This is a bit of a technical – is that the right term? – musing.
Monotheism is the belief that there is only one God.
Monolatry is the worship of only one God to the exclusion of all the others.
It is my proposition that Abrahamic religions are all a form of Monolatry and not at all Monotheism.
Abrahamic religions typically include Judaism, Christianity and Islam. There may be other off-shoots, but these three are the big ones – three of the main world religions.
So, let’s start at the beginning:
Jews made a pact with a specific God, Jehova: they will worship him exclusively and he will make them prosperous.
That is actually in the Ten Commandments: Thou shall have no other Gods before me.
OK – that clearly defines that the primary loyalty is to this particular God, but does not in any way state that this is the only God, nor does it prohibit a secondary worship of any other God(s).
In other words, it is a statement of loyalty. It is in no way a declaration of monotheism.
Islam is a bit stickier, but, please, do bear with me.
Laat and her sisters were, at one point, declared by Mohammed to be the daughters of Allah – Satanic verses and all that. So, some people argue that these verses may not have been dictated to Mohammed by Satan because he did not originally recognize any difference between these verses and the verses dictated to him by the Angel messenger of Allah.
Very controversial, so, let’s set it aside.
It has been decades since I have studied this and the easily accessible links are, well, burried too deep. But, there is a point in The Sunnah where Mohammed is said to have said that ‘Christians and Jews worship the same God – WE worship the other one’.
That is why they differentiate themselves, having a beard without a mustache, men sitting down to pee and a host of other ways to differentiate Muslims from Christians and Jews.
And this states that Islam (even if we omit the daughters of Allah) is not Monotheism but, at least, Duotheism.
Of course, I do acknowledge that there may, indeed , be monotheistic religions.
Sikhism comes to mind – but, Sikhism is an artificial religion.
It arose as Muslim armies were invading Hindu India. The king who ruled the kingdom which turned out to be a buffer-state between the Islamic invasion and the Hindu kingdoms. Having learned that Muslims would not kill monotheists, he took drastic action: he went on a hunger strike.
At the time, it was the custom of Hindu men in this kingdom to wear a ‘string’, a thin sashe, over one shoulder (think Miss Universe sashe type thing, but thinner). This king sat on one platform of a balance scale, fasting, until men of his kingdom placed their sashes on the other platform of the scale to signal they had rejected Hinduism and accepted monotheistic Sikhism…he sat there, fasting, until the weight of the sashes balanced his own.
Then, they could oppose the Muslim invaders as Monotheists and earn better terms: this was a political move, a loyalty test, and in no way a religious monotheistic belief system.
Source: I went to my local Gurdwara and let the elders teach me the history of their faith.
In conclusion: all Abrahamic faiths are all forms of monolatry, NOT monotheism. Sikhism is a political ideology in its inception, not a religious one.
I do not know of any religions that seek the nomicker ‘monotheistic’ whose doctrine actually supports this claim. If you know of some, please, do let me know and I will research it and repot back to you.
Please, do let me know your thoughts!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 