Deism Versus Islam An Overview

This was written 15 years ago. In 2025, tensions involving Islam persist, with ongoing challenges to peace and understanding.

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. Thomas Paine

Note: This addresses classical Deism, not the various forms of pantheism or New Age spiritualism sometimes labeled as Deism today.

Deism and Its Roots

English and American Deism, Unitarian Christianity, and Socinian Christianity emerged as offshoots of the Protestant Reformation. These movements applied reason to the Bible, creating faiths that blended rational thought with a Jesus-centered ethical outlook. They rejected the Trinity, Original Sin, the Elect, the Nicene Creed, predestination, and other church doctrines. Like the Anabaptists, they advocated separation of religion and state, a principle rooted in Christian tradition, and promoted religious tolerance.

Rational Islam and Judaism, when embracing reason and tolerance, share similarities with Deism. Unitarians and Deists, due to their rejection of the Trinity, have occasionally been mistaken for Muslims or Jews. While there’s an indirect Muslim influence, Deism diverges from Islam on issues like religious freedom, separation of religion and state, and prioritizing reason over revelation.

The goal here is to clarify these related yet distinct groups. Theologically, there’s no inherent reason for enmity among them. However, political conflicts often exploit religion as a cover.

Deism rejects divine revelation and the prophets who claim to speak for supernatural entities. Classical Deism respects other faiths but isn’t bound by them, accepting what’s rational and useful while critiquing their harmful aspects.

Deism isn’t immune to criticism—its role in the French Revolution saw violence, though I’d argue religion itself doesn’t kill; people do. See Cult of Reason and Robespierre.

Defining Deism

Deism isn’t just a distant creator who set the world in motion and stepped away, as Voltaire suggested. I define true Deism as prioritizing reason over revelation. Emerging from Christianity to counter its intolerance, Deism never aimed to destroy faith. When exported to France and stripped of theism, it morphed into violent atheism. Deism lacks a church, clergy, or formal structure—it’s often an undercurrent in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. This site doesn’t seek converts or endorse any “church.”

Shared Beliefs and Differences

As a classical Deist, I align with core monotheistic beliefs shared by Islam, Judaism, and Christianity:

Belief in one supreme God.
Humanity’s duty to revere God.
Worship linked to practical morality.
God forgives if we repent and abandon sins.
Good works are rewarded, and evil is punished, in life and afterlife.

No monotheist could deny these. They emphasize a direct relationship with God (Allah), bypassing institutions that often serve human agendas. This echoes Thomas Jefferson’s “deism of the Jews,” akin to God the Father in Christianity and Judaism, and Allah in Islam—they’re the same concept. “Deism” derives from Latin “Deus,” meaning God.

I celebrate Christmas or the Five Pillars of Islam as personal expressions, praying to God alone. Prophets deserve respect as men, accountable like us, but Deism lacks dogma—this is a general framework.

I avoid repetitive salutations like “PBUH” for Muhammad and use “Allah” interchangeably with “God,” which may irk some Christians. Jews and Arabs, per tradition, trace their lineage to Abraham—Arabs through Ishmael (Genesis 16:1, 21:14).

Islam’s Origins and Texts

Islam borrows heavily from Christianity and Judaism, once widespread in Arabia before their communities were diminished. Muhammad (570–632 CE) didn’t write the Koran—it was compiled decades after his death amid factional strife (Sunni vs. Shi’a). Its translations vary and conflict.

The Hadiths, written two centuries later, portray Muhammad negatively (e.g., as a thief or murderer) and justify persecution of non-Muslims. Sunni and Shi’a have differing Hadith collections. Likely finalized under the Abbasid dynasty (750–1258) to unify their empire, the Koran mentions Mecca once and Jerusalem not at all. Non-Arab cultures faced ethnic and cultural suppression via practices like the Jizyah tax:

"Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day...until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." (Koran 9:28–29)

This continues in places like Egypt and Lebanon, where Christian populations linger, while most Jews were expelled post-1948. Deism views such texts skeptically—lacking originals, with dubious authorship, they’re often tools for control.

