Christianity vs Islam on how to resolve disagreements
Human beings will never agree on every single thing. As a result, the religious texts of Christians and Muslims contain, not just instructions on how to disagree, but examples of early adherents of the texts disagreeing with each other. These complement each other to lay out a blue print on how adherents of a religion should handle their disagreements.
Express commandments on resolving quarrels
Jesus instructs his followers on how to resolve disagreements thus,
“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”
(Matthew 18:16–17)
Allah on the other hand, instructs in the Quran,
“If two parties among the believers start to fight against each other, restore peace among them. If one party rebels against the other, fight against the rebellious one until he surrenders to the command of God. When he does so, restore peace among them with justice and equality; God loves those who maintain justice.”
(Surah 49:9)
Now both instructions aim at getting to peace but note now they get there. Jesus says tell your brother the fault between you two, then involve others and if does not work then for the sake of peace let the one refusing to hear the church be like an unbeliever to you!
Allah on the other hand commands his followers to fight the party that does not listen until they surrender. Is it not interesting that the verse begins with “if two parties among the believers start to fight against each other” thus presupposing that violence is the appropriate response for believers who disagree to begin with. Contrast this with Jesus’ instruction that begins with “if your brother sins against you”.
Again, notice the contrast in the framing. Very subtle but important. Jesus emphasizes the relationship of both the offender and the offended to each other. Thus He says, “if your brother sins”. Allah on the other hand emphasizes the relationship between both offender and offended to himself. Thus while the aim of Jesus’ instruction to His followers is to restore the relationship between feuding parties, the aim of Allah is to force one (or both) of the feuding parties to surrender to his laws.
A further problem with Allah’s instruction is that both parties will obviously see each other as “the rebellious ones”, there is no impartial arbiter to decide hence they will fight each other hoping to subdue each other to the will of Allah because they see themselves as the ones in the right. Jesus’ instruction does not have this problem because the witnesses and then the church are supposed to serve as the impartial arbiter in this scenario.
Disagreement on matters of theology
The Christian faith has been one which has had to defend itself and its beliefs since its very foundation. Jesus promised His disciples that when they would be brought before men and have to defend their faith, the Holy Spirit would give them the words to speak,
“But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak”
(Matthew 10:20)
So dialogue and discourse, even at the expense of the Christian party’s life has always been at the heart of resolving disputes in the Christian faith starting with Jesus’ disciples.
We see “Councils” in the early church to decide on important doctrinal matters by way of debates,
“ And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question.”
(Acts 15:1–2)
And again,
“Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them…”
(Acts 15:6–7)
Even when Paul had a personal disagreement with Peter on a matter very sensitive to the gospel, the account is recorded thus,
“ Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.
But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews?”
(Galatians 2:11–14)
The disagreement involved Paul using his words and logic. We now turn to how Islam handles theological disagreements,
“Narrated Anas bin Malik:
Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said, “I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.’ And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally and their reckoning will be with Allah.”
(Sahih Bukhari Book 8 Hadith 44)
This sets the framework. So Muhammad teaches his followers that everybody has to agree on who they worship, how to pray, how to kill animals and even where to face while praying. The idea is anybody that does not agree with what Islam teaches should be fought.
The same idea is found in the Quran in Surah 9:29,
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture — [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.”
Note this is a command to fight people who disagree with Islam either based on what they believe — “do not believe in Allah” — or what they practice — “do not consider unlawful what Allah and his messenger have made unlawful”.
Just in case you think this is my own warped and biased interpretation of the Islamic sources, let me show you how this hadith has been interpreted by the earliest Muslims,
“It was narrated that Abu Hurairah said:
“When the Messenger of Allah [SAW] died, and Abu Bakr (became Khalifah) after him, and the ‘Arabs reverted to Kufr, ‘Umar said: ‘O Abu Bakr, how can you fight the people when the Messenger of Allah [SAW] said: I have been commanded to fight the people until they say La ilaha illallah, and whoever says La ilaha illallah, his wealth and his life are safe from me, except for a right that is due, and his reckoning will be with Allah, the Mighty and Sublime?’ Abu Bakr said: ‘I will fight whoever separates Salah and Zakah, for Zakah is the compulsory right to be taken from wealth. By Allah, if they withhold from me a young goat that they used to give to the Messenger of Allah [SAW], I will fight them for withholding it.’ ‘Umar said: ‘By Allah, as soon as I saw that Allah has expanded the chest of Abu Bakr to fighting, I knew that it was the truth.’”
(Sunan An’Nasai Book 37 Hadith 8)
In essence, the people Abubakr was fighting were still Muslims, they just were not giving Zakat (obligatory charity) the way they used to give it when Muhammad was alive. Abubakar says he will fight them even if they withhold a goat or a piece of rope as another version of the hadith adds.
