The Middle East is a common place from which three global religions originated: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All three confessions recognize the Prophet, Abraham. 

Judaism

Judaism is a monotheistic religion of the Jewish people with a belief in one God and foundations in Mosaic and rabbinical teachings. The Jewish people have been asked to accept the worship of one God instead of many (polytheism). The will of this one God, the Creator, is expressed in the Torah – the first five books of the Bible (Pentateuch) which contains the Ten Commandments. Jewish monotheism was later inherited and adopted by Christianity and Islam.

The essence of Judaism is that the Jews believe that as a result of the agreement between God and Abraham, they as the Chosen People have a unique relationship with God. They believe that the Messiah is going to be sent by God with a mission to collect all peoples of Israel in the promised land and bring everlasting peace to Earth. The Christians, but not the Jews, believe that Jesus Christ was such a Messiah.

There are three forms of Judaism: Orthodox Judaism, Liberal Judaism, and Reform Judaism.

Orthodox Judaism teaches that the Torah has all the divine revelation that Jews require. In Orthodox Judaism, religious practice is strictly observed. However, when certain interpretations of the Torah are necessary then the reference is sought in the Talmud. Orthodox Jews practice the separation of sexes in synagogues during worship. Many Orthodox Jews support the Zionist movement but deplore its secular origins and support the fact that Israel after 1948 is not a fully religious state. The Orthodox Jew recognizes a person as Jewish only if he/she has a Jewish mother or undergoes an arduous process of conversion. Nonetheless, the Israeli Law of Return, which deals with emigration to Israel, accepts all those with a Jewish grandmother as potential citizens of Israel.

The spread of Liberal Judaism started around 1780 in Germany as a response to the need to redefine the meaning and practical performance of the Torah in the changing social atmosphere of West European Enlightenment. Liberal Jews see the revelations of the five books of Moses as progressive rather than static, as expressing God’s teaching rather than God’s law. This allowed for a significant evolution in religious law and practice, and resulted in important changes in food and custom. In Europe, Liberal Judaism is also known as Progressive Judaism which is roughly equivalent to Reform Judaism in the USA.

Reform Judaism was founded in Germany by Zachariah Frankel (1801-1875) as a reaction to the perceived carelessness of Liberal Judaism. Frankel questioned all divine inspiration of the Torah but retained observance of some Jewish laws and traditions. In the USA, Reform Judaism is understood as the whole of the Liberal tradition that was brought to the USA by immigrants from Germany in the 19th century.

Christianity

Christianity is dogmatically based on Judaism, originating in Palestine. As opposed to the case of Muhammad, little is known and scientifically proven about its founder, Jesus of Nazareth, before he started to preach about the Kingdom of God. Nevertheless, that was a message for which the majority of Palestine Jews were waiting for centuries. As Palestine was occupied by the Romans in AD 6, the Jews were waiting for the long-promised Messiah to liberate them and their land. The Jews at first followed Jesus thinking he was the Messiah. However, the Jewish authorities were suspicious about his role. After three years of preaching Jesus was arrested as a fake Messiah, handed over to the Roman procurator, and finally crucified (as a revolutionary).

The new Christian faith proved to be inflexible, despite the founder’s early death. Whether Jesus himself believed that God (Jehova/Jahve) had sent him to convert the gentiles (not Jews) is still not clear according to the sources. It was left to Paul, a Jewish convert from Tarsus, to show the power and extent of Christianity’s appeal as he preached in the Aegean islands, Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and maybe as far as the Iberian Peninsula, all lands with Jewish communities. Starting with the journeys of St. Paul, Christian churches sprang up throughout the Roman Empire. By the time of Diocletian's persecutions (AD 304), they were thickly clustered around the Mediterranean and scattered as far as Britain and the Nile River. 

In essence, Christianity is a religion whose believers follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Originally, it was only a Jewish sect in Palestine that believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah (Christ, person with the divine message). Due to the Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus who later became St. Paul, Christianity became an independent faith. Christians experienced persecution by the state. By the 3rd century AD, Christians could be found throughout the Roman Empire. The Emperor Constantine the Great ended persecutions in 313 and 380 Emperor Theodosius recognized Christianity as a state religion.

Islam

The birth, rise, and expansion of Islam are some of the most significant historical events with importance in our times as well.

