Is Allah The God Of The
Bible?
HOW CAN WE WITNESS TO MUSLIMS?
Is the God of Muhammad the Father of Jesus?
The answer to this question reveals the heart of our faith.
| posted
02/01/2002
If we hadn't given
much thought to the religion of Islam before September 11, 2001, we certainly
have since that terrible day. We've all read and heard about the Muslim faith.
We've wondered what beliefs we have in common with Muslims, and where we differ
theologically. And many of us have asked, "Is their Allah the same as our
God?" Timothy George, a Christianity Today executive editor and
dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, helps us work through our
questions—and find some solid answers. And James Lewis, a world religions
professor at Wheaton College, tackles a dicey question in an accompanying article:
Does God Hear Muslims' Prayers?
All of us are much more aware of Islam since September 11. If
we did not know it before, we know now that more than 1 billion people on
Earth, about one of every six people, are Muslims. In the United States alone,
according to Muslim leaders, there are more than 6 million Muslims, a little
less than half the size of our nation's largest Protestant denomination, the
Southern Baptist Convention (at 15 million). Social scientists who count
religious adherents, however, place the number of American Muslims much lower,
somewhere between 1.8 million and 2.8 million. This more realistic figure falls
in the same range as the Assemblies of God or the Lutheran Church–Missouri
Synod. In any case, the faith is growing exponentially in some parts of the
country. Today in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, which some call the
buckle of the Bible belt, there are several mosques and a thriving Muslim
community.
We've also been reminded that
Islam, along with Judaism and Christianity, is one of the three monotheistic
faiths. Some take that fact and assume that all three faiths are just one great
religion, or three equally valid pathways to the same God.
But at this historical moment,
when Islam is in our consciousness as never before, we need to look at that
claim more closely, especially in regard to Islam. One of the better ways to
get at an answer is to focus the question like this: Is the Father of Jesus the
God of Muhammad? And what difference does the answer make?
WHAT WE SHARE
These three great religions share a number of important traits not shared, for
example, by Eastern religions such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and
Taoism. Even within these agreements, however, we find significant differences.
First, Christianity, Judaism,
and Islam are historical religions. Each claims that God has acted
decisively in human history. When they say this divine action occurred varies
significantly. In Judaism it is the Exodus, God's delivery of his people from
slavery in Egypt ("Let my people go"). For Christianity it is the
Incarnation ("the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us"). For Islam
it is the beginning of the latest and final revelation, as Muslims see it, with
the prophet Muhammad, who was born in 570 in the city of Mecca and died in 632.
Furthermore, Islam adopts essential historical figures from both Judaism and
Christianity. Moses was a prophet of God, Muslims say, who gave the law of God.
Jesus was a friend of God. But when Jesus referred to the Father sending
another Counselor, "who will teach you all things and will remind you of
everything I have said to you" (John 14:26),
Muslims believe Jesus was talking not about the Holy Spirit but about Muhammad.
Second, these three religions
are textual (we might say scriptural). They have holy books. In
Judaism it is the Hebrew Bible, consisting of the Law, the Prophets, and the
Writings. For Christianity it is the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments.
For Islam it's the Qur'an. But the way in which the Qur'an functions in Islam is
radically different from the way the Bible functions in Christianity.
The Qur'an was given, so
Muslims believe, by the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad over a period of
23 years. It was revealed in Arabic, a direct, divine transcript of a book in
heaven. Thus the Qur'an is a divine book. In fact, in some ways, Muslims view
the Qur'an as Christians see Jesus Christ: the express image of God, the Word
of God. This fact is so important that early Muslims believed, and orthodox
Muslim scholars still believe, that the Qur'an cannot be translated. It has
been translated, of course, but those translations are not considered
authoritative. It must remain in the language of revelation, the language in
which it was given, to remain a true revelation for Muslims.
Certain Christian groups
throughout history have made a similar claim about the Bible. The Greek
Orthodox say that the Septuagint, the Greek version, is the only divinely
inspired translation of the Word of God. For many centuries, Roman Catholics
held that only the Bible in Latin had that kind of authority. That's no longer
true for Roman Catholics. And indeed, some conservative Protestants say only
the King James Version has authority.
But all three of these are
distortions of the Christian understanding of Holy Scripture. Christians
believe that the Bible can be translated into any human language. Why? Because
the gospel itself is culture-permeable. The Bible, as the revealed Word, has
come to us in Greek and Hebrew, the privileged languages of inspiration. But we
can translate and transmit it to all people groups, no matter their language,
because Christianity says that the gospel we proclaim is world-embracing, as
limitless as the gracious love of the Creator.
Finally, these three great
religions are all teleological. They have a purpose, a goal. They are
headed somewhere. They do not say that life is cyclical, going over and over
the same experiences we have known. They do not accept reincarnation. History
had a beginning, and God intervened in it in a certain way and guides it toward
an appointed climax. Naturally, each has its own understanding of what that
future will look like, but all agree that a divine future awaits us.
NO EASY ECUMENISM
In this post–September 11 world, when we yearn more than ever for the unity of
all peoples, we need to think about what we hold in common. We can cooperate
with Muslims and Jews in many crucial areas, especially regarding issues that
touch on the dignity of human life and the sanctity of the family (British
Muslims, for example, were the first religious people to publicly protest
abortion on demand in England). But we must not be lulled into an easygoing
ecumenism that would amalgamate all faiths into a homogenized whole. The two
problems with such amalgamation are these: (1) It is a distortion; we simply do
not share the most essential things. (2) It is a sign of disrespect; it fails
to take seriously what each religion claims to be ultimate truth.
Among the many distinctive
truths Christians proclaim, and one that sets us apart from Islam, is this:
God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a God who has forever known
himself as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is the doctrine of
the Holy Trinity. This is something that all orthodox Christians believe—Greek
Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholic Christians, evangelical Protestant
Christians, and many others. It is at the heart of the distinctive message we
proclaim and what sets us apart most dramatically from Islam.
Sadly, the doctrine of the
Trinity may be the most neglected doctrine we hold. We are baptized in the name
of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We often hear that wonderful
Pauline benediction at the end of 2 Corinthians,
"May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." The Trinity is essential
to our statements of faith, our creeds, and our confessions. Yet we neglect it.
Why? Partly because we cannot
understand it or explain it. Partly because we forget why it's important. It's
one of those things we have to check off on our list of beliefs, but it doesn't
deeply inform our faith. It's not something that we wake up every day and go to
our knees with in prayer. And so we tend to shove it to the side—until we find
ourselves in a discussion with a Muslim who says to us, "Oh, you
Christians claim to believe in one God, but really you believe in three
gods."
In fact, the Qur'an itself
declares in Surah 5:73 (see also 4:171) that Christians believe in three gods,
and that this is blasphemy against Allah. Islam arose in the Christian era,
when theologians and laity still hotly debated the great Trinitarian formulas.
Some Christians were teaching heretical notions of the Trinity in Mecca, where
Muhammad lived. One such heresy claimed something like this: God has a wife
named Mary, with whom he had intercourse, resulting in Jesus.
This is the distortion of the
doctrine of the Trinity that Muhammad heard. He assumed, as do many others who
call Christians "tri-theists," that this is what we believe and
teach. He may have rejected a distortion, but Muslims reject the orthodox
doctrine of the Trinity as well. And with that, they forsake Christians'
conceptual framework for understanding the story of Jesus as the story of God.
What does the Bible teach about this matter that we say is such a dividing
point with Islam?
ONE GOD
We begin with the confession that God is One. This goes back to Deuteronomy
6:4, the famous Shema: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God, the Lord is one." It is repeated throughout the Old Testament. Jesus
quotes it in the New Testament as the first and greatest of all the
commandments in Mark 12:29: "You shall love the Lord your
God; the Lord is One. Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your strength." Jesus believed that.
He taught that. It is foundational to the Christian faith.
How did this belief arise
within the faith of Israel? It arose over against polytheism, which was rampant
in the ancient world. It was a world in which nature—animals, trees, rivers—was
regarded as divine or at least inhabited by divinities. Out of this arose the
tradition of idolatry, against which the Old Testament prophets blasted again
and again with furious power. (Muhammad too was moved by a similar concern when
he destroyed the idols of Mecca, and taught his followers, "There is no
God but Allah.")
At the same time, there are
already hints in the Old Testament that God is more complex. Just as we have
foreshadowing of the Messiah, so too in the Old Testament we have foreshadowing
of the Holy Trinity.
It is there at the Creation. In
the beginning, God created by speaking his word. Genesis 1:2
also notes that the ruach, the Spirit of God, hovered over the face of
the waters. When Christians read that passage in the light of Jesus Christ,
they see there a hint of the Trinity. It is not spelled out in clarity and
fullness. It took time in God's unfolding of revelation to achieve that
clarity. Not until Jesus Christ himself came, in fact, were we able to
understand it. But it is foreshadowed there nonetheless.
Or take another example, from
Proverbs. Again and again, it speaks about God's wisdom. It says that wisdom
created all things (Prov. 3:19), treating wisdom as a
personification of God himself. In the New Testament, we find that Wisdom is
one of the proper names of Jesus Christ. Jesus has been "made unto us
wisdom" (1 Cor. 1:30, KJV).
Then there are all those
amazing theophanies and Christophanies. Jacob wrestled all night with an angel,
and he said the next day as he limped along the river Jabbok, "I have seen
the face of God" (Gen. 32:30, KJV). It was not an incarnation but
a revelation of the true God. Or consider Nebuchadnezzar looking into the fiery
furnace. He sees a fourth man along with the three Hebrew children walking
loose in the flames, one who "looks like a son of the gods" (Dan.
3:25, NIV; the KJV is more directly Christological, translating
it as "as though he were the Son of God"). These are foreshadowings
in the Old Testament, but none of them compromise the fundamental unity of God.
Christians, like Muslims,
affirm the oneness of God, but they understand that oneness not in mathematical
terms (as a unit) but in interpersonal terms (as a unity of relationship).
ALLAH BECAME FLESH?
This distinction leads us to the most basic and distinctive Christian belief:
Jesus is Lord. The Old Testament confession is "God is one." The New
Testament affirmation is "Jesus is Lord," declaring the deity of
Jesus Christ. It's not a coincidence that two key books of the Bible start by
using the same phrase:
Genesis
1:1: "In the beginning God
created…" God spoke, and worlds that were not came into being.
John
1:1: "In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, the Word was God. He was with God in the
beginning." This beginning antedates the Incarnation. It goes beyond and
before even the Creation. It is a beginning before all other beginnings. The
Greek is simple: en arche, in the primordial first principle of all
things and all times, in the beginning that we can speak of as eternity—in this
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and (literally) "God
was the Word." In Greek that expression is pros ton theon (face to
face with God).
In John 1:18,
which closes John's prologue, we read, "No one has ever seen God, but God,
the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known" (NIV).
That translation is just too weak. Here the KJV gets closest to the original
sense when it says Jesus was "in the bosom of the Father."
"At the Father's
side"? You can go to a ball game, and somebody sits alongside you. That's
a chum, that's a friend. This is not the phrase used here. The one "who is
in the bosom of the Father"—that connotes an intimacy, a relationship, a
unity that "alongside of" comes nowhere close to. This God, the One
who was with God, face to face with God, in the bosom of the Father from all
eternity—this One has made him known to us.
