Question: What do you call someone, other than a Christian, who believes Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and will judge the world at the end?
Answer: A Muslim.
The religion called Islam (“submission to God’s will”) is a special case for Christians because it was formed after the church had been founded for centuries, and has the Bible as one of its chief sources. It’s not really a “non-Christian” religion, but a sort of cousin—after all, Ishmael (“God hears”) was half-brother to Isaac, with his own covenant from God, as we noted in the last column. According to the Muslim scripture, the Qur’an, “those who believe” (Muslims) include Jews and Christians (2:62, 5:69). Jesus (Issa) has a unique place, from his virgin birth in beginning to his special role as Judge at the end:
God raised him to himself. … And before they come to die, the people of the Book, to a man, will believe in him. on the day of resurrection he will be a witness against them. (Surat 4:159)
So there is a kind of “soft Christology” within the Qur’an, although the stress on the absolute unity of God rejects trinitarian ideas:
People of the Book, do not go to unwarranted lengths in your religion and get involved in false utterances relating to God. Truly Jesus, Mary’s son, was the messenger of God and His word—the word which He imparted to Mary—and a spirit from him. Believe, then, in God and his messengers and do not talk of three gods. You are well advised to abandon such ideas. Truly God is one God. Glory be to Him and no “son” to Him whose are all things in heaven and the earth, their one and only guardian. (Surat 4:171f)
What is often missed, however, is the status accorded the Book itself. As the Canadian Presbyterian professor of Islam Wilfred C. Smith used to insist, in order to “compare” Islam and Christianity, one must grasp the proper analogues: the tradition (Hadith) is like the Bible, Muhammad is like Paul—it is the Qur’an itself that resembles Christ. For the Qur’an is word of God (Kalâm Allâh), the “recitation” which claims to be verbally revealed. Therefore prophets and messengers there may be, but any person or principle even approaching divinity is unthinkable. God is always greater: Allâh-u-Akbhar!
Here is a radical monotheism which purifies the concept of God from every hint of “association,” (Shirk). The Christian doctrine of the Trinity appears, therefore, to Muslims who believe in the singular purity of God, as polytheism. The Shahâda (“bearing witness”) puts it beautifully: “there is no God but God.” As a warning against idolatry it means, “No God unless God.” And the confession Allâh-u-Akbhar echoes Anselm of Canterbury: God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.”
The tradition includes sayings from Jesus, usually admonishing us to distance ourselves from the world. Islamic theologian Al-ghazâlî includes 47 from this “prophet of the heart.” Jesus occupies a peculiar role in Islam, therefore, more than a prophet. We should remember that early Islam arose in a “porous environment,” emerging when Christian doctrine was not yet settled or universal. Indeed, if Muhammad had seen a better kind of Christianity rather than the rather ignorant type around him, his overtures to the church might have proved radically different. When he called Christians “People of the Book” and even Muslims, he raised a significant point. Should “Muslim” or “Christian” be taken as a noun or an adjective? (Is there a corresponding entity?) When I obey God’s will I am doing something Muslim; when I love my neighbour I am Jewish; when I lose myself in contemplation I am Hindu; when I strive against selfishness I am Buddhist. Is that not a better way to understand these ways to God? Or—if “God” is not a name but a verb (“I Am”) then we are adverbial: “Go christianly through the world!”
So here’s another thesis to ponder (philosophers of religion, please note, are called to prowl the borderlands of theology, testing and stretching its theories). I doubt if we can have a “grand unified theory” encompassing all religions, since they ask different questions and produce different lifestyles. They are not all equal, nor symmetrical, but variant “modes of being”—such “modal” theory views religions as distinct, not always comparable or in competition for the same ends. Pluralism need not mean relativism, if we honour these modalities of being human.
A first principle in studying the faith of other people is not to compare our best with their worst. Both of us have blind spots and evil doings—if we blame Islam for holy wars, we must remember we Christians invented the idea, as well as burning heretics and witches in Christ’s name. (Do you feel responsible for Christian extremists like the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Jones and Jonestown, polygymists in Bountiful, B.C., or the televangelists who demonize everything un-American?) So we must try to see Islam in light of its noble truths about God and humans. If you think that “Allah” is a different and warlike deity, remember this is simply the Arabic word matching the Jewish “El,” who is often angry, if not belligerent, in our Old Testament. But the Qur’an, like the New Testament, glorifies God as a Lord of mercy, justice and peace. Its ninety-nine beautiful names for God express a positive and uplifting theology.
The history of Christian missions shows that Muslims are the hardest to “convert” (along with Brahmins and Mandarins), while people of animistic or nature-religion are easiest. Is this because we have here a religion that claims revelation, a People of the Book, not a lower spirituality awaiting completion? Surely its reverence for the Bible and its high role for Mary and Jesus mean that we cannot dismiss it as simply false or even evil. Nor can we treat all Muslims as terrorists. The American empire has overreacted, demonizing Islam, influencing many to regard all Muslims with suspicion, ignoring the greatness of their religion, its piety and good works. We tend to concentrate on their fundamentalists, on “Islamicism” rather than Islam, on suicide bombers and injustice to women. But there are several Islamic societies, including secular Turkey, and that exemplary golden age of tolerance when Muslims ruled Spain. Where is the true Islam? Where is the true Christianity?
Online Study Guide
Books of special relevance for this column:
Tarif Khalidi, The Muslim Jesus (2001)
Kenneth Cragg, Jesus and the Muslims (1985)]
1. What do you think of Islam? List your positive and negative thoughts in two columns. Compare them with what you think of Christianity and of other religions. Ask yourself where you got these ideas from. Inform yourself by consulting authoritative sources, e.g. Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind (1968); Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minaret (1956); W.C. Smith, Islam in Modern History (1957).
2. Read the chapters in the Qur’an that deal with the Bible – e.g. Vol. I, chs. 4-7 (Old Testament), 7-8 (N.T.). Also II.19 (war and peace), 23: Five Pillars of Islam. Also the texts mentioned on Mary and Jesus, e.g. 2:87, 4:159, 171ff, 23:50. (You can buy copies cheaply, or find it on the Internet).
3. See W.C. Smith, The Faith of Other Men (1962); “Christian – Noun, or Adjective?” in Questions of Religious Truth (1967), pp. 99-123.
4. Read Living Faith 9.2.1. What does it imply about our attitude to other faiths? Is the metaphor of “one beggar telling another” a description of dialogue?
5. What is your definition of the Christian mission? Do you consider acts of justice and mercy as important as “saving souls?” Sometimes the former are called “Kingdom acts” as compared with “Church acts” – is this a helpful distinction?
