User blog comment:LurkerLordB/Religion in a world without Christianity/@comment-1777104-20120424214749/@comment-1630894-20120424220416

But would Islam have arisen out of Judaism? Judaism was and is mostly restricted to the Jewish people, and it is not a great converter. The conversions, such as the Khazars, occured after the rise of Islam and Christianity, and pressures toward monotheism. True, Christianity did, but Jesus was a Jew, it would have been the religion of his own family which he based his off of. Muhammed was not Jewish, as far as I know he was a Semitic pagan prior to his founding of Islam, so it seems unlikely for him to base a religion off of that. The obvious response to this is, "If he wasn't a Christian, why would he base a religion off of that?" However, Christianity sent out missionaries and attempted to convert people. It would be much more likely for Muhammed to hae come in contact with Christianity, and be influenced by it, than by the insular, non-missionary Judaism.