In verse 14
is the linchpin of this whole passage. This one verse, more than any other,
summarizes the Christian faith. The Word that was in the beginning with God,
that was face to face with God, that was in the bosom of the Father, this
"Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and full of
truth" (KJV).
This is what Christianity
teaches: God Almighty, the one and only Allah (Allah is simply the
Arabic word for "God"), took upon himself humanity. But not just
humanity. Some translations read, "And the Word became a human
being." That's too weak. It's not deep or strong enough. No, the Word
became flesh.
Flesh is different from human being. Flesh is that part of
our human reality that is most vulnerable, that gets sick. It gets tired. It
experiences decay and death. But this is the stupendous claim the Bible makes,
and if you don't feel the absolute horrible force of this statement, you'll
never understand why orthodox Islam finds Christianity so abhorrent: Allah
became flesh. This is a blasphemous thought to orthodox Muslims. But it's a
remarkable claim that Christianity makes.
How does this relate to the
Trinity? People ask why God made the world. Some believe he was lonely and
decided that he needed something to love, so he created the world. Some people
preach that, and it's well meant, but it is heretical.
God was never lonely. The
doctrine of the Trinity says that within the being of God from all eternity
there has always existed this bond of relationship—Father and Son and Holy
Spirit, the bond of love and unity—so God never was lonely. There has always
been in the being of God a reciprocity, a mutuality, and a dynamism of
relationship, of community, of love.
Several radical implications
proceed from this. One of them—a rather humbling one—is that we are not
necessary. We are utterly unessential. God could get along quite well without
us. It doesn't boost our self-esteem to say that, but it's true. If God had
never created the world, or indeed, if God had never redeemed the world, God
would not be any less God. He does not need us to fulfill some inner inadequacy
in his own being.
Paradoxically, this truth makes
the Good News good. God has chosen to love us, out of his own free will.
He decided deliberately not to remain a divine cocoon within himself. Instead,
he chose to make a world apart from himself, to become a part of it and take
upon himself the burden of loving it back to himself—because he wanted to, not
because he lacked something in himself.
This is the Gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. This is the Good News that we have to proclaim: the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not a unit. The God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ is not a monad, a sterile one-thing that exists apart from a
relationship, but has a dynamic relationship of love and reciprocity within his
own being—and that as a relational being he has reached out to us in love.
Many are familiar with George
Eliot's character, Silas Marner. Everybody thought he was poor, but he was
rich. He was a miser. He kept gold coins in a chest under his bed. And every
night, before he went to sleep, he'd take out his gold coins, count them,
stroke them, and admire them. Then he'd put them back under his bed. He never
spent one. Some people think of God that way: He hoards all his power, all his
might. He's a miser god—a Silas Marner god. This is not the God of the Bible.
The God of the Bible is a God of utter graciousness and love, who chooses to
come into our world and to experience what we have experienced—our alienation
and estrangement—and do everything necessary to redeem and love that world back
to himself.
PERSONAL SPIRIT
Some people think that in the Old Testament we have God the Father, in the New
Testament God puts on the mask of the Son, and now, in the age of the church,
we have the Holy Spirit. The technical name for that heresy is modalism,
and it's widespread among Christian believers. No, the Trinity is not three
different masks that God wears at different times in salvation history. From
all eternity, before there was a world, before there was anything else, God,
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was—is—in a bond of love and unity and
reciprocity and community that exceeds our ability to comprehend and describe.
These first two Christian
affirmations—God is one, and Jesus is Lord—have been denied and doubted and
fought over by Christian theologians. In the second century, a heretic named
Marcion was excommunicated from the church. Marcion said, in effect, I like
the God of Jesus. He's a God of love; he's a God of mercy, a God of tenderness.
But I don't like the God of the Old Testament. He's a mean God. He's a mad God.
He's a God of war and violence. So Marcion cut the Old Testament out of the
Bible. But the church said, No, we're not going down that road. It was
perhaps the single most important decision made in the history of Christian
doctrine—to say that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the God of
Israel, the God of the Old Testament, to affirm that there is a fundamental
connection between creation and redemption.
The divine lordship and the
deity of Jesus Christ were denied in the fourth century by a man named Arius.
He was sincere. He was well read. He did not deny that the Bible was true. But
he said, Jesus Christ is a creature. He's higher than any other creature.
But he is not God. Arius denied that Jesus was the same essence, the same
fundamental reality, as God. At the Council of Nicea, the church had to say, No,
we can't go that way either. The one we adore and worship and love in Jesus
our Redeemer is of the same essence as the Father. We're not talking about two
different gods. We're talking about the one God, but the one God who has
forever known himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This says to us that the
fundamental reality of God is relationship—it's community. If we can ever grasp
that, we'll understand what our fundamental differences are with Islam.
The third central Christian
affirmation is that the Holy Spirit is personal. This affirmation also has had
a divisive history. About 70 years after the Council of Nicea, some people said
they would go along with God the Father and God the Son, but they could not
affirm that the Holy Spirit is God—that was just too much for them. They
claimed that the Holy Spirit is a force, an energy, a power, but not God. Over
against these people, who were known as the Spirit-fighters (because they
fought against the deity of the Holy Spirit), the church declared that God is
one in essence, and three in person—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Bible speaks of the Holy
Spirit as a person. He baptizes (1 Cor. 12); he can be grieved (Eph.
4); he groans (Rom. 8). These are things a person does, and
the Holy Spirit is a person and in relation to the Father and Son—yet one God,
forever and ever.
Space constraints preclude
saying much more about the place of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity. The larger
point here is simply this: God does not exist alone—"the alone with the
alone" as Arius referred to his god—but rather exists in community, in
love, in reciprocity and mutuality. It is this God who has, of his own free
will, opened his heart to this world he has made, and who invites us to know
him, to love him, and to respond to him. He is a relational God.
AFFIRMING THE MYSTERY
Ultimately, we have to admit that the Trinity is a mystery. Even in eternity,
we will never comprehend it. But we are called to affirm it and believe
it. And we are called to hold it without compromise in a world of religious
pluralism.
Let's go back to our question:
Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad? The answer is surely Yes and No.
Yes, in the sense that the Father of Jesus is the only God there is. He is the
Creator and Sovereign Lord of Muhammad, Buddha, Confucius, of every person who
has ever lived. He is the one before whom all shall one day bow (Phil.
2:5–11). Christians and Muslims can together affirm many
important truths about this great God—his oneness, eternity, power, majesty. As
the Qur'an puts it, he is "the Living, the Everlasting, the All-High, the
All-Glorious" (2:256).
But the answer is also No, for
Muslim theology rejects the divinity of Christ and the personhood of the Holy
Spirit—both essential components of the Christian understanding of God. No
devout Muslim can call the God of Muhammad "Father," for this, to
their mind, would compromise divine transcendence. But no faithful Christian
can refuse to confess, with joy and confidence, "I believe in God the
Father… Almighty!" Apart from the Incarnation and the Trinity, it is
possible to know that God is, but not who God is.
Long ago, Gregory of Nyssa put
it this way: "It is not the vastness of the heavens and the bright shining
of the constellations, the order of the universe, and the unbroken
administration over all existence, that so manifestly displays the transcendent
power of God as his condescension to the weakness of our human nature, in the
way sublimity is seen in lowliness."
This does not mean that we
should condemn every Muslim believer as an idolater (see "Does God Hear Muslims' Prayers?").
And we are wise to remember that sometimes the best way to address these issues
is to move from theological abstraction to story. I've found one story from
Richard Selzer's Mortal Lessons, as good as any:
I stand by the
bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in
palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of the
mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed
with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless,
to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut that little nerve.
Her young
husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together
they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me. Who are they, I
ask myself, he and this wry-mouth that I have made, who gaze at and touch each
other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks.
"Will my
mouth always be like this?" she asks. "Yes," I say, "it
will. It is because the nerve was cut."
She nods, and is
silent. But the young man smiles. "I like it," he says. "It is
kind of cute."
All at once, I
know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an
encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I [am]
so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show
her that their kiss still works.
Isn't that what the Christian
God is about? God was in Christ, reaching out to us in love, accommodating himself
to our condition, to save us.
This is what we are about as
ambassadors of Christ and his gospel: to go into the world, into the prisons,
into the barrios and the ghettos and wherever it is that human beings exist in
alienation and separation from God, and to tell them that the relational God is
reaching out to us, and that the kiss still works.
Timothy George is a CT
executive editor and dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University. This
article is adapted from his forthcoming book Is the Father of
Jesus the God of Muhammad? (Zondervan, Spring 2002).
Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today
International/Christianity Today magazine.
Click here for reprint information on
Christianity Today.
February
4, 2002, Vol. 46, No. 2, Page
28
http://www.christianitytoday.com/biblestudies/areas/biblestudies/articles/ct-2002-002-1.28.html
4/16/03 6:08 AM
Does God Hear Muslims' Prayers?
We must
remember that God does not deal with theologies; he deals with persons.
| posted 02/01/2002
As Timothy George points out, Islam affirms that
Allah's nature is one (tauhid) in the sense of his utter simplicity and
uncompoundedness. But the unfolding truth about God throughout biblical
revelation is that God exists eternally in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. Islam resolutely denies the incarnation of Christ. Because the deity of
Jesus and his place in the Godhead are fundamental to the Christian conception
of God, it would be hard to assert, from either the Islamic or Christian
perspective, that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.
But when discussing whether Christians and Muslims worship the
same God, we must remember that God does not deal with theologies; he deals
with persons. Some Muslims are not schooled in theology and approach God with
little of this systematic framework. Muslim popular piety is surely channeled
by Muslim ritual. But many address God from the heart, with limited theological
understanding. While nearly all would deny the Trinity if it were explained to
them, their prayers might compare favorably with the experience of Cornelius in
Acts 10 and so could be regarded as
"God-fearing." Cornelius, of course, was in transit from one
religious worldview to another. He was a Gentile whose piety took him to the
brink of Judaism and ultimately into the Jesus movement. The majority of Muslims
are not that far along.
Still, both in biblical times and in our own, are there not
people like Cornelius whose knowledge of God is very limited and yet who turn
to him in prayer? We must ask ourselves: How much knowledge about God is
required to pray to or to worship God? Initially, not very much. This is not
the same as asking, How much do I need to know to be saved? (Even that is
surprisingly limited, though squarely a Christ-centered issue.)
What about children who pray to God generally and in
nondescript ways in their pre-Christian state? We believe they address God and
that God hears them. Throughout the history of religion, there have been many
seekers after God. We should not exclude the possibility that some Muslims fall
into that category.
When Begum Bilquis Sheikh (whose story is told in the book I Dared to Call Him Father) encountered the triune God in
her native Pakistan, she did so under extraordinarily mystical circumstances.
What revolutionized her life was a new conception of God as "Father."
But she did not come to that understanding in one giant step. Rather, over time
she spoke to God as she understood him until, under the guidance of Christian
friends, she entered a personal relationship with God as Father. This
transformed her life.
