Put the year of three neighbours side by side. A Jewish family fasts on Yom Kippur, gives tzedakah, rests on Shabbat and remembers going up to Jerusalem three times a year. A Christian family keeps Lent, gives to the collection, keeps Sunday and might walk to Walsingham. A Muslim family fasts in Ramadan, pays zakat, gathers on Friday and saves for Hajj.
Fasting, prayer, giving, sacrifice, pilgrimage, rest. The same six shapes turn up again and again, and not only among Abraham's children. Why? There are two kinds of answer: one from the faiths themselves, one from scientists who study religion. They are not necessarily enemies.
“Say (O Muslims): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered.”
Qur'an 2:136 · Pickthall (1930)
Muslims understand the prophets as a single chain carrying one message. So it is no surprise to a Muslim that fasting, prayer and charity look alike across the Abrahamic faiths. The Qur'an even says that fasting was prescribed “O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you, even as it was prescribed for those before you, that ye may ward off (evil)” (2:183, Pickthall).
What the scientists of religion say
Since the 1990s, a field called the cognitive science of religion has asked why religious ideas come so naturally to people everywhere. The anthropologist Pascal Boyer, in Religion Explained (2001), argued that religious ideas spread because they fit the way every human mind works. The psychologist Justin Barrett suggested that we have a very sensitive “agency detector”. Hear a rustle in the grass and you assume someone is there, because missing a real predator costs far more than a false alarm.
Others look at shared practice. The anthropologist Richard Sosis argues that demanding rituals, such as long fasts, show a group that you are truly committed, and so build trust. Shared bodies explain a lot as well. Everyone gets hungry, everyone needs rest, and everyone depends on a harvest.
What can these theories tell us? They describe how belief and ritual work in human minds and groups. On their own, they cannot show whether God exists. Barrett, one of the field's founders, is himself a Christian; many others in the field are not. A believer can say God made human minds ready to recognise Him. A sceptic can say that readiness explains the belief. The research fits both.
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What each faith says
Judaism
“Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, Profaning the covenant of our fathers?”
Malachi 2:10 · JPS 1917
Jewish tradition sees one God who made one humanity. Everyone descends from Adam, and after the flood God made a covenant with Noah and all his descendants (Genesis 9). The rabbis taught seven basic laws for every nation, the Noahide laws. So goodness and worship among other peoples are no surprise. The prophet Malachi asks why people who share one Maker treat each other badly.
Christianity
“Yet he didn’t leave himself without witness, in that he did good and gave you rains from the sky and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”
Acts 14:17 · World English Bible (British Edition), public domain
Christians read the Hebrew Bible as part of their own Bible, so many Christian practices grew from Jewish ones. The first followers of Jesus were Jews who kept praying in the Temple (Acts 2:46). Lent's forty days echo Moses, Elijah and Jesus. When Paul spoke to non-Jews in the town of Lystra, he said God had never left any nation without a witness.
Islam
“And We sent no messenger before thee but We inspired him, (saying): There is no God save Me (Allah), so worship Me.”
Qur'an 21:25 · Pickthall (1930)
The Qur'an teaches that God sent a messenger to every nation (16:36), and that the heart of the message was always the same. Muslims believe in the earlier prophets, including Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus. On this view the likenesses between faiths are family likenesses: one message, renewed by prophet after prophet, with the Qur'an as the final reminder.
Without religion
Many non-religious thinkers see the likeness as human, not divine: similar bodies and needs, similar ways of building trust, and a great deal of borrowing as people met, traded and married. Historians can trace some of that borrowing. Others feel no need to decide. The patterns are fascinating whatever their origin.
Sikhi
“Numberless thy worshippers, and numberless Thy lovers; Numberless Thine adorers, and numberless they who perform austerities for Thee”
Guru Granth Sahib, ang 3 (Japji, pauri 17) · Max Arthur Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion (1909), public domain
Sikhs see one Creator behind all true devotion. Guru Nanak is remembered as saying “There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim”, meaning that God sees the person, not the label. The Guru Granth Sahib includes hymns by Hindu and Muslim saints, such as Kabir and Sheikh Farid, alongside the Gurus' own.
Hindu traditions
“Nay, and of hearts which follow other gods / In simple faith, their prayers arise to me, / O Kunti's Son! though they pray wrongfully”
Bhagavad Gita 9:23 · Edwin Arnold, The Song Celestial (1885), public domain
Many Hindus see the world's religions as different paths up the same mountain. A line from the Rig Veda is often quoted: truth is one, and the wise call it by many names (1.164.46). In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that even prayers offered in simple faith to other gods reach him, though he adds that they are not offered rightly.
Beyond the Abrahamic faiths
The Bahá'í faith teaches that God has sent a series of messengers, including Abraham, Moses, Krishna, the Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad, each suited to their age. Many Buddhists see meditation, giving and moral rules as wise answers to suffering that all humans share.
Same and different
Almost everyone agrees there is a family likeness. They differ on why. Muslims see one message from one God through many prophets. Jews and Christians see one God of all nations, with a covenant through Abraham's family that others can learn from. Hindus and Bahá'ís speak of many paths or many messengers. Scientists of religion describe minds and groups. These answers can sit side by side: a shared root and a shared human nature could both be true. And the everyday result is the same. Neighbours who fast, pray, give and rest in similar ways have a great deal to talk about.
A moment to reflect
- Which of the six shapes, prayer, fasting, giving, sacrifice, pilgrimage, rest, is part of your own year?
- If two explanations both fit the evidence, how do you decide between them?
- Does learning that a practice is shared make it feel more special to you, or less?
- What could neighbours of different faiths learn from each other's version of the same practice?
Do it together
Draw a grid with six practices across the top and the faiths in your class down the side. Fill in each square together, using our Common Ground pages. Which squares are empty, and why?
Invite people of two or three faiths to bring one object from their year (a Lent cross, a zakat leaflet, a Shabbat candle, a gutka). Talk about what each one is for.
Split the class. One half builds the faith explanation for the likeness, the other the scientific one. Then ask: are these really in competition?
Go deeper
- Cognitive science of religion (Wikipedia) · article
- Qur'an 2:136 and 21:25 (Quran.com) · scripture
- Seven Laws of Noah (Wikipedia) · article
- Acts 14 (World English Bible) · scripture
In pictures
Sources (8)
- Malachi 2:10 text; Genesis 9:9–10 covenant with Noah and every living creature: Sefaria, JPS 1917
- Acts 14:15–17 text; Acts 2:46 (in the Temple daily): World English Bible (British Edition) via bible-api.com
- Qur'an 2:136, 2:183, 16:36, 21:25 meanings (rendered Pickthall (1930) where quoted): Quran.com
- Boyer (2001); Barrett's hyperactive agency detection; Barrett (2004); Sosis on costly signalling: Wikipedia, Cognitive science of religion
- Japji pauri 17 in Macauliffe's translation: Max Arthur Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, vol. 1 (1909), Wikisource
- Bhagavad Gita 9:23 in Arnold's translation: Edwin Arnold, The Song Celestial (1885), Project Gutenberg
- Rig Veda 1.164.46, 'ekam sad viprā bahudhā vadanti': Wikipedia, Rigveda (1.164.46)
- Bahá'í progressive revelation: Wikipedia, Progressive revelation (Bahá'í)