Which God do Muslims pray to according to Catholic, Orthodox and main-stream Protestant tradition? Which God do Muslims pray to according to Catholic, Orthodox and main-stream Protestant tradition?

They believe that God cannot be One and Three at the same time. They believe that God can only be One. They believe that God cannot have a Son equal to Him. Consequently, they believe that God could not have sent His Son (which they believe God doesn't have) to the world to give salvation to those believing into Him (they take Jesus only as a prophet from God). That makes their "God" quite different from Christian God. In fact, if you tell this description of God to any Catholic, Orthodox and main-stream Protestant believer, he would tell you that that kind of God does not exist. I know of at least one council that took place in Christian circles (the Orthodox council in 1180) that has declared that "God of Muslims is not the God of Christians, but rather a distorted concept of God created in Muhammad's mind". Perhaps, same declaration might have been made in the Catholic and Protestant camps of main-stream Christianity.

Now, here is my question: if that kind of God does not exist - especially given the fact that there is only One God in this universe - then which God do all Muslims pray to? Of course, we can say that they are praying to a non-existent God, which is not the God, but rather merely their idea of God, their concept of God. Simply put, they are praying into the air, emptiness. At first, this kind of answer looks fine to me, but if you give it a second thought, then you could tell that their description or their concept of God is in fact the same as the concept that some humans (including Jews) had about God before the coming of Christ. Of course, we can discard all the cases of those humans who believed in the existence of many gods, but Muslims believe in the existence of only One God. Does that mean that all people who lived prior to Christ's coming and believed in the existence of only One God also prayed into the air? A case of the Gentile Cornelius comes to my mind who was praying to God and whose "prayers came up for a memorial before God" (Acts 10:4) and the following words of Peter in his regard: "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him" (Acts 10:34-35). From this I gather that the Gentile Cornelius did not pray into the air.
Realistically, there are just 4 possibilities:


Christians and Moslems are praying to the same God. We all basically believe the same things and believe in the same God.
Christians and Moslems are praying to the same God. One or the other (or both) have wrong and confused ideas about God, but God is understanding of our ignorance.
There is more than one God, and Christians and Moslems are each praying to their own.
Christians are praying to the true God, and Moslems to a false and non-existant God, or vice versa.


Number 1 is very popular today, but is objectively and provably false. One need only read the Bible and the Koran, or listen to Christians describe their faith and Moslems describe their faith, to see that the two contradict each other on many important points.

Number 3 is logically impossible. Both Christians and Moslems believe there is only one God. If there is more than one God, then both Christianity and Islam are false and both are praying to a false God. We can't both be right. Either one is right and the other wrong, or we are both wrong.

That leaves 2 and 4. As this is christianity.stackexchange.com and not islam.stackexchange.com, let me proceed based on the assumption that Christianity is true. Then either Moslems are praying to a false, non-existant God, or they are praying to the true God even though they have many inaccurate beliefs about him.

Clearly God hears the prayers of Moslems in the literal sense, that is, he is aware that they are praying and knows what they are saying. But does he accept them as addressing himself?

I think that's very hard to say. Suppose you sent a letter to the president of the United States in which you made some request or suggestion. Would he reply positively? If you mis-spelled his name or showed ignorance about some unimportant fact about him, I doubt it would make a difference. If you indicated that you thought he was a Republican rather than a Democrat and asked him to do things to further Republican policies and hurt the Democrats, I don't think he'd agree to it just because you wrote him a letter. He'd recognize that the letter was intended for him, but so misunderstanding of his actual self, his plans and goals, as to be largely irrelevant.

In any case, Christians believe that salvation is through Christ and Christ alone. So whether God hears the prayers of Moslems as being to him and not to a false god, if Christianity is true Moslems are not saved, because they very clearly and explicitly reject Christ. That's surely the important point. If a Moslem prayed for God to lead him to truth, I think God would honor that, just as he would if a pagan or an atheist made such a prayer.

Addendum to my answer

After writing this, I happened to read the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. At one point: 'The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "... You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.' [John 4:19-22, NKJV]

Note that Jesus didn't say that the Samaritans worshipped a false God or that their worship was in vain because they had important facts about God wrong, he said, "You worship what you do not know". This seems to imply that God accepted their worship as sincere and legitimate despite their ignorance. I think that indicates that at least some cases of my option 2 above are possible.