Christians would do well to be cautious with both the
systematic and personalist answer to whether God hears Muslims' prayers. There
are many Muslims who are reaching out to God and not finding him. For them, the
radical "otherness" of God prevents a personal understanding of him
and allows only knowledge of his will. As the Muslim scholar al-Faruqi said,
"He does not reveal himself to anyone in any way. God reveals only his
will." Christians, however, can help others discover a personal
relationship with God.
In this new and dangerous epoch of world history, which
threatens to embroil us in religious wars and civilizational clashes, we may do
well to seek Muslim prayer partners and together beseech the true, one and only
God to have mercy on us.
The words of Jesus to Muslims and to us might well be:
"Believe in God; believe also in me" (John
14:1, RSV).
James Lewis is professor of world religions at Wheaton College
and coauthor of Religious Traditions of the World
(Wipf & Stock, 1999).
Copyright © 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
February
4, 2002, Vol. 46, No. 2, Page 30
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/002/2.30.html 4/16/03 6:27 AM
Growing Islamic Influence in America
Are Christians prepared for Muslims in the
mainstream?
By Wendy Murray Zoba | A woman named
Hafsa lives down my street. She is Muslim. I have met her son, Mousa. Mousa and
my son skateboard on our street and talk about religion. I told Mousa that I
would like to meet his mother. He gave me her phone number and I called her.
She was not home. I called again a week later. Mousa answered. He said that she
wasn't home but that he would have her call me. She didn't call.
A week later I tried again. Mousa answered and said he would "make it
my mission" to have his mother call me. That was several weeks ago, and
she still hasn't called. I'm told that many Muslim women possess as much
reticence and misunderstanding toward "Christian Americans" as
Christians do toward Muslims. They think that our faith is corrupted and that
we hate them.
"When it comes to reaching Muslims, multitudes of people have stumbled
for cultural, social, and linguistic reasons, before they ever had the
opportunity to stumble at the cross," says Robert Douglas, former director
of the Zwemer Institute of Muslim Studies and now director of the Chicago
Center for Urban Mission. He means that Christians confront many obstacles that
thwart them in understanding and relating to Muslims.
"There is a desperate need for evangelical Christians to take the time
to understand Islam and not to buy into the stereotypes that are floating out
there," Douglas says. "We will have to work hard at building
relationships with Muslims, which means a Christian presence where Muslims are
concentrated."
As we move into the third millennium, God-fearing Muslims from every corner
of the earth are moving into our neighborhoods. And more are coming.
"God is sending the world to the door of the [American] church,"
Douglas says. "Every lay person in the pew has the opportunity for
outreach."
Between 1989 and 1998 the Islamic population in Europe grew by over 100
percent, to 14 million (approximately 2 percent of the population), according
to United Nations statistics. During the same period, the Muslim population in
the United States grew by 25 percent. Islam is the second-largest religious
group in the world, with more than a billion members worldwide (some estimates
put it closer to two billion). An estimated 4 to 6 million Muslims live in the
U.S. today, and that number is growing. Islam could be the second-largest
religion in America by 2015, surpassing Judaism, according to some estimates.
By other estimates, Islam has achieved that rank already.
Muslims moving to the West are changing the cultural and religious
landscape. A hospital in Detroit offers Muslim patients copies of the Qur'an;
Denver International Airport includes a chapel for Muslim prayers; the U.S. Senate
has invited a Muslim cleric to open its session in prayer; the military has
hired four Muslim chaplains; the White House sends greetings (like its
Christmas cards) on Id al-Fitr, the feast that ends Ramadan; the Saudi Arabian
Embassy in Washington D.C. sends 100 Qur'ans a month to prisons while imams
(spiritual leaders) send volunteers to teach Arabic. "On Capitol
Hill…weekly Muslim prayer services and forums to expose congressional staffers
to Muslim viewpoints have become regular fare," notes Ira Rifkin of
Religion News Service (Nov. 30, 1999), "and a bill has been introduced in
Congress to issue a postage stamp commemorating Ramadan."
Muslims are fully exercising the rights and freedoms available to them in
the West. Last fall, the watch dog Council on American—Islamic Relations (CAIR)
objected to the season premiere of Touched by an Angel, which featured a
story line about slavery in Sudan and forced conversions of Christians living
in the south. A CAIR official said the show was tantamount to "thinly
disguised anti-Muslim propaganda and political partisanship."
Also last fall, American Muslim groups called for a boycott of Disney theme
parks and merchandise to protest the Jerusalem exhibit at Disney World's EPCOT.
They cited Israel's "illegal occupation and annexation" of Jerusalem,
saying Disney ignored the city's significance to Islam. "Since Disney has
elected to venture from entertainment into politics, the corporation must see
that our community will not accept its endorsement of Israel's acquisition of
territory by force," said Khalid Turaani, executive director of American
Muslims for Jerusalem.
CAIR's 1999 annual report on Muslim civil rights stated that American public
schools are a "major area in which Muslim apprehension about the lack of religious
accommodation is growing." Still, the report cited progress in Chicago,
where alternative foods are available when pork is served; Fairfax County,
Virginia, where a "pig" sign on school menus indicates items that
include pork; and in Paterson, New Jersey, where the school district cancels
classes on two Muslim holidays.
The Mecca-based Muslim World League spearheads a "massive Islamic
missionary effort," notes Mission Frontiers (October 1999).
"Vast sums of [oil] money are used to propagate Islam around the world:
aid to countries considered sympathetic, building mosques, sending
missionaries, literature, radio, etc. The world's largest printing presses are
located here, and they churn out 28 million copies of the Koran every year for
worldwide distribution."
While Muslims gain religious rights in the West, persecution of religious
minorities by extreme Islamic elements in some Muslim countries in Asia and the
Middle East continues unabated. The 1999 U.S. State Department's Annual Report
on International Religious Freedom notes that in Pakistan, for example,
"discriminatory legislation has encouraged an atmosphere of religious
intolerance."
The report says that Christians "face harassment and
intimidation." In Saudi Arabia, "any attempt to convert a Muslim to
another faith is subject to criminal prosecution. Public religious worship by
any non-Muslim is a criminal offense." In Sudan, "Christians,
practitioners of traditional indigenous religions, and Muslims who deviate from
the Government's interpretation of Islam are subject to severe limits on
religious freedom, including killing, prolonged arbitrary detention or
imprisonment, threats, violence, and forced conversion to Islam."
Conversely, Muslims have suffered persecution at the hands of Christians, as
the Serbian atrocities against Muslims and the war in Chechnya attest. These
and other forms of persecution incline them to view the Christian West with
similar foreboding.
Islam has a missionary mandate and the West is one of its final frontiers.
"They see us [in the West] as having forsaken the foundations of our
faith" and view Western nations as ripe for conversion to Islam, says
David Echols, who worked in Pakistan for 25 years and now serves as outreach
director at the South Asian Friendship Center (SAFC) in Chicago.
"In their minds and hearts Muslims believe firmly that Christianity has
failed on the racial, social, and religious perspectives," says SAFC
director Samuel Naaman, a Pakistani whose Muslim father was a terrorist before
converting to Christianity. "Look at society and the people who claim to
be Christians. What is the difference between them? Muslims believe they have a
mandate from God that the whole world has to come under the banner of Islam."
Douglas described a Muslim missionary conference several years ago at which
one speaker expressed the need to target 75 million Americans for Islam.
Another speaker cited successes in Egypt and Indonesia [both nominally
Christian before Islam took over]. "If it takes 500 or 1,000 years, that's
OK. We're here for the long haul," the speaker said.
Islam is gaining most of its U.S. converts in prisons and on university
campuses. The majority of American converts to Islam—85 to 90 percent—are
black. Of the estimated 6 million Muslims in the U.S., 2.6 million are black.
"One out of every 15 blacks identifies him or herself as Muslim,"
notes Carl Ellis. Anglo women make up an another demographic with a
surprisingly high conversion rate in the U.S.
At the same time, the American Christian community has misunderstood Islam
and so neglected to address it. It is impossible to present the scope of this
complex belief system in a single article. Islam is complicated, disparate,
evolving, and sometimes at war with itself. Still, Christians have a
responsibility to understand our Muslim neighbors, come to terms with their
increasing presence and influence, and learn how to bear an authentic witness
out of love and not fear.
To do this, it is necessary to be informed about the basics of Islam
and how Muslims view Christianity; to be equipped with helpful models
for relating to Muslims; and to be encouraged to engage our Muslim
neighbors, boldly and lovingly, sincerely and tenaciously.
Tomorrow: Learning the
Islamic Fundamentals
Wendy Murray Zoba is
Associate Editor of Christianity Today. Her recent articles include "Won't You Be My
Neighbor? | At the center of Mister Rogers' cheery songs and smiles lies a
God-ordained mission to children," and "Take a Little
Time Out | Amy Grant's ever-smiling face is everywhere, obscuring the
tragedy of two failed marriages."
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/004/1.40.html 4/16/03 6:30 AM
Islamic Fundamentals
Christians have a responsibility to
understand our Muslim neighbors and their beliefs
By Wendy Murray Zoba |
Yesterday: Islam, U.S.A.
| Are Christians prepared for Muslims in the mainstream?
God-fearing Muslims from every corner of the earth are moving into
American neighborhoods. Are we ready to welcome them and tell them the truth
about Jesus? This week at ChristianityToday.com, we take a look at the basics
of Islam and how Muslims view Christianity, helpful models for relating to
Muslims, and how to engage our Muslim neighbors boldly and lovingly.
Despite Islam's diversity throughout its history, the role of the Prophet
Muhammad and the place of the Qur'an have remained unchallenged.
The role of Muhammad. For Muslims, Muhammad is the last and greatest
of the Prophets, surpassing Jesus. He was born in A.D. 570 in Mecca (in what is
today Saudi Arabia). Mecca's heart of worship at the time was the local Ka'bah (shrine),
or the Black Stone, and its numerous idols. According to Islamic tradition,
Abraham's firstborn son Ishmael and Ishmael's mother Hagar, after being
banished by Sarah, ended up in the desert surrounding Mecca, where they were
miraculously rescued. Abraham—or Ibrahim, as he is known in Arabic—visited them
there and he and Ishmael built the Ka'bah. Muslims believe they are the
true heirs, through Ishmael, to the promise God made to Abraham. Jesus and Mary
were among the many images—in addition to the goddesses of fertility and
power—worshiped at the Ka'bah during Muhammad's day.
Muhammad learned about "the People of the Book"—Jews and
Christians—in his youth. He felt troubled that his own people, the Arabs, did
not have a book of their own. As he reflected despondently on this one day in a
cave on Mount Hira (in A.D. 609 or 610), Muhammad said, the angel Gabriel
appeared to him: "Recite: In the Name of thy Lord who created Man of a
blood-clot. Recite: And thy Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by the pen,
taught Man that he knew not" (Surah 96:1-4). The injunction to
"recite" meant "make vocal what is already written," says
Islamicist Kenneth Cragg, which means it was the "sending down" of a
preexistent book. (Qur'an is Arabic for "recitation.")
At first Muhammad feared he had been overtaken by a jinn, a troubling
spirit. But Muhammad's wife Khadijah encouraged him that his visions were
indeed from God and that he had been chosen as his special messenger.
Muhammad's fear gave way to acquiescence and the visions recurred with greater
frequency.
