Shari'a Law and Christian Law: a Contrast

Islam and Christianity share a basic and important quality: they both believe in an all-powerful God. However, though their laws are both based on theism, the similarities just about stop there. The entire system of laws is entirely different. The chief difference in these laws are the motivations for following the law. Christians view God as a merciful, loving god, and we seek to please him and strive for a Christ-like righteousness in our own lives. This is the motivation for following the laws-pleasing God. We cannot earn our own salvation, and we don't do good deeds to reach a certain end. However, in Islam it is quite the opposite. Muslims work for their salvation, and their good deeds build them a ladder to heaven. This differnce in motivation makes perfect sense, in fact, based on the character of the two different "gods" that we are discussing. In Islam, Allah is a distant and unresponsive God. There is no personal relationship or feeling of obligatuion or desire to please him based off of a personal comnection, as there is in Christianity. It's almost like the difference between trying to obey your mother and your government. you want to obey your mother because you love her and you fear her dissapointment, although you know that she would never abandon you, no matter what you did. However, you also want to obey your government, but not for the same reasons. You obey your government because you fear punishment and retribution, but there is no personal obligation, no desire to please simply for the sake of pleasing. Finally, Shari'a law focuses on the idea that man is not innately, irrevocably sinful. It believes that we have the strength to overcome our own sinfulness. Christian law accepts our fallenness, but has much more hope than Shari'a law. Rather than placin us at the mercy of an impersonal scale weighing our good deeds and bad, we are at the mercy of a loving and personal God, who is known as a merciful God. we have nothing to fear, except dissapointing him. And we know he will always forgive, and always love. So, truly, what have we to fear?