Which religion is true if each claims to be the only way?

A simple measure helps: the one God has opened ways to Himself in every age and every place. A teaching that leaves the door open to only one people does not fit a just God, and so Islam recognises all prophets as ways to God.

Many religions say that only through their founder can one reach God. Often a misunderstanding lies behind this. Every prophet was a gateway to God in his own time and his own society. When Abraham (as) came, when Moses (as) came, when Jesus (as) came, they opened a door; they did not close it to everyone else. Jesus (as) himself never claimed a monopoly.

A simple question helps here. Did God treat people before Jesus (as) differently from those after him? Does He treat lands that a particular message never reached differently from others? In nature and in history we see no such difference. The same one God shows Himself to every people and every age in the same way.

This gives us a measure. A teaching that presents God as loving one people and giving up on all others contradicts the picture of God that creation shows us. The Holy Qur’an, by contrast, says that every people has received its messenger, and it requires Muslims to believe in all the prophets.

The verse above also shows what matters in the end: to submit fully to God and to do good. In this, religions agree at their source. Those who return to this shared morality find their way to one another. Quarrels over doctrine divide; goodness that is lived unites.