Religion teaches a basic, essential way to coexist and how to grow spiritually. Religion is about humanity as a whole, not so much the individual, the specific religion, the race, culture or creed. It is holistic in the sense that Allah, God, The Great Spirit, Jehovah is indiscriminate.
There is no one religion, there are no chosen people, the basic first step is love and this love then broadens out to mutual respect, justice for all, freedom of prejudice, equality of the sexes, an equitable distribution of the earth's resources, elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty, etc, etc.
I have little education. I did a trade as a youth after walking out of school, but I did make sure all my children were as well educated as I could afford.
Re God deeming who He likes. There can be no injustice in this, so the meaning must be something to do with the capacity of each of us. Some people seem so capable but in reality they may have been even more capable as such the reward is relative. Another may have limited capacity and yet achieve much thus gaining a surprising reward. We see only what we see but Allah sees both the capacity and the achievement and thus rewards accordingly. I think it relates to states of reward against unseen true capacity. We each are born with a specific capacity, no two are equal in that sense.
More than the fundamentals of religion are the social foundations of this world. If Islam slams into Christianity without either religion seeking and finding common ground to experience life, worship of the one God, or love and fellowship, then both religions have failed completely. For one to gain the ascendancy over the other is tyranny, not belief. Tyranny is unworthy of reward or spiritual progress.
Only love and fellowship is essential, belonging to a religion is non-essential because Allah belongs to no one religion.
There is no heaven or hell. we each lay the foundations for our own progress. Those unprepared are distanced from Allah and this distance is called hell. Those who, by their deeds have approached nearer to Allah are said to have entered heaven. We each end up in exactly the same place regardless just as in this life.