His recitations denounced idol worship and proclaimed the total sovereignty
of the One True God. Because the People of the Book also claimed allegiance to
this God, his early recitations about Christianity and Judaism in the Qur'an
were irenic: "O believers, be you God's helpers, as Jesus, Mary's son,
said to the Apostles. 'Who will be my helpers unto God?' The Apostles said, 'We
will be helpers of God' " (Surah 61:14).
His small circle of followers, composed mostly of family members and
domestic help, became increasingly assertive in their belief that Muhammad was
a prophet, and this aroused the consternation of the people of Mecca, many of
whom felt their vested interests in idol worship and commerce were threatened.
The deaths of his beloved wife Khadijah (15 years his senior) and his uncle
Abu Talib (who also served as a protector) in 619 precipitated a crisis for
Muhammad. He and his followers could stay in Mecca in perpetual jeopardy as a
despised minority, or he could move to a new location where the fledgling faith
could gain a foothold and grow. Some of his disciples had succeeded in their
missionary undertakings to the north, in a place called Yathrib, later called
Medina. So in 622, Muhammad migrated to that city to form a new base of
activity. The famous hijrah (emigration) occurred in September of that
year and became the historical fulcrum of Islam.
Several things happened with this move that solidified and redefined Islam.
First, despite the previous missionary successes in Medina, Muhammad's new
religion hardly received unanimous affirmation upon his arrival. Some resisted
his presumption and others eschewed the notion of converting. Second, Muhammad
had anticipated a warm reception from the People of the Book—primarily the
Jews—in Medina, since they too were "Scripture people." Instead they
treated him with "amused disdain," says Cragg, and rejected his
claims as "pretentious."
These difficulties triggered a shift in Muhammad's message. The portions of the
Qur'an "sent down" during this period took on a more aggressive
political and legal tone, in contrast to its previous poetic and mystical
reflections. During the Medinan years (622-630) Muhammad consolidated Islam
into a functioning, overarching political and religious community—the umma—and
built a mosque. He also fashioned his revelations into principles, and
administered the social, political, economic, and religious affairs of the
Medinans. Recitations regarding the People of the Book (both Jews and
Christians) became more belligerent: "God fight them, what liars they
are" (Surah 9:30); and "O believers, take not Jews and Christians as
friends; they are friends of each other. Whoso of you makes them his friends is
one of them. God guides not the people of the evildoers" (Surah 5:56).
At the same time, hostilities with the Meccans continued as Muhammad raided
their caravans traveling north. The Battle of Badr (624) proved decisive for
establishing Islam as an aggressive force. "[T]he sword was unleashed and
the scabbard cast away. The jihad, or appeal to battle, had been
irrevocably invoked," Cragg says. (Jihad also has a spiritual sense in
Islam: the struggle of the self against veering from the truth.)
A contentious debate continues today in Muslim circles about whether this
aggression should be considered "defensive," since the future of
Islam was at stake. The Qur'an maintains that war is an evil, but the
extinction of Islam is a greater evil (Surah 2:217). But for all intents and
purposes, the victory at Badr marked a critical stage in the evolution of Islam
from a defensive to an offensive position.
By 630 Muhammad returned to Mecca in victory. He claimed the city for Islam
and destroyed the idols being worshiped at the Ka'bah. This action
introduced the notion of "manifest success"—geographical dominance—as
a validating sign of Islam.
Muhammad "combined the good and the bad qualities of an Oriental
chief," notes Christian historian Philip Schaff. He despised ostentation
and lived in small mud-brick cottages with his many wives. He mended his own
clothes, cobbled his shoes, milked goats, and was accessible, gracious, and
hospitable to visitors. Muhammad died in 632, two years after the conquest of
Mecca. The recitations were complete—the canon, so to speak, was closed.
The Qur'an. The Qur'an to the Muslim is not what the Bible is to the
Christian. Rather, the Qur'an is to the Muslim what Jesus is to the
Christian. Jesus is the Word made flesh and the Qur'an, for the Muslim, is the
Word made text. The Book preexisted in heaven before Muhammad received the
command to recite and he simply brought into physical being what already
existed in completeness.
To borrow Christian vocabulary, one might say he incarnated the Book. Muhammad
was illiterate, according to Islamic tradition, ensuring the purity of the
revelation (though some, including Cragg, dispute that view).
When the recitations ended with Muhammad's death in 632, points in the
Qur'an required further clarification for long-term communal guidance. This
clarification gave rise to Tradition (hadith sharif): the collected
sayings, thoughts, and deeds of Muhammad. Muslims looked to how Muhammad lived
for guidance in practical living. For example, Al-Ghazali—an eleventh-century
Muslim legal scholar and equivalent of Thomas Aquinas—wrote:
Know that the key of happiness
is…imitating God's Apostle in all his goings out and comings in, in his
movements and times of quiescence, even in the manner of his eating, his
deportment, his sleep and his speech…. So you must sit while putting on
trousers and stand while putting on a turban: You must begin with the right
foot when putting on your sandals, and eat with your right hand: When cutting
your nails you must begin with the forefinger of the right hand and finish with
the thumb: in the foot you must begin with the little toe of the right foot and
finish with the little toe of the left.
"God does not speak in a vacuum," says Dr. Mahmoud Ayoub, a Muslim
and professor of Islamic studies and comparative religion at Temple University.
"God speaks to people in their own situation. So there is a human
dimension of the Qur'an." Even so, Muslims do not regard the Qur'an as a
historical document to be reinterpreted in new contexts and eras. "It's a
miracle of speech," Ayoub says. "But we cannot apply the principles
of biblical criticism to the Qur'an. There is no evolution of the text."
CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR FAITH
This notion of an immutable text has been put to the test as Islam has moved
West. An example of how the Qur'an has collided with Western sensibilities is
in its statements about women.
In Muhammad's time, women's roles were notably inferior to men's. One of the
most difficult verses reads: "Righteous women are therefore obedient,
guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious
admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them" (Surah 4:34). In
matters of inheritance, women are to receive half of what men receive (Surah
4:11). Men are the "managers" of women (Surah 4:35) and can
"come unto [their] tillage as they wish" (sexually) (Surah 2:223);
can divorce their wives by stating "I divorce you" three times
(2:229-230); and may take more than one wife (4:29).
"What is happening now is that a lot of Islamic scholars are trying to
extricate Islam from that culture," says Jane Smith, professor of Islamic
studies at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut and author of Islam in America.
"Many are increasingly saying we must look to the particular time and to
the particular context."
Many feminist scholars look to Muhammad's example—he affirmed and empowered
women—as a means of interpreting these troubling passages. From this vantage,
many see these verses as strangely empowering for women. Inheritance, these
scholars argue, is not earned and so is not a right. Given that men are
responsible for the well-being of the families and women are not, that they
receive anything at all is a reflection of their esteemed status. The division
of roles, wherein men "manage" the affairs of women, is actually
liberating. One noted feminist scholar, a western convert to Islam, says that
this arrangement "accords with the God-given natures of men and
women."
The surahs (chapters) regarding polygamy and divorce are trickier, but also
not without merit, some would argue. Many contemporary Muslim scholars say
polygamy ensures that men will not take on mistresses and bear illegitimate
children, and grants these other women legal protection. A woman without a
husband in a Muslim community is in an insecure position, and since there are
usually more women than men, polygamy ensures companionship to them all.
"To share a husband is better than having none," Napoleon John writes
in Partners or Prisoners, citing Hammudah Abdalati, author of Islam
in Focus. "If [the husband] is bound to be monogamous, this may lead
to hypocrisy, adultery, illegitimacy, abortion, and many other troubles."
The triple pronouncement of divorce offers the needed restraints to prevent
a proclamation in a heated moment. The same principle applies to the stages of
discipline before a beating. A verbal reprimand must precede a wife's being
banished from her husband's bed, which must precede being beaten. In other
words, beating is a last resort. Both Jane Smith and The New York Times Book
Review (in reviewing Smith's Islam in America) are surprisingly
uncritical of such interpretations, given the outrage the Southern Baptists'
"submission statement" elicited. "[N]o reputable Muslim
interpreters would suggest it should involve anything more than the lightest of
taps as a reminder to the wife of conjugal responsibilities," Smith
writes.
There are many happy Muslim marriages and loving husbands who do not beat
their wives. But this discussion highlights the difficulties Muslims encounter
in bringing their view of the Qur'an to the West.
Many women view marriage the same way Muslims view their relationship with
God, says "Kaye," an American missionary in a Muslim country who does
not want to be identified. A Muslim woman "sees marriage as a contract,
and they're trying to work out their part of the contract to get to paradise.
Sometimes they see being beaten as part of the contract." Muslims tend to
look upon every relationship as a contract, says Kaye, "including their
relationship to God."
Islam is a religion of duty and submission in which human effort leads to
salvation rather than proceeds out of it. "There is no view of redemption,
as such, for the Muslim," says Mahmoud Ayoub. "Adam is the first
sinner, but also the first prophet. He missed the mark by disobeying the divine
command, and he asked God's forgiveness. Every human is born like Adam, capable
of knowing God and having pure faith. There is no original sin in Islam, only
original purity."
In other words, we, like Adam, may miss the mark now and then. But we, also
like Adam, have the capability to right ourselves and rehabilitate our standing
before God, through submission and through the five pillars. The characteristic
description for human status before God is 'abd—servant or slave. God, in his
mercy, revealed himself through the Qur'an and his final prophet, but Islam
nevertheless remains a religion driven by ongoing human efforts to earn God's
favor.
Tomorrow: How Muslims See
Christianity
Wendy Murray Zoba is
Associate Editor of Christianity
Today.
Related
Elsewhere
Christian perspectives on Islam's basic
beliefs are available at Answering Islam, the Society for International Ministries (SIM), and the Religious
Education Network.
For a more directly Muslim perspective, see the Muslim
Student Association at California State University, Fresno, Islam-Guide.com,
al-Islam.org,
and Islam.about.com.
ReligiousTolerance.org
and Britannica.com introduce the basic Islamic beliefs from a
more general, academic perspective.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/113/21.0.html 4/16/03 6:32 AM
How Muslims See Christianity
Many Muslims don't understand
Christianity—especially the idea of salvation by grace through faith.
By Wendy Murray Zoba |
Yesterday: Islamic
Fundamentals | Christians have a responsibility to understand our Muslim
neighbors and their beliefs
Monday: Islam, U.S.A.
| Are Christians prepared for Muslims in the mainstream?
God-fearing Muslims from every corner of the earth are moving into
American neighborhoods. Are we ready to welcome them and tell them the truth about
Jesus? This week at ChristianityToday.com, we take a look at the basics of
Islam, how Muslims view Christianity, helpful models for relating to Muslims,
and how to engage our Muslim neighbors boldly and lovingly.
The driving principle behind Islam, recited in the call to prayer, is La
ilaha illa Allah—"There is no god but Allah." This is the lens
through which Muslims interpret all other religious confessions, and it
explains why many Muslims do not understand Christianity.
