Do Catholics and Muslims worship the same God?

Reading Fr Ray Blake's blog got me thinking: do I, as a Catholic, pray to the same God as my best mate, who is Muslim?

I was reminded me of an editorial I read last week from a catholic paper, the Catholic Register, a Canadian weekly magazine. (Yes, it's the one above with my pic on the front!). The editorial struck me as rather measured and fair if a little brief. Joe Sinasac, the editor, remarks:

" Lost in all the mayhem is the reality that Islam and Christianity share a great fount of historical tradition and belief... we [Christians and Muslims] have too much in common to fall victim to the evil men who would exploit ignorance and fear to fan racial and religious tension. "

This statement is interesting and got me thinking further. To address whether Muslims and Catholics worship the same God we need to know what exactly the Church tells us about Religious Truth and thus about ecumenism? Thus I'd like to elaborate slightly on Sinasac's argument by quoting further one of the Vatican II documents which he uses in his editorial, Nostra Aetate (Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions):

"The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in [non-Christian] religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth (radium Veritatis) which enlightens all men".
- Nostra Aetate, n.1

This is not to say that all religions are true, but that non-Christian religions have some share in the truth. However it is only the Catholic Church that teaches the Truth, namely Jesus Christ, since the Truth has made His home in the Catholic Church. This gives us as Catholics an enormous responsibility as possessors of the Truth, to proclaim The Truth. Further:

"The council professes its belief that God Himself has made known to mankind the way in which men are to serve Him, and thus be saved in Christ and come to blessedness. We believe that this one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus committed the duty of spreading it abroad among all men"
- (Dignitatis Humanae, n. 1)

So the Catholic Church teaches the "true religion" of which all others, Islam included, have only a "ray" of the truth. Although a bit weighty I believe that this knowledge of the Church's teaching on ecumenism is important in order that we can proceed with true ecumenism.

However this isn't the whole story by any means. Nostra Aetate proudly proclaims:

"The church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God. . . they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honour Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting."

So Muslims do worship the same God as we do (ie the One True God), they just don't know him fully. Islam "contain[s] and offer[s] religious elements which come from God" but don't worship him in the exact way he wants to be worshipped (para 21, Dominus Iesus). It should be noted that the document Dominus Iesus, which states the relationship between Catholicism and other religions, was issued by Cardinal Ratzinger. This is yet further evidence that the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, does not hate Islam and in fact wants to be very much engaged in a healthy dialogue with this particular religion.