ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY

to the prophets of various nations was the same, but
in the courss of time it had been misinterpreted and
become mixed up with superstitions and degenerated
into magical practices and meaningless rituals. The
conception of God, the very core of religion, had be-
come debased by (a) the anthropomorphic tendency
of making God into a being with a human shape and
human passions, (b) the association of other persons
with the one and only God in His Godhead (as in
Hinduism and Christianity), (c) by the deffication of
the angels (e.g., the Devas in Hinduism, the Yazatas
in Zoroastrianism and, perhaps, also, the Holy Spirit
in Christiannity), (d) by making the prophets into av-
atars or incarnations of God (e.g., Jesus Christ in
Christianity, the Buddha in mahayana Buddhism,
Krishan and Rama in Hinduism), and (e) by the per-
sonification of the attributes of God into separate Di-
vine persons (e.g., the Christian Trinity of the Fa-
ther, the Son and the Holy Ghost the Hindu Trimurti