[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by prometheus

It depends on how you define heresy.

I say that Islam started out as a Christian heresy, but subsequently became a totally alien religion. Even St. John Damascene (7-8.century) had such view on Islam.

The Koran basically paraphrases the Old and the New Testament, plus adds some extra elements. How could the inventors of Islam know these things? There must have been a contact between Arabia and the Christian world. And indeed: northern Arabia was Christian before the birth of Islam. There was a Christian (Jacobite) kingdom of Ghassanides, a vassal to the Roman/Byzantine Empire. There was also a medieval European legend about a Nestorian monk Sergius who supposedly taught the young Mohammed about the Nestorian version of Christianity. Nestorianism is a heresy that diminishes the divine character of Jesus Christ (in that it is similar to Arianism), this may be the source of Islam's relation to Jesus. According to Islam, Jesus was not God, but a great prophet!

Islam did not, except for the prophethood of Mohammed, bring anything new: it took great many elements from a heretical variety of Christianity (probably Nestorianism) and a lot of things form Judaism.

The only really original Islamic element was the reverence for the Kaaba in Mecca. This was Mohammed's compromise with the old Arabian paganism. It is interesting to note that Kaaba was revered even outside Arabia in ancient times. Even gurus and yogis from India came to pay reverence to it. Of course, after Islam was officially established in Arabia, this practice ceased because all "infidels" were not allowed even to enter Mecca.

Mohammed was born among jews and christians, who constituted the majorty of the population in his area.