Islam as both religion and life philosophy began in AD 570 with the birth of the Prophet Muhammad in Mecca on the Arabian Peninsula. He was a social reformer, military general, statesman, empire builder, and visionary. Islam originated in his teaching which was framed in the Qur’an /Koran. Islam means the act of giving one’s self to God (Allah), and a person who follows the teachings of Islam is called a Muslim. All non-Arabs, like the Iranians or the Turks, are linked to their Muslim brethren around the world by their common religion. More than half of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are not of Arab origin.

Muhammad spread God’s message to mankind as the last Prophet from God. Muslims believe that God spoke through the mouth of Muhammad and that the Qur’an (recitation) is the Word of God. Muhammad, according to Muslim belief, is the Seal of the Prophets, and no Prophet will come after him. He is not divine as divinity belongs to God alone. His message to the people of West Arabia was that they should stop worshipping idols, and submit to the will of Allah. 

After the death of the Prophet, Islam spread across the Middle East and further beyond. At its peak, the empire of believers was larger than the Roman Empire at its zenith. Formally, the Qur’an has the discourses that God revealed to his Prophet, but as a religion, Islam is diverse as it has different interpretations of its teachings, such as Sunni Muslims in North Africa and Saudi Arabia and Shia Muslims in Iran or Iraq. Islam possesses utmost power over the life and culture of the local people; it is a way of life not only a religion. 

There are five pillars of Islamic belief accepted and respected by all Muslims (visually, these five principles compose the coat of arms of the Islamic Republic of Iran):

-       The profession of Faith or Shahadah: an open proclamation of submission that “there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of God”. At Muslim mosques this sentence is chanted five times per day.

-       Prayer or Salah performed five times daily at prescribed hours, individually if not preferably in groups, facing towards Mecca (for Christians praying is towards Jerusalem).

-       Zakah: all believers must give to charities, from 2 to 10 per cent of one’s annual income.

-       Sawm: Muslims must abstain from food and drink during the 30-day lunar month of Ramadan, while practising continence in other respects, from dawn to sunset. In Muslim states like Saudi Arabia, this obligation is legally protected.

-       Hajj: an obligation for all Muslims at least once if financially and physically able, to perform pilgrimage at Mecca during the month of Haj. Pilgrims who stay in Meca between 8 and 13 days and perform the rites and ceremonies are especially respected.

Some Muslims claim a sixth pillar of Islam – Holy War or Al-Jihad that allegedly offers the reward of salvation. Initially, Islam did not encourage conversion. The Qur’an enjoins Muslims to respect the “people of the book” – members of other monotheistic religions with written scriptures. Muslims are expected to show hospitality toward strangers, even if those strangers are not Muslims, and to enhance family relationships. The Islamic Holy War practised today by fundamentalist organizations like ISIS or al-Qaeda is a result of globalization, which transcends conventional politics and represents a radical departure from traditional Islam and Islamic values.

There are three basic and interrelated significations of Islam:

-       The personal/individual submission to God (Allah).

-       The Islamic world includes a variety of communities sharing not only a common fund of cultural legacies.

-       The concept of an ideal Muslim community is fixed in the Qur’an and some of its supporting sources.

There are two sects of Islam: Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims.

Sunni Muslims include over 80 per cent of Muslims in the world and they follow the sunna, a code of practice based on the hadith collected in the Sihah Satta, six authentic Books of Tradition about Prophet Muhammad. The term sunna can mean custom, code, or usage. In essence, it means whatever Prophet Muhammad demonstrated as the ideal behaviour for a Muslim to follow. It complements the Qur’an as a source of legal and ethical guidelines. Sunni Muslims recognize the order of succession of the first four caliphs and they follow one of four schools of law. In the Middle East (and Pakistan) the Hanafi school prevails.

Shia Muslims comprise between 15 to 20 per cent of Islam. They are the majority in Iran (where Shia Islam is the official state religion), and have substantial numbers in South Iraq, Azerbaijan, parts of Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, East Africa, north India and Pakistan. They originated as the Shiat Ali (“party of Ali”), the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad. Shia Muslims regard Ali and his descendants as the only rightful heirs to Mohammad as the leader of the Muslims. Shia Muslims differ from Sunnis in the importance they attach to the continuing authority of the imams – authentic interpreters of the sunna or customs, the code of conduct based on the Qur’an followed by hadith or sayings and deeds of Muhammad. They also believe in an inner hidden meaning of the Qur’an.  

Sufism is the mystical aspect of Islam. Sufis seek personal union with God and there are many Sufi poets and scholars followed by Sufi organized orders or brotherhoods.     

Religious diversity is quite visible in Middle Eastern nations due to the presence of religious minorities like Jews, Christians and their sects.