It seems that either no complete version of either Testament had been
translated into Arabic in Muhammad's time or that he did not have access to the
testaments. His references to Jesus and Mary in the Qur'an are sketchy, without
any verbatim attributions. In addition, it is apparent that the Christians
Muhammad knew were contentious and seemed confused: the Christianity Muhammad
was exposed to was probably embroiled in a debate about the nature of Christ,
leaving the impression that Christians mostly disagreed about what their faith
meant. Given these factors, Muhammad's exposure to Christianity conjured up
more confusion than elucidation.
There is no category in Islam for the One true God with a triune nature.
"The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a Messenger of God, and His Word
that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him," the Qur'an says.
"So believe in God and His Messengers, and say not, 'Three.' Refrain:
better is it for you. God is only One God" (Surah 4:169).
Muslims do not understand our Book: Why are there four gospels? Why
does it include letters written to other people? Why is it written in Greek
when Jesus spoke Aramaic? What kind of Scripture could this be, if God himself
did not dictate it? The "sending down" of the New Testament Scriptures
involved human instrumentality, so Muslims wonder how such a book, so handled,
is divine revelation. Even more perplexing to them is the Christian
understanding of 'Isa—Jesus. Muhammad subordinated all other belief
systems to the notion that he was the final prophet and the Qur'an the final
message from God. Muhammad saw the Jesus of the Christians as an important
prophet—along the lines of Noah, Abraham, and Moses—but not the Alpha and
Omega.
Muslims honor Jesus and allow that miracles are associated with him, but
they recoil at the notion of worshiping him. A prophet can be virgin-born, but
not "Emmanuel—God with us." Muslims concur that Jesus was condemned
to the cross, but they claim he was never crucified. The Qur'an asserts that
"they did not slay him, neither crucified him, only a likeness of that was
shown to them" (Surah 4:155).
Islam cannot conceive of either a prophet or a son who is executed as a
criminal. If Jesus died on the cross, "enduring the shame," then from
the Muslim perspective he utterly failed. Muhammad's victory, first in Medina
and later in Mecca, validated his prophetic role. Manifest success became the
measuring rod for authentic Sunni Islam (its major branch), and by that
standard, Jesus failed. His mission was cut short without his realizing any
real, measurable "success."
Jesus as God's son is even more problematic. A son is a privileged and
pampered position, "which will not soil a hand lest the heir be mistaken
for a menial slave," notes Cragg. So when Paul writes, "Though he was
God, he…made himself nothing [and] took the humble position of a slave…dying a
criminal's death on a cross" (Phil. 2:6-9), it's a losing proposition from
the Muslim perspective. A son of God would never be a slave and would never die
a criminal's death. "The logic by which, for the Qur'an, Jesus can never
be 'Son' to God is precisely the logic by which, for Paul and the New
Testament, he is," Cragg says. "Truly God is one God," the
Qur'an says. "Glory be to Him and no 'son' to Him whose are all things in
the heavens and the earth" (Surah 4:171).
Without a concept of sonship and Jesus' atoning sacrifice on the cross,
there is no remission of sins and therefore no grace. Mahmoud Ayoub says that "salvation
by faith is arrogance—who decides?" To him it seems incomprehensible that
a person would claim to be a servant of God without having to do
anything. As one imam expressed it, "That is too good to be true!"
The validating sign of faith, says Ayoub, is in what you do—not in what
you cannot do, as is implicit in the notion of grace. This is a difficult
concept for Muslims to grasp. In Islam, God is all merciful, all knowing, all
compassionate—Muslims have 99 names for what God is—but none conveys the
intimacy of abba whom we approach in reconciliation by virtue of his
saving grace.
THE CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCH
This sense of religious duty and measurable human effort is, surprisingly, what
attracts many Western converts to Islam. "I wanted a discipline to pattern
my life by," writes one young woman, formerly a Christian, on a Web site
that posts testimonies about conversions to Islam. "I did not just want to
believe someone was my savior and through this I held the ticket to Heaven. I
wanted to know how to act to receive the approval of God."
Another former Christian who converted to Islam wrote: "As with many
other Christians too, I had become disillusioned with the hypocrisy of the
Church…. My attention was drawn towards the beliefs and practices of Islam."
But this works-oriented theology can cut the other way. Says Roy Oksnevad,
director of the Institute of Muslim Studies at Wheaton College: "[O]ne
former Muslim has said Islam had the rules and discipline she wanted in her
life, but lacked the power to live the life the rules stipulated: 'As a system
of personal discipline, Islam has few equals. As a means of earning God's
favor, it's a spiritual treadmill.' "
Another Web site posts testimonies by Muslim converts to Christianity. A man
who identifies himself only as "a brother from Saudi Arabia" writes:
As a teenager I went to the
mosque five times a day in obedience to my parents…. One night while was asleep
I had this horrible dream of me being taken into hell. What I saw there brought
me real fear and these dreams kept coming to me almost every night…. Suddenly
one day Jesus appeared to me and said, "Son, I am the way, the truth, and
the life. And if you would give your life to Me and follow Me, I would save you
from the hell that you have seen."…Christianity is totally banned in Saudi
Arabia…. [After I converted] I was taken into custody and tortured. They told
me I would be beheaded if I did not turn back to Islam…. I told the authorities
I'm willing to die for Jesus and that I would never come back to Islam…. The
appointed day came for my execution and I was waiting with much anticipation,
yet very strong in my faith….One hour lapsed, two hours went by, then it became
three hours and then the day passed by. No one turned up. Then two days later
the authorities turned and opened the doors and told me, "You demon! Get
out from this place!"
In the course of writing this article, I kept confronting a contradiction.
Many who are intimately acquainted with Muslims expressed concern about the
missionary mandate of some to conquer the world for Islam. At the same time,
people expressed genuine fondness, compassion, and good will for their Muslim
friends and neighbors. David Echols of the South Asian Friendship Center says
to look at it this way: there is the Islamic system, which is aggressive
and intentional about its missiological work, and then there are Muslims—the
people who work in Wal-Mart or live down the street. The latter are the people
you will meet in the grocery store. They long to get close to God and to live
as good Muslims. Many are lonely for friendships.
It is on this human level that Christians will overcome the stereotypes
about Muslims—and where Muslims will overcome their stereotypes about
Christians. Only on the personal level will authentic witness be born between
the two.
Tomorrow: Engaging our
Muslim neighbors
Wendy Murray Zoba is Associate Editor of Christianity Today.
Related
Elsewhere
Muslim perspectives on Jesus and Christianity are ubiquitous online. They
include Al-Sunnah,
Harakah,
Islam
101, Answering Christianity, and WhatIsIslam.com
Christian sites discussing Muslim beliefs about Jesus and Christianity are
available at Answering Islam, Campus Crusade for Christ, and FarsiNet.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/113/31.0.html 4/16/03 6:33 AM
Engaging Our Muslim Neighbors
The Church faces a challenge not just to
understand Muslims, but to befriend them.
By Wendy Murray Zoba |
Yesterday: How Muslims See
Christianity | Many Muslims don't understand Christianity—especially the
idea of salvation by grace through faith.
Tuesday: Islamic
Fundamentals | Christians have a responsibility to understand our Muslim
neighbors and their beliefs
Monday: Islam, U.S.A.
| Are Christians prepared for Muslims in the mainstream?
God-fearing Muslims from every corner of the earth are moving into
American neighborhoods. Are we ready to welcome them and tell them the truth
about Jesus? This week at ChristianityToday.com, we take a look at the basics
of Islam, how Muslims view Christianity, helpful models for relating to
Muslims, and how to engage our Muslim neighbors boldly and lovingly.
The South Asian Friendship Center is a bookstore in the heart of a Muslim
business district in Chicago. (More than 400,000 Muslims live in Chicago.) The
shelves are lined with books in Urdu (the language of Pakistan), Arabic, and
English with author names like J. I. Packer and John Stott. The center makes no
apologies for its overt Christian beliefs.
SAFC, a multidenominational effort of many area churches, opened in
September 1997 and carries out a fourfold vision.
First, SAFC's bookstore is a legitimate business. A "mini-Borders"
for Asians, it is a haven where people can read and relax on a couch or other
chairs, nibbling on free cookies and sipping chai (Indian tea). SAFC
sells Christian literature, books, videos, and cassettes at reasonable
prices—and often gives these items away.
Second, SAFC strives to serve the community by offering tutoring in English
as a second language; after-school homework help; classes in Hindu and Urdu;
help with immigration issues; legal counsel; home visitation; and medical help.
The third aspect of SAFC's vision is what staff members call passive
evangelism: "People come to us and we pray with people unashamedly in the
name of Jesus," says Roy Oksnevad, director of training and development.
He describes how one Muslim man desperately needed a job. SAFC workers asked if
they could pray for him in Jesus' name. "I really like this place,"
the man said before he left. "You are our friends."
Fourth, SAFC trains students, missionaries, and churches that want to
develop similar ministries. The SAFC sponsors weekend "vision trips"
for people to learn about the center and visit a mosque or Hindu temple to
expose them to the need. The SAFC also will send staff members to speak in
churches.
"In this country, I'm not worried about what Muslims are doing,"
says SAFC director Sam Naaman. "I know what they are doing. They are
active—far more active than we Christians are.
"That's why we started the center. We have to be out on the street.
These people who are passing by and see the Scripture portions from the door,
they cannot say when the Lord comes, 'I didn't know about Christianity.' "
Naaman is worried, however, about what Muslims are doing in his home
country, Pakistan. When his father was actively distributing Christian literature
and evangelizing, people threatened to harm his family or to kill him if he did
not stop. "My father was [once] a fundamentalist Muslim who fought for
Islam. It was not easy for him to get scared by these threats," Naaman
says. "But I think he underestimated the threat."
Muslims killed his brother Obed, 26, in 1990. "It was very unexpected.
He was a devout born-again Christian who wanted to serve the Lord in our
country." The death of his brother plays a major role in Naaman's
motivation to minister to Muslims today. "When the best thing you have is
taken from you—you ask yourself, What else is there to give up for the Lord?
A brother is like your arms. His sacrifice will never be in vain. Once you have
given up everything for the Lord, I don't think anything can stop you."
The SAFC incarnates key principles that apply to any Western Christian
attempting to befriend Muslims. These include:
Take the initiative. "If you want to encounter Islam, you have
to go where they are. That's where we are going to face Islam—not in our
churches, but on the street," Naaman says.
"My dream is to have a center like this in every city in the U.S."
(SAFC has opened another center in New York and is working on one for Toronto.)
Be bold, yet loving, about our faith in Jesus. "Let's not be too
humble. Let's not apologize for believing in Christ," Naaman says.
"Let's stand very strongly on our faith and practice what we preach. With
all due respect, the Western church is very naïve. You talk about contextualizing
and befriending Muslims—and I have no problem with that—but I also know that
Islam is a religion of power. You have to become strong—confront them in
love—but be very strict that this is our faith and that Jesus is the only way.
If that doesn't happen, we just make fun of ourselves."
Encourage Christian women to get involved. "Women will play a
major role" in affecting Islamic cultures, Naaman says. "As a woman,
you can go and enter the inner section of the house. You can have a cup of tea
or you can cook with her. You can make conversation with her and she will open
up to you." There is "a wall of genders in Islam," he says,
which means that sometimes a Muslim woman can relate more closely to a
Christian woman than to her husband. "Once the husband knows that you
really care for his wife and that, as a Christian, you don't like the sin in
American society then—boom—the bond is there. Once the bond is there, once he
knows that you really take time, you will see—they will break down in tears and
cry. You will get more dishes from her side than you can keep up with."
