly classified into Abrahamic religions originating in West Asia, Indian religions originating in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia), East Asian religions originating in in East Asia, and Afro-American religions originating in Central and West Africa. More than half of the world population is monotheists believing in Islam (1.8 billion), Christianity (2.4 billion), or Judaism (0.015 billion). On the other end of the pole are the pantheists who shares in the concepts of dharma, karma, and reincarnation and practice either Hinduism (1.2 billion) or Buddhism (0.52 billion). Considering that all of these religions belong to humans and there are some common strands among them called humanity, the author explored if there is any commonality among all the religions and if there is any difference what kind of differences are there. His analysis suggests that most of the scriptures have three elements: the Universal Revelations, the Culture Specific Revelations, and materials introduced by the religious establishments. Since the Quran has been maintained in pristine form, it has only two elements: the Universal Revelations and the Culture Specific Revelations. The Universal Revelations e.g. God, accountability, life after death, Salah, Zakah, fasting, ritual sacrifice, facing Qibla, and etc. are the same in concept in most of the scriptures, but differ in detail either because of the cultural differences or due to material introduced by the religious establishment in the scripture. The Culture Specific Revelations are all based on the principle of social justice. The source of both the Universal Revelations and the Culture Specific Revelations is the Source Book (Umm-ul-Kitab).