What does the Quran say about God? What are some of its other key teachings?
While God is Provider and Sustainer, He is also arguably the Destroyer. There are at least a few Suras (the term is similar to the concept of Bible verses, but with the added sense of being more along the lines of building blocks; later Suras building on earlier ones), that declare that if God wanted to, He could either bless us or destroy us instantly.
God’s destruction of unrepentant groups is a recurring theme. These groups include: Abraham’s father’s community, Pharaoh, Lot’s people, and various Arab communities. Their destructions are mentioned repeatedly. There are also many lurid descriptions of Hell, and the punishments that will be faced there. In contrast to what the Bible says about praying for non-believers, etc., Muslims are urged NOT to pray for the unrepentant. They are to be left to their own evil ways, to wander as lost souls until the final Day of Judgment. If they insist on warring against Islam, they are to be destroyed in the here and now as well. However, God does send someone to first warn the group prior to their impending destruction. The Quran notes that those warnings are repeatedly ignored by the recipients, and then their destruction follows.
The Quran does declare that Satan exists, and is our enemy, as are those demons (jinns) who support him. Unlike the Bible where his fall results from his desire to usurp God’s place, in the Quran his fall is the result of failing to obey God. When God tells all the angels to bow down to the humans He has just created, Satan refuses to do so. As a result of his disobedience, God kicks him out of Heaven.
In the Quran, there is no intermediary between God and man. A person’s salvation is all on them. To dare say, “Jesus is God,” is to commit the worst blasphemy imaginable, referred to as “joining gods with God.” Christians are repeatedly condemned for being guilty of that blasphemy.
Salvation is works based: another recurring theme is that God looks with favor upon those who believe and do good works—the more good works, the more likely the judgment scale will tilt in the person’s favor on the Day of Judgment. Nevertheless, there is no assurance of forgiveness, with the possible exception of dying in a righteous jihad (a holy war declared by a righteous Imam). Indeed, dying while fighting in jihad appears to be a most noble way to depart this world, but jihad is not a topic I intend to address in any detail as part of this general summary.
Also of significance, the Quran frequently describes God as “Oft forgiving, Most Merciful,” and we’ll start with that point in the next entry.
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