From Followers of the Tawrat and Injil to Islam: True Submission vs. Symbolic Rites

As-salamu alaykum, everyone - I’ve been reading about religious history and theology, and I’ve been tracing how true submission to Allah has been expressed over time. Back in the days of the Tawrat and the Injil, the sincere followers of prophets like Musa (peace be upon him) and Isa (peace be upon him) were devoted to Allah. They strove to live by Divine guidance even though the scriptures we have now weren’t in the exact same form then. Their worship, obedience, and moral behavior showed real submission to Allah - in essence, they were those who submitted, what Islam calls being Muslim. Historically there are some clear practices: for example, Jewish ritual immersion (mikveh) was used for ceremonial purification. John the Baptist (Yahya, peace be upon him) is a historical figure who called people to repentance and moral reform, and he may have used a water ritual with his followers. But sources for that practice come later, and the way those rites were understood wasn’t uniform. Jewish communities didn’t necessarily see immersion the same way later Christian traditions described baptism. If such water rites occurred among people at that time, they were often symbolic - a spiritual preparation or sign of repentance rather than an all-comprehensive divinely ordained system of purification. Prophets themselves were sinless and fully submitted to Allah, so these rituals weren’t for them in the same way. Within Christianity, too, practices around baptism vary and have changed over centuries. Some groups emphasize it as essential, others treat it as symbolic, some baptize infants, others practice believer’s immersion - these differences show a human, cultural shaping of the rite rather than a single consistent form. Centuries later Islam came with the Qur’an, which confirms the message of earlier prophets and presents a complete, practical framework for spiritual and physical purification - for example wudu and ghusl. These acts are intentional, repeatable, and tied directly to faith, obedience, and moral conduct. In that sense Islam offers a clear, unified way to express submission to Allah. So there is a continuity: the followers of the Tawrat and Injil who truly worshipped Allah were submitting to Him, and Islam completes and perfects that guidance. Rituals like mikveh or baptism, where they existed, often functioned as symbolic, culturally influenced practices. Islam, by contrast, gives a purposeful, divinely guided system for purification, obedience, and wholehearted submission to Allah. Jazakum Allahu khairan for reading - I’m curious what others think about how rites and actual submission relate across faith histories.