The SAFC also serves as a new model for missions: using the gifts and
talents of trained and seasoned missionaries here in the U.S. Some who serve at
SAFC are former or retired missionaries who know the language of the community
and understand the culture.
David Echols, a former missionary to Pakistan, has joined with Sam Naaman to
create an environment in which visitors feel comfortable. Echols is fluent in
Urdu and understands the Asian culture. Naaman commands the respect of his
fellow Asians and removes any sense of Western paternalism. But before all
else, all attempts to engage our Muslim neighbors must begin with prayer.
"With the power of prayer, action should come," Naaman says.
"Prayer will take us to the next level."
SMALL STEPS
Americans have their own cultural baggage to overcome. "We are going to
have to confront our individualism and space issues," Naaman says.
"For people who are going to reach Muslims, those are the things they are
going to have to battle." We will also have to battle discouragement.
"The only way they're going to find the truth is through individual
relationships with Christians who take the time to care—and it's going to take
a lot of time," says Kaye, the missionary. "I have heard it said that
Muslims have to hear the gospel over 100 times before the truth of it sinks in.
And they have to hear it from different angles, in bits and pieces, until all
of a sudden the pieces start falling together. You have to wait for the chances
to give them the gospel." Another temptation is to defend the gospel
through discussion or argument alone. This frequently does not work with
Muslims and often backfires. "They have to defend the honor of
Islam," Naaman says.
Kaye adds: "When you get into a conversation with a Muslim, you're
better off not getting into an argument. They will win every time because Islam
'has all the answers.' It brags that it does. There's an answer for what to do
in any situation."
Effective evangelism among Muslims means incarnating the love of Jesus
through friendship, patience, humility, and tenacity. "It comes down to
our relationship with Jesus Christ," Kaye says. "That's the only
thing they don't have."
Where do we begin?
"It is very easy for you to bake a tray of cookies," Naaman says.
"Or take her to Wal-Mart. You will spend maybe a dollar on gas. Americans
are very gracious. Once they know that this is the way, they will do it."
"Muslim women don't want to sit in their homes and watch TV all
day," Kaye says. "Many are lonely and homesick. The women are
probably at home and might have trouble with English. They would probably be
grateful for a Christian friendship."
I came to realize that if I wanted to establish communication with my
neighbor Hafsa, it was going to have to come from me. I would have preferred to
stay in my house to pray about it, but the weight of conviction bore down on
me. I put a gold ribbon on a coffee cake I had baked, walked up her front
steps, and knocked on the door. Her son answered, but she was close behind. I
introduced myself and handed her the coffee cake. "It's my grandmother's
recipe," I said. She seemed pleased and surprised and apologized for not
calling me.
Hafsa told me how glad she was that my son was talking to Mousa about
religion—given what teenagers could be talking about. She showed me a 3-D
picture of Jesus and Mary she had hanging on her wall. "I believe in all
of the Prophets of God. They are all from God," she said.
We chatted about when she came to the U.S. from India, and how she once took
a part-time job without her husband knowing it. "He speaks several
languages—Arabic, Swahili, Zulu, Polish, and he's learning Spanish," she
said.
She gave me a book about Islam to read and I told her I would read it and
get it back to her. She said she would like to have my husband and me over
sometime for a meal, or for tea. I told her I would like that.
It was a small step. But the small steps are going to make the difference.
Tomorrow: How Islam is Winning Black America: An interview with apologist
Carl Ellis.
Wendy Murray Zoba is Associate Editor of Christianity Today.
Related
Elsewhere
Zoba earlier profiled Brother Andrew and his mission to Muslims. The
article, "Brother
Andrew's Boldest Mission Yet: 'Smuggling' Jesus into Muslim Hearts"
and Brother Andrew's related article, "The Muslim Challenge,"
appeared in the October 5, 1998 issue of Christianity Today.
The South Asian
Friendship Center's Web site offers the basics: information about the
center, a catalog for its bookstore, an article on Christianity in America, and
a few local resources.
Answering Islam
is mainly a site designed to explain Christianity to Muslims. There's also a
"For
Christians" section that offers papers, books, and other free
resources that help Christians share their faith with Muslims. Be sure to also
check out the site's page of links
to other Christian sites about Islam.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/113/41.0.html 4/16/03 6:35 AM
Christian sites discussing Muslim beliefs about Jesus and
Christianity are available at The Muslim-Christian Debate, Answering Islam, Campus Crusade for Christ,
and FarsiNet.
Muslim perspectives on Jesus and Christianity are also
ubiquitous online. They include Al-Sunnah, Harakah, Islam 101, Answering Christianity, and WhatIsIslam.com
Christianity Today's January cover
package by James A. Beverley examined Islam teachings:
Is Islam
A Religion Of Peace?
The
controversy reveals a struggle for the soul of Islam.
| posted 12/28/2001
Osama bin Laden, the world's most notorious terrorist, has
handed Muslims everywhere their worst public-relations nightmare: September 11
as a picture, an embodiment, of Islam. Muslims now have to define themselves in
relation to the day of infamy.
Abdulaziz Sachedina, a Muslim scholar at the University of Virginia,
says he does not remember ever praying so earnestly that God would spare
Muslims the blame for "such madness that was unleashed upon New York and
Washington….I felt the pain and, perhaps for the first time in my entire life,
I felt embarrassed at the thought that it could very well be my fellow Muslims
who had committed this horrendous act of terrorism. How could these terrorists
invoke God's mercifulness and compassion when they had, through their evil act,
put to shame the entire history of this great religion and its culture of
toleration?"
Every judgment about Islam, all reaction to Muslim doctrine,
and each Muslim-Christian encounter are now cast in light of the events of that
dreadful day.
Islam as a
Path of Peace
There are three distinct interpretations of the events of September 11. The
first view is that the terrorist acts do not represent Islam. President George
W. Bush best expressed this notion when he said that "Islam is a religion
of peace." One of the leading Muslims to echo this is Yusuf Islam (the
former rock musician Cat Stevens, who now helps promote Muslim education in
England). "Today, I am aghast at the horror of recent events and feel it a
duty to speak out," he said in a London newspaper. "Not only did terrorists
hijack planes and destroy life; they also hijacked the beautiful religion of
Islam."
During an interfaith ceremony at Yankee Stadium on September
23, Imam Izak-El M. Pasha pleaded, "Do not allow the ignorance of people
to have you attack your good neighbors. We are Muslims, but we are Americans.
We Muslims, Americans, stand today with a heavy weight on our shoulders that
those who would dare do such dastardly acts claim our faith. They are no
believers in God at all."
Major Muslim organizations throughout North America, including
the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North
America, and the Muslim Students Association, denounced the work of the
terrorists. The powerful American Muslim Council issued a press release on September
11, saying it "strongly condemns this morning's plane attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon and expresses deep sorrow for Americans that were
injured and killed. amc sends out its condolences to all the families of the
victims of this cowardly terrorist attack."
With the exception of Iraq, Muslim nations distanced
themselves from the attack on America. "Iran has vehemently condemned the
suicidal terrorist attacks in the United States," Iran Today
reported in a front-page story on September 24, "and has expressed its
deep sorrow and sympathy with the American nation." The governments of
Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen expressed similar sentiments.
Leading intellectuals, who have argued that terrorist acts
represent only fringe Muslims, have also promoted the view that Islam is a
religion of peace. Edward Said, the controversial Columbia University
professor, argued in The Nation that September 11 is an act of cultic
religion. Comparing Islamists to the Branch Davidians and the Rev. Jim Jones,
he said September 11 is a model of "the carefully planned and horrendous,
pathologically motivated suicide attack and mass slaughter by a small group of
deranged militants….the capture of big ideas by a tiny band of crazed fanatics
for criminal purposes."
Mark Juergensmeyer, professor at the University of California
at Santa Barbara and a specialist on religious violence, put it similarly:
"Osama bin Laden is to Islam [what] Timothy McVeigh is to
Christianity."
The Darker
Side
After initial emphasis on Islam as a religion of peace, a second interpretation
came to the fore. Editorials started to emerge that were less optimistic about
Islam per se and far more alarmed about the scope and depth of militant Islam.
Novelist Salman Rushdie, on whom the late Ayatollah Khomeini once issued a
death order, wrote in The New York Times:
If this isn't about Islam, why the worldwide Muslim demonstrations
in support of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda? Why did those 10,000 men armed with
swords and axes mass on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, answering some
mullah's call to jihad? Why are the war's first British casualties three Muslim
men who died fighting on the Taliban side?….[Islamists have] a loathing of
modern society in general, riddled as it is with music, godlessness, and sex;
and a more particularized loathing (and fear) of the prospect that their own
immediate surroundings could be taken over—"Westoxicated"—by the
liberal Western-style way of life.
Poverty is their great helper, and the fruit of their efforts is
paranoia. This paranoid Islam, which blames outsiders, "infidels,"
for all the ills of Muslim societies, and whose proposed remedy is the closing
of those societies to the rival project of modernity, is presently the fastest
growing version of Islam in the world.
Others have been naming Islam's dark side as well, without
suggesting that all Muslims are terrorists. Thomas Friedman, author of From Beirut
to Jerusalem, has taunted Osama bin Laden in his New York Times
columns, while also warning of the terrorist's popularity in Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan, and other Muslim nations.
British journalist Julie Burchill wrote a scathing article in The
Guardian against the "sustained effort on the part of the British
media to present Islam—even after the Rushdie affair and now during the
Taliban's reign of terror—as something essentially 'joyous' and 'vibrant,' sort
of like Afro-Caribbean culture, only with fasting and fatwas."
Melanie Phillips, writing in The Times of London,
raises the possibility of treason among British Muslims. "As if the
progress of the Afghan war wasn't enough to worry about, a nightmare specter is
emerging at home. The attitude of many British Muslims should cause the
greatest possible alarm that we have a fifth column in our midst….Thousands of
alienated young Muslims, most of them born and bred here but who regard
themselves as an army within, are waiting for an opportunity to help to destroy
the society that sustains them. We now stare into the abyss, aghast."
In the weeks after the World Trade Center crumbled, there was
no proof of an Islamic world totally united against terrorism. Rick Bragg
reported in The New York Times about Muslim boys running through their
school compounds in Pakistan on September 11. They were "celebrating,
stabbing the fingers on one hand into the palm of the other, to simulate a
plane stabbing into a building." Palestinian authorities went into overdrive
to suppress images of youths celebrating the deaths in America.
September
11 as Islam
There is, finally, the view that September 11 represents authentic Islam, a
notion adopted by Osama bin Laden and his many followers. His revolutionary
zeal lacks no clarity. "The ruling to kill the Americans and their
allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do
it in any country in which it is possible to do it," he said in February
1998. Muslim extremists from Bangladesh, Egypt, and Pakistan also signed this fatwa,
titled "Urging Jihad Against Americans." Bin Laden told ABC News
producer Rahimullah Yousafsai last winter that he would kill his own children,
if it were necessary, to hit American targets.
