No. It's more nuanced than that. Religion influenced those cultures to a high degree. They are both Abrahamic religions with more similarities than if, say, one were a Celtic Pagan continent. Why is it that religion (Christianity) in Europe is on the sharp decline, despite Christianity basically making Europe, giving it its values, culture, schools, traditions etc., but Islamic nations retain their numbers of religious people? How did the two religious traditions influence the directions these cultures went in and how come they seem so diametrically opposed?
Perhaps it has something to do with the Law?.....and adherence to it.
Islam is not an offshoot of Judaism, but is “Abrahamic” through his firstborn, Ishmael, not Isaac. (This despite the fact that all of God’s promises were to come through Isaac and Jacob)
All of the “Abrahamic” faiths accept that the Law was binding on Abraham’s descendants, but when Christ came, he ended the Law by fulfilling it. Neither Judaism nor Islam ever dispensed with the Law....or at least their interpretation of it. Neither accepted Jesus for who he said he was. The Samaritans too had their version of Moses’ writings....but always separated from the Jews because of ongoing rivalry and deep animosity.
Ritual was part of Jewish culture and that has never changed. Ritual is still an integral part of Islam, but Christianity initially dispensed with ritual because the Law was no longer binding on them. They concentrated more on preaching and teaching Christ’s message of peace and the coming of God’s kingdom. But as time went on, Christianity became corrupted (as it was foretold) and reverted back to the comfort of ritual and made Christianity back into a distorted version of Judaism but with pagan adoptions.
Culturally IMO, we see both Islam and Judaism seemingly stuck in their ancient mindset and adhering to ritual as if performance of these rituals is all that God demands, but Christianity became a mish-mash of pagan sun worship, and Northern Hemisphere beliefs revolving around Nimrod and Norse gods and customs. This is reflected even in the names of days and months which were retained in the Catholic Gregorian calendar.
Christianity lost its grip in Europe I believe, because as time went on, the hold that Catholicism had on the people, began to wear thin. The church was drunk with power and was governed by some very corrupt and ungodly men. The threat of hellfire no longer kept the ignorant masses in check, so the Reformation released many of them from a lot of Catholic ritual, (and fear) and opened up for some the idea that “grace” now made them impervious to sin. All they had to do was “believe”.....Christendom was now a free-for-all.
It appears that the greatest enemy of any religion is disunity. Once you break them up into sects, all of them lose their power over the people, except those who follow their brand of that “religion”. This causes animosity even between members of their own faith who have chosen a different path to God. Do all roads lead to Rome, then?
I do not see God being present with any of them TBH.....all are guilty of bloodshed (Isaiah 1:15).....so where does that leave all those who are confused with seemingly nowhere to go? Has God left us in the dark?
Or is there one truth, hiding like a diamond in a pile of broken glass?