True, but Islam has a specific system in place. I forget what all of it is now, but I remember the most pious point was Wajib, and the most decadent point is Haram.
First, I don't know why you keep repeating the word "decadent" as though Muslims are /pol/. Haram doesn't equal "decadent" (which is a word most often used to refer to collective or individual decline, not religious sinfulness), it equals sinful or forbidden.
The classification system you're referring to is how Islamic jurisprudents have categorized actions, and in a basic form it consists of
wajib (actions you are required to to),
mustahhab (actions you are recommended to do)
mubah (totally neutral actions; this is what the majority of actions are classified as),
makruh (actions which are allowed, but discouraged), and
haram (forbidden actions).
This way of classifying things is pretty common in religions, even if the specific terminology is confined to Islam. While not identical to the system of classifying
mitzvot that exists in Judaism, it is very similar. It's also similar to the classical Hindu system of moral and ritual codes derived from the Vedas. Religions, being comprehensive traditions that claim divine inspiration, generally have some way of telling their followers "do this, don't do that; it's good to do this, it's OK to do that, but it's better to do this."
Now I will autistically pick apart your earlier post.
While there are a lot of similarities, as Islam heavily borrows doctrine from both Christianity and Judaism, I'd say there's a lot of key differences. For one thing, Islam is a religion of conquest whereas Christianity is Missionary (which doesn't necessarily make it any better)
Christianity and Islam have both simultaneously been religions spread by conquest and missionary endeavors. The adoption of Christianity as Rome's state religion was as instrumental to the worldwide spread of Christianity as early Islamic conquests were to Islam. It's true that it took longer for Christianity to get militaristic, but by the time Mohammed was born it had been 300 years since Constantine had his vision that told him to conquer in the sign of the cross.
On the other end, Islam was not solely spread through conquest. Islam was spread in Southeast Asia mostly through missionary efforts by Sufi mystics from Yemen and Central Asia, and through trade partnerships with Arab merchants. In fact, Sufi mystics played a huge role in evangelizing for Islam in much of the world. Even though there were Muslim conquests in India and West Africa, most of the conversions that occurred historically were at the hands of Sufis.
This is why the world of Islam is often "cut up" into multiple nations that coincidentally follow the path of Islamic conquests. It's also why many Muslims are very adamant about the destruction of Israel and the recreation of Al-Andalus, even today.
Nations have borders that generally follow lines marked out by wars and conquests. That's why "nations" exist.
Fair point about Israel (although Muslims are not the only people who hate it), but only the most autistic Islamists on the block actually care about reconquering Spain. That's more an AQ and ISIS propaganda point than anything else.
Islam is also much more strict with it's concepts of virtues and sins. Virtues in Christianity are looked on as things to aspire to, where as virtues in Islam are considered mandatory. In fact, Islam has a classification system that Muslims use to see if their actions are Pious or Decadent.
I'm not sure what you mean by any of this. I think what you are trying to say is that Islam has a complex system of laws (much like Judaism) whereas Christianity doesn't. This is true, but it doesn't follow that "virtues are mandatory in Islam, but just something to aspire to in Christianity." I think that's actually not giving enough credit to Christianity. Both religions require their followers to aspire to virtuousness, and both also speak a great deal about how humans are imperfect and fall short, but God is forgiving and merciful. Christianity and Islam are
very different, but your "virtue is mandatory in Islam" spiel is a vague and unhelpful assertion.