There is another example of how the early Muslims handled a theological disagreement in the Asbab al-Nuzul (The reason for the revelation) of Surah 3:181,
“…one day, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq entered a Jewish place of study and found a group of Jewish people gathered around one of them called Finhas ibn ‘Azura, who was one of their doctors. Abu Bakr said to Finhas: “Fear Allah and embrace Islam, for by Allah you know well that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah who has brought the truth to you from Allah. He is mentioned in your Torah; so believe and accept the truth and grant Allah a goodly offering and He will make you enter the Garden and multiply your reward”. Finhas responded: “O Abu Bakr, you claim that our Lord is asking us to lend Him our wealth. Yet, it is only the poor who borrow from the rich. And if what you say is true, it follows that Allah is poor and we are rich, for if He were rich He would not ask us to lend Him our wealth”. Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, may Allah be well pleased with him, became very angry and struck the face of Finhas with a mighty blow. He then said to him: “By Him in whose Hand is my soul, if it were not for the treaty between us, O enemy of Allah, I would have killed you”. Finhas went to the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, and said: “O Muhammad! Look at what your companion has done to me”. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, asked Abu Bakr: “What has driven you to do what you have done?” He said: “O Messenger of Allah, this enemy of Allah has said something very serious. He claimed that Allah is poor and they are rich. I therefore got angry for the sake of Allah and hit his face”...”
The Jewish rabbi, in response to Abu Bakr’s dawah (Islamic evangelism) asked a very logical question. Over and over again in the Quran, Allah keeps asking for a loan.
“Who is it that would loan Allah a goodly loan so He may multiply it for him many times over? And it is Allah who withholds and grants abundance, and to Him you will be returned.”
(Surah 2:245)
The rabbi said, the poor borrow from the rich, likely drawing inspiration from the book of proverbs,
“The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” (Proverbs 22:7)
Says the poor borrow from the rich so it follows that Allah must be poor. Very logical inference to make. Abubakar’s logical response was to punch him in the face and then threaten to kill him! This sums up the Islamic attitude to disagreements in a nutshell.
Even Allah does not like you asking logical questions about Islam,
“O you who have believed, do not ask about things which, if they are shown to you, will distress you. But if you ask about them while the Qur’an is being revealed, they will be shown to you.
A people asked such [questions] before you; then they became thereby disbelievers.”
(Surah 5:101–102)
So no Muslim after the death of Muhammad is allowed to ask hard hitting questions like the rabbi did. The reason is that people might leave Islam if they start asking these questions, hence the response to the rabbi’s hard hitting rebuttal of Abubakar’s dawah efforts was a hard hit to the face!
Implications on early Christian and Islamic history and modern culture
The above frameworks for resolving disagreements has had profoundly different impacts on how Christians and Muslims resolve disagreements as adherents to both religions tend to follow in the footsteps of their founding fathers.
Christians would have the Council of Nicea to combat the Arian heresy, the Council of Chalcedon, the Catholic church has had the Council of Trent in more modern history.
Muslims on the other hand have waged wars over apostacy, whether Allah has body parts or not, whether the Quran was created or uncreated and who the rightful heir to Muhammad was. We even had Aisha, the mother of the faithful march an army against Ali, the commander of the faithful, all within just 24 years of Muhammad’s death!
Now, the neutral observer would remark, but wait a minute! Didn’t the protestants and the Catholics fight and kill each other for a long time? Yes they did! And my point is that they were not following the teaching of Jesus and the example of the early church when they did so! Paul, Peter and John would have condemned both parties if they were around. But when Muslims get bloodied and violent over disagreements on theological matters, Muhammad and his followers would have endorsed it because they did the very same thing! We had Muhammad side with Abubakar for punching a Jewish rabbi in the face over a theological disagreement!
Even today, the church is getting very divided again with Protestants and Catholics having a go at each other on YouTube! But note what they are doing? Using their words! How do the Sunnis and the Shias in the middle east settle their theological disagreements today? You go be a Sunni in Iran or Lebanon and find out.
A final word
Disagreements are inevitable, Islam imagines a world where everybody agrees on everything, everybody is united on every matter Muhammad has legislated on. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective), that will never happen so disagreeing well becomes the bedrock of a civilisation. But thanks to Muhammad and Allah, we have a sizable number of people who believe violence is the only way to resolve a disagreement, whether it be on a theological point, whether it be on a behavioral point, whether it be on not valuing a holy text the way they would or whether it be arresting one of their own in a non-Muslim land for doing something illegal but permitted in a Muslim land or whether it be not agreeing with their views that Jews should be wiped out and a fictional state of Palestine should be built on it!
For centuries, Christian Europe said, whatever else we disagree on, can we all agree that we do not want this territory to be governed by laws from people who think they have a God-given right to wreck havoc and terror on every one who does not share their religious beliefs? They waged wars to keep it out of Europe.
In the 21st century however, Europe has opened its doors en-masse to people from these nations and barely two months into the year 2025, we are seeing the results whenever we switch on the television. From Salwan Momika to the New Orleans terrorist Shamshudin to “Innocent Palestinian civilians” clutching their babies in their arms while celebrating the death of the Bibas baby to the Syrian Asylum attacker in Austria to the Afgan Asylum seeker ramming a car into people in Munich to Muslim Austrian nurses bragging about how they “send Jewish patients which come to them to hell fire”, we are seeing the rise of people who cannot tolerate any form of disagreement with their beliefs.
Can Europe go back to agreeing that we want to keep disagreeing in peace? Agreeing to disagree might become something of the past if Europe keeps heading in this direction.