Ironically, some Christian writers have also advanced the view
that September 11 represents true Islam. Of these, the most influential is
Robert A. Morey, the popular evangelical cult-watcher, who in recent years has
targeted Islam as a deadly religion. Author of The Islamic Invasion,
Morey has often debated leading Muslim apologists, in fiery exchanges that have
led to mob attacks on him and repeated calls for his death. Morey has accused
Muhammad of being a racist, a murderer, an irrational zealot, and a pedophile.
After September 11, Morey announced a spiritual crusade against Islam, and
invited Christians to sign this pledge:
In response to the Muslim Holy War now being waged against us, We,
the undersigned, following the example of the Christian Church since the 7th
century, do commit ourselves, our wealth, and our families to join in a Holy
Crusade to fight against Islam and its false god, false prophet, and false
book. We, the undersigned, believe that Islam is the root of all Muslim
terrorism, which is the fruit of Islam.
Christian scholars have criticized Morey for his invective,
but he remains unmoved. He has argued that Muslims will start World War III. On
his Web site, Morey invites Christians to fill in a "certificate of
valor" that reads, "I wish to join in the Crusade of Christ against
Islam. To that end, and to demonstrate in the crusade against Islam, I hereby
donate toward emergency wartime funds."
The Rise
of the Militants
Sorting through these three interpretations demands analysis of some deeper
issues. First, we must come to grips with the vast unrest in the Islamic world,
both now and over the last two centuries. There has been a growing
radicalization in Islam since the early 1800s, both in response to the spread
of Western colonialism and the demise of Muslim political supremacy.
Osama bin Laden traces his radicalism to the Wahhabism of his
native Saudi Arabia, a movement that began with the reformer Muhammad ibn 'Abd
al-Wahhab (1703–87), an advocate of a puritanical reading of Islamic law and
belief. The Wahhabis threatened the interests of the Ottoman Turks and, in
concert with the Saud dynasty, eventually gained control of Mecca and Medina,
Islam's holiest cities.
A fundamentalist thrust in Islam emerged in Egypt as well,
with the formation of the Muslim Brotherhood (also known as Al-Ikhwan
al-Muslimun) in 1927. Tormented first by the presence of British rule and then
by a tepid Muslim government, brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid
Qutb, his chief intellectual heir, sought by any means, including violence, to
restore true Islamic rule to Egypt.
The brotherhood started branches in Jordan and Syria, and
militant groups in India, Iran, and Iraq imitated its radicalism. Muhammad
Nawab-Safavi started his Fedayeen-e-Islami movement in Iran in the 1930s and
told his followers: "Throw away your beads and get a gun: for beads keep
you silent whilst guns silence the enemies of Islam." Abul A'la Maududi
organized his militant Jamaat-e-Islami in the Punjab in 1941. After the
creation of Pakistan in 1947, Maududi tried repeatedly to convince the
government to adopt his stricter version of Islamic rule.
Western awareness of militant Islam came with the radical
overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979 and the establishment of harsh Shari'ah
law under the Ayatollah Khomeini. American exposure to Islamic fundamentalism
came with the arrest of Americans in Tehran, the bombing of the World Trade
Center in 1993, the explosions at U.S. embassies in Africa, the attack on the
USS Cole in Yemen, and then the horrors of September 11.
Interpreting
Jihad
Every discussion of Islamic militancy turns eventually to two fundamental
concerns. First, how much is Islamism (that practiced by fundamentalist Muslims
open to violence) rooted in the teaching and practice of the prophet Muhammad?
Would he celebrate the work of Osama bin Laden? Second, are the violent jihads
of our day sanctioned by the Qur'an and by the actions of early Muslim leaders?
The prophet himself engaged in many military battles and could
be merciless to his enemies, even those who simply attacked him verbally. His
original sympathies with Jews and Christians as "Peoples of the Book"
gave way to a harsher treatment when they did not follow Islam. In one infamous
episode, Muhammad cut the heads off hundreds of Jewish males of the Beni Quraiza
tribe who did not side with him in battle. The prophet is quoted as saying,
"The sword is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the
cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of
fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven, and at the
day of judgment his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and
cherubim."
In reference to the Qur'an, many have drawn attention to the
famous passage in Surah 2:256: "Let there be no compulsion in religion."
This verse fits well with other Qur'an verses in which jihad means
personal and communal spiritual struggle or striving. But the Qur'an also uses jihad
to mean "holy war," and the language can be extreme. Surah 5:33
reads, "The punishment of those who wage war against God and His
Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is:
execution, or crucifixion, or cutting off of hands and feet from opposite
sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a
heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter."
Both the example of the prophet and some emphases in the
Qur'an provided warrant for Islam's earliest leaders to spread Islam by
military conquest. Bloody expansionism was also justified through original
Islamic law that divided the world into two realms: Dar al-Harb (the
land of war) and Dar al-Islam (land under Islamic rule). Both Paul
Fregosi's Jihad in the West and Jewish scholar Bat Ye'or's Decline of
Eastern Christianity Under Islam document the reality of Muslim crusades
long before the notorious Christian crusades of the Middle Ages.
Out of the vortex of these realities emerge two different
perspectives among modern Muslims. Islamists consider their actions a true
jihad or "holy war" against infidels and the enemies of Islam. They
believe it is right to target America, "the great Satan." Osama bin
Laden believes that the Qur'an supports his campaign, that the prophet would
bless his cause, and that Allah is on his side. But the vast majority of
Muslims believe that nothing in Muhammad's life or in the Qur'an or Islamic law
justifies terrorism.
Bernard Lewis, the great historian of Islam, noted in The
Wall Street Journal that throughout history, Muslims have given jihad
both spiritual and military meaning. Lewis also pays particular attention to
the legal traditions in Islam about what constitutes just war. After noting the
many limitations placed on military jihad, he writes, "What the classical
jurists of Islam never remotely considered is the kind of unprovoked,
unannounced mass slaughter of uninvolved civil populations that we saw in New
York. For this there is no precedent and no authority in Islam."
"The Clash of Civilizations," Samuel Huntington's
essay for Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993), has attracted considerable
attention in recent months. Writing just after the Gulf War, Huntington
analyzed the competing ideologies of our time and drew particular attention to
the clash between Islam and the West. His concern has obvious merit, although
critics have made a crucial point that Islam is no monolith. There are clashes
within Islamic civilization itself.
What may emerge as the most significant factor in the current
shape of our world, then, is not the clash between Islam and the West. It is,
instead, the clash between Muslims as they try to define their faith for the
21st century. Islam clearly does not speak with one voice. It shows nearly as
much diversity as does Christianity (see "A Many Splintered Thing"). The debate
within Islam will be protracted, regardless of how long military campaigns
continue against any Islamist movement.
Troubles in Palestine
The Palestinian question has also fueled the growth of Islamic militancy.
Tensions in Palestine between Muslims and Jews date back to the first wave of
Jewish immigrants in the late 1800s. The British government's 1917 Balfour
Declaration heightened Arab unrest, as did the United Nations' support for a
Jewish state 30 years later, leading to the formation of the State of Israel in
May 1948.
Five wars between Arabs and Jews since Israel's formation
create the context for modern Muslim-Jewish hostilities. These tensions increased
with the rise of the first Intifadah ("uprising") in 1987, and a
second Intifadah in 2000, following the breakdown of talks at Camp David
between Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Islamic militant
groups like Hamas and Hizbollah call for an armed jihad against Israel. Many
Palestinian Muslims celebrate the attack on America but also claim it was
really the work of the CIA and Israel's Mossad.
In the mix of all this turmoil is the seemingly endless cycle
of violence in Israel and Palestine. Here are just five examples of terrorist
acts against Israelis in the year before September 11:
August 12—A suicide bombing at a café in Kiryat Motzkin
wounded 21.
August 9—A bombing at a pizza place in Jerusalem killed
15, including 6 children, and injured 80.
June 1—A Palestinian suicide bomber associated with
Hamas detonated an explosive belt that injured 120 and killed 20 at a nightclub
in Tel Aviv.
May 9—Two 14-year-old Jewish boys were stoned to death
at a cave near their small town of Tekoa, in the West Bank.
February 14—A Palestinian bus driver plowed into a
crowd near Tel-Aviv, killing 8.
On the other hand, writers as diverse as Noam Chomsky, Hans
Küng, Michael Lerner, Edward Said, and David Grossman (author of The Yellow
Wind) argue for recognizing injustices done against Palestinians by Israel.
They also argue for stronger American complaints against Israeli settlements in
the West Bank and Gaza. In the last 15 years, the case for a Palestinian state
has grown more popular among moderate Jews and many analysts sympathetic to
Israel.
"With or without Islamic fundamentalism, with or without
Arab terrorism, there is no justification whatsoever for the lasting occupation
and suppression of the Palestinian people by Israel," Amos Oz wrote in a New
York Times editorial. "We have no right to deny Palestinians their
natural right to self-determination….Two huge oceans could not shelter America
from terrorism; the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel has not made
Israel secure—on the contrary, it makes our self-defense much harder and more
complicated. The sooner this occupation ends, the better it will be for
Palestinians and Israelis alike."
Human
Rights Record
Beyond the issue of Palestine lies another concern. Is Islam fundamentally opposed
to human rights by its inherently theocratic thrust? Why do Muslim countries
have such deplorable records on human rights? Data made available by Freedom
House, an organization that monitors political and civil rights in every
country of the world, supports this assertion. Of the 41 countries whose
population is at least 70 percent Muslim, 26 are considered not free, and 13
are partly free. Only two are free—meaning they protect political and civil
rights as defined by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
We can express the abuse of human rights in Muslim countries
in other ways. Why is it that the government of Saudi Arabia welcomed Allied
Forces to free Kuwait but forbids entry of non-Muslims to its country? Western
governments allow Muslims to talk freely about their faith. Why can't
Christians do the same in many Muslim countries? Muslims rightfully express
concern about the denial of liberties to Palestinians. But are the rights of
Jews protected in Indonesia? Are Hindus free in Pakistan?
Human beings are being traded as slaves in Sudan, a fact
documented in Paul Marshall's Their Blood Cries Out. Has the government
in Khartoum been flooded with protests from every corner of the Muslim world?
Likewise, no one can deny the lack of women's rights under Islam, regardless of
Muslim apologists' passion to the contrary. The widespread practice of female
genital mutilation in Muslim countries alone signals the reality of women's
oppression. Women are forbidden even to drive a car in Saudi Arabia.
Until they were freed suddenly in mid-November, eight
expatriate Christians were on trial in Afghanistan on charges of Christian
evangelism. Followers of Jesus in many Muslim countries can be put to death for
sharing what they believe. It would be wonderful to know that the Muslim
leaders who joined President Bush in public to express solidarity against Osama
bin Laden were already on record as condemning the persecution of these
Christians in Afghanistan. If not, why not?
In 1999 I had lunch with an American whose identity I must
conceal lest I place his life in renewed danger. Over our meal, he told me of a
simple but life-altering fact. A few years earlier, he realized that he no
longer believed in Islam, and he abandoned his faith. As a result, he received
death threats—not in Sudan, or Libya, or Iraq, but in the United States. Are
American Muslim leaders disturbed that members of their communities threaten
former Muslims with death? Do American Muslims long for adoption of Shari'ah
law, which would mandate that Muslims who abandon their faith be put to death?