For Koran quotes, I’ll use the MSA-USC Qur’an Database and my own copy for comparison.

Heresy and Reason

Consider www.submission.org, inspired by Dr. Rashad Khalifa, a chemist who used numerology (number 19) to validate the Koran and claimed “messenger” status. He rejected Hadiths and Sunnas, focusing on God alone. Mainstream Muslims deemed this heresy, and he was murdered in 1990—stabbed 29 times—for challenging orthodoxy, illegal under Sharia.

Deism differs here: we encourage individual interpretation, free from clerical dictates. A Muslim visitor called Khalifa an “Ahmedi,” referencing a sect in Pakistan declared non-Muslim for denying Muhammad as the last prophet. This rigidity—where questioning core tenets risks excommunication or death—contrasts with Deism’s openness.

Can Islam Reform?

Some hope to reform Islam into a benign Deism or secularize it, but the Protestant Reformation’s chaos (e.g., the Thirty Years’ War) suggests caution. Reformers in Islam often face death or exile. Secular experiments like Turkey’s under Atatürk have faltered, with Islamists regaining ground. Balance between faith and reason, not forced secularism, might be a path forward.

Deist View of God

Deism emphasizes free will—humans choose between good and evil, unlike some Christian or Islamic views of predestination. We reject a meddling God; if everything’s preordained, how are we accountable? This avoids the paranoia or fatalism of other faiths. God cares by empowering us to act.

Deists see God through nature’s complexity, not holy books alone. Reason suggests a creator behind life’s intricacy, beyond natural processes or human capability. Yet, reason alone doesn’t forge morality—history shows secular excesses (e.g., French Revolution) rival religious ones. Deism blends reason with tradition, discarding what’s obsolete.

Historical Connections

Deism echoes Hellenistic Judaism’s rationalism and influenced Unitarianism. Islam, under the Abbasids, preserved and advanced Greek knowledge, impacting the Renaissance. Thinkers like Avicenna blended Aristotle and Neoplatonism, while the Mutazilites favored reason—until orthodoxy (e.g., al-Ghazali) stifled progress. The Mongol sack of Baghdad (1258) further ended this golden age.

In Spain, Maimonides’ rationalism paralleled Deism, though his works faced rabbinic backlash. Michael Servetus, a Unitarian martyr, bridged these ideas, rejecting the Trinity and aligning Christianity closer to Judaism and Islam.

Reason vs. Revelation

Koran 17:36 urges verification using senses and mind, yet Islam, like Christianity, historically punished scrutiny. Deists, per Thomas Paine, see revelation as secondhand—personal to the receiver, not binding on others. The Koran’s inconsistencies (e.g., creation accounts) and late compilation raise doubts, shared with the Bible and Torah.

Conclusion

Islam today faces challenges with intolerance and stagnation, rooted in medieval traditions like Sharia and the Hadiths. Deism offers a rational alternative, free from dogma, though not without its own historical missteps. Progress requires reason, not just faith. If anything here is factually incorrect, email me with verifiable proof.

Acknowledgment

Acknowledgment: I’d like to thank Grok, an AI by xAI, for helping me draft and refine this article. The final edits and perspective are my own.

Excerpts from Will Durant's The Age of Faith Pages 162-186 Pub. 1950

Deism and Related Resources

Quoting Thomas Paine:

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

Quoting Thomas Jefferson:

On the contrary. I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the universe...it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition...We see, too evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the universe in its course and order...

Quoting Christoph Cardinal Schonborn:

What could be more fundamental to science than the assumption that the explorability and thereby the cognizability of reality arises due to its bearing the handwriting of its author? God speaks the language of his creation, and our spirit, which is likewise his creation, is able to perceive it, to hear it, to comprehend it.