Islamic and Christianity Theism WorldviewsEach person makes sense of life, reality, and the world through their worldview. Thus, nurses must be familiar with patients’ worldviews, especially their fundamental belief system that determines their views on life, death, God, and moral codes. Although these views vary from patient to patient, a basic understanding of the patient’s worldview is a vital component every nurse should have while planning and delivering patient care.
This paper will discuss Islamic Theism and the Christian Theism worldviews and will compare and contrast both religions by looking into some of their foundational aspects. Christianity worldview The Christian worldview gives the affirmation of God as the supreme being which exists in three forms (Genesis 1:1, New International Version). The Christian worldview originated from Judaism, spreading through the Eastern Mediterranean rapidly as a separate identity; that spread/identity/separation/worldview has given birth to many denominations (Pollock, 2008). Christians have several central beliefs that they affirm: first, only one God exists, who created Heaven and Earth and everything in it; second, Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died and rose from the dead to save the humankind from sins; and third, that the Holy Bible uniquely contains the inspired words of God (Pollock, 2008).Islam WorldviewTwo integral terms describe/verb the worldview of a Muslim; Islam terms which mean “submission” and similarly Muslim which means “one who submits (Mayer, 2018, p.
89). After the first recitation of the Quran by Prophet Muhammad, the Islamic worldview started to spread in the Atlantic Ocean to Central Asia (Pollock, 2008). However, Mayer (2018) stated that Islam did not come to be known or come to be active until after the Prophet’s Muhammad death in the 7th century. Moreover, Islam believes (a) Allah is the only god, who is the creator and linchpin of the world, (b) Muhammad is His prophet, (c) the guideline of Islamic faith is its holy book, and (d) Muslim must follow the five Pillars of Islam: profession of faith, prayers, Zakat, fasting, and Haji (Pollock, 2008). Muslim believes that Allah revealed himself verbally to Muhammad through angel Jibril; thus, despite being delivered indirectly the original Arabic version shows God’s wording. Compare and ContrastThese two religions worldviews have several remarkable similarities: (a) both believes that God is the supreme being, the creator of the earth, (b) they follow the instruction of their respective Holy Books, (c) the prophets are messengers of God, (d) there is life after death, and (e) Heaven is the place for eternal life while as Hell is for the wrongdoers. In contrast, Islam discredits the view of the Trinity, by affirming that Allah is the only God.
Moreover, Christians recognize the Bible as the Holy Book written by the inspired of God, the Muslims accept this notion but states that it has being corrupted to fit people’s interests (Swinburne 2016).ConclusionAlthough the two religion worldviews differ from each other, they are useful to the nursing profession. They provide a nurse with a platform that helps to respect and value of patient beliefs, hence, the nurse is able to incorporate the basic understanding of patient worldviews into the nursing process which in response yields high quality patient care.ReferencesMayer, A. E.
(2018). Islam and human rights: tradition and politics. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press.Pollock, R.
(2008). World religions: Beliefs and traditions from around the globe. New York, NY: Fall River Press.Swinburne, R. (2016). The coherence of theism.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