Rethinking Islam
Though many Muslims have tried to blame America and Israel for all the ills of
the Muslim world, a rising number of Muslim intellectuals are calling for a new
and radical self-criticism within Islam. This point has been articulated best
by Kanan Makiya, author of Republic of Fear (on Saddam Hussein's Iraq)
and Cruelty and Silence (a powerful protest against the timidity of Arab
intellectuals to address the dark side of the militant Islamic Middle East).
Makiya writes in a London Observer article,
"Fighting Islam's Ku Klux Klan":
Arabs and Muslims need today to face up to the fact that their
resentment at America has long since become unmoored from any rational
underpinnings it might once have had; like the anti-Semitism of the interwar
years, it is today steeped in deeply embedded conspiratorial patterns of
thought rooted in profound ignorance of how a society and a polity like the
United States, much less Israel, functions.
His article ends with these words:
Muslims and Arabs have to be on the front lines of a new kind of
war, one that is worth waging for their own salvation and in their own souls.
And that, as good out-of-fashion Muslim scholars will tell you, is the true
meaning of jihad, a meaning that has been hijacked by terrorists and
suicide bombers and all those who applaud or find excuses for them. To exorcise
what they have done in our name is the civilizational challenge of the
twenty-first century for every Arab and Muslim in the world today.
The events of September 11 have led some non-Muslims to
reconsider their rhetoric against the United States and Israel. Of most
significance, here is the Australian activist, Helen Darville, author of The
Hand that Signed the Paper. She writes:
I have watched, since that day, the cozy leftist pieties of my
youth disintegrate. Those pieties will be familiar to many of you. Chief among
them is the old saw that to understand horrors, one must be willing to
contextualize them. And if that mitigates them, so be it.
The images of Palestinians cheering as planes carved into
skyscrapers made me sick at heart. One fat woman in ugly specs will stay with
me for a long time. Don't go there, I chanted under my breath as she ululated
with joy. Don't go there. That's where the Nazis went, and that way lies
madness. There are accounts beyond number of Eastern European peasants cheering
German executioners on, trying to pry the carbines from their hands: let me
shoot them, Herr Soldat.
A lot of these peasants were raised in the church. Christian
anti-Semitism has a long and terrible history, as does Christian aggression
against Islam during the Crusades and against fellow Christians during the Wars
of Religion. But after each outpouring of violence, the church has been forced
to ask itself: Is this what Christianity is about? Is this what Christ came
for? Is this how we want to live in his name?
In time the answers came, and except for small, radical
fringes, Christianity as a whole has repudiated war, coercion, and hate as ways
to further the Christian message.
Islam stands at such a crossroads since September 11. The
tensions it has been facing for centuries have risen to the surface. Is Islam a
religion of peace? Does it believe in human rights? Can it find a way to be a
part of the human community without violently insisting on its own way?
We hear so many differing accounts of Islam today precisely
because Muslims are in the midst of a struggle for the soul of Islam. We would
be wise as Christians, humbled by our own past, to remember that as we seek to
understand and engage Muslims today out of love for Christ.
James A. Beverley is professor of theology and ethics at
Tyndale Seminary in Toronto. He is author of Understanding
Islam, written since September 11 and published by Thomas Nelson in
November. Information about the book is available at his Web site (www.religionwatch.ca).
| The Best Resources on
Islam General Muhammad Muslims Jihad, Militant Islam, and Terrorism Israel and the Palestinian Question Christian Sites: Islamic and Scholars' Sites: —James A. Beverley |
Copyright
© 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
January
7, 2002, Vol. 46, No. 1, Page 32
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/001/1.32.html 4/16/03 6:37 AM
ISLAMIC SPLINTER GROUPS
Though
Muslims shared allegiance to Muhammad and to the Qur'an, Islam faced division
as soon as the prophet died.
| posted 12/28/2001
David Barrett's Encyclopedia of World Christianity records
nearly 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Though Muslims shared allegiance to
Muhammad and to the Qur'an, Islam faced division as soon as the prophet died.
Three major groups emerged over the centuries, and Islam has experienced many
smaller divides.
- Vest Muslim leadership in four early caliphs:
Abu Bakr (632–34), Umar (634–44), Uthman (644–56), and Ali (656–61).
- Strongly emphasize law.
- Have four major legal traditions: Hanafite,
Shafite, Malikite, and Hanbalite. The Wahhabi movement that dominates
Saudi Arabia grew out of the Hanbalite tradition.
- Dominate Islamic dynasties throughout history.
- Number more than 1 billion.
- Believe authentic leadership passed from the
prophet Muhammad directly to Ali, his son-in-law.
- Deny the authority of the first three Sunni
caliphs.
- Believe that Sunni Muslims distorted both the
Qur'an and the sayings of the prophet (hadith) to reflect against Ali.
- Give martyrdom a central role in theology and
ritual.
- Number more than 170 million; dominant in
Iran.
- Represent the mystical tradition among
Muslims.
- Emerged gradually and showed influence from
both Christian and Buddhist monasticism and Greek philosophy.
- Developed in reaction to the focus on law and
doctrine in early Islam.
- Became more accepted in Islam after the great
Muslim thinker al-Ghazali (d. 1111) chose the Sufi path.
- Divided into orders or brotherhoods. One
famous order is the Maulawiya, founded by Rumi (d. 1273), still a highly
popular Islamic author.
- Practice the mystical dance of whirling
dervishes.
- Combines Muslim orthodoxy with superstitions
of ethnic and tribal groups.
- Often uses charms and visits to shrines of
saints.
- Uses special herbs or amulets to ward off evil
(as is common in Africa and the Middle East).
- Developed the concept of the "evil
eye."
- Has been pervasive, leading to many unorthodox
versions of Islam.
Copyright
© 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
January
7, 2002, Vol. 46, No. 1, Page 38
Christian sites discussing Muslim beliefs about Jesus and
Christianity are available at The Muslim-Christian Debate, Answering Islam, Campus Crusade for Christ,
and FarsiNet.
Muslim perspectives on Jesus and Christianity are also
ubiquitous online. They include Al-Sunnah, Harakah, Islam 101, Answering Christianity, and WhatIsIslam.com
Islamic and scholar's sites of interest include:
- Al-Muhaddith
(download the Qur'an, hadith, and legal material)
- Islamic Studies, Islam
(includes an extensive list of links to articles and papers on Islam and
recent terrorism)
- Islamic Gateway
(features great graphic, good organization, and
- IslamiCity (evangelism)
- Mamalist of Islamic Links
(features over 1,000 links)
- Musalman: the Islamic
Portal (includes good news coverage)
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/001/43.38.html 4/16/03 6:39 AM
Is
Islam the Enemy?
How Christians and Muslims navigate the road ahead will have profound
consequences for both communities--and for the world.
Charles Kimball
In the months since the terrorist bombings of American embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania and the massive U.S. cruise missile attacks on targets in
Afghanistan and the Sudan, considerable media attention has been focused on
militant Islam. Exiled Saudi Osama bin Laden has become the new, sinister
symbol for violent Islamic extremism. Various political leaders, pundits, and
op-ed writers have dubbed him the world’s most dangerous man. Amidst the daily
news of presidential scandal, the faltering Russian economy and the
McGwire/Sosa home run race, President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright declared war on terrorism. Albright warned that this war will last for
years, perhaps decades. She even raised the specter of potential terrorist uses
of chemical and biological weapons or small nuclear devices targeted on
domestic and international sites.
Terrorism is neither new nor limited to Islamic militants. Images of the
federal building in Oklahoma City and bombings in Northern Ireland are etched
vividly into our consciousness. But it is certainly true that a number of
individuals and groups identifying themselves with Islam have periodically
lashed out with violent terrorist actions in Lebanon, Egypt, Israel/Palestine,
Algeria, and elsewhere in the past three decades.
This extremist dimension of contemporary Islam is real, but far from
representative. It is highly misleading when politicians and journalists speak
about an "‘Islamic threat" as some type of monolithic entity. Such
stereotypes serve to reinforce popular perceptions of Islam as somehow
inherently violent and menacing. In fact, the vast majority of the world’s 1.2
billion Muslims are as offended by a violent act carried out in the name of
Islam as most Christians are horrified by atrocities perpetrated by Serbian
Christians or the Real IRA.
The facile association of Islam with fanaticism and violence confuses rather
than clarifies issues. Clearly, Islam is an increasingly powerful political
force in many lands. Many countries with predominantly Muslim populations are
in the midst of change. Islamist movements are active in the process. Some
Muslims seeking change are Sunnis while others are Shi’ites; some are working
within the framework of established political parties; some are operating
underground in an effort to disrupt the status quo; some political leaders are
cynically using religion to gain support for their policies.
During the course of the past 20 years, I have had extraordinary
opportunities for direct involvement in Middle Eastern affairs. In addition to
living in Egypt in 1977-78 and traveling to Iran three times to help facilitate
the peaceful resolution of the 1979-81 hostage crisis, I have traveled
throughout the Middle East on more than 30 occasions. Much of my involvement
has centered on church-related ministries in Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Jordan,
Syria, and Egypt.
One overriding impression derived from these endeavors and my ecumenical
work with U.S. churches centers on the pervasive ignorance of and misperceptions
about Islam. In fairness, both Clinton and Albright have underscored the
distinction between terrorists and Islam. While laudable, such rhetorical
nuances are lost on most Americans, not to mention Muslims and others abroad
whose views are instead shaped by U.S. military actions.
Concerted and sustained educational efforts to fill the void are needed now
more than ever, for Islam is not only the world’s second largest religious
tradition but will soon pass Judaism as the second largest religion in the
United States. It is essential that Christians in the West understand more
accurately some of the fundamental tenets of Islam. Thoughtful study can help
clarify points of convergence and disagreement among these descendants of
Abraham. It is particularly important during this time of political confusion
and upheaval that the churches take the lead in improving understanding.
Some Basics of Islam
The central message of Islam is lodged in the simple confession of faith:
"‘There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God."
Islam is a radical monotheism. Muslims affirm the one, true God as Creator and
Sustainer of the universe whose will has been manifest to humankind through
prophetic revelation. The final revelation, according to Islamic teaching, came
through Muhammad and is now in the Quran (sometimes rendered Koran), which they
consider to be the literal, perfect, and complete word of God. Muslims believe
the proper human response to this revelation is obedience both in the worship
of God and in all aspects of life.
Muslims worship the same God as Christians and Jews. Many non-Arabic
speakers, confused by the name Allah, have not made this connection. Allah is
simply the Arabic word for God. In the Middle East today, the 12-14 million
indigenous Arabic-speaking Christians pray to Allah, just as the French pray to
Dieu and Germans to Gott. For Muslims there is no ambiguity: the one, true God
is the God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and everyone else in creation.
In 610, at the age of 40, Muhammad had a profound and disturbing experience
he understood as a revelation from God mediated by the angel Gabriel. Shaken by
the episode, he doubted both his sanity and his worthiness to be God’s
prophetic messenger. Encouraged by his wife and a few close friends, he came to
accept this calling and responsibility. Over a period of the next 23 years, he
uttered the messages he perceived as coming from Gabriel.
The basic themes in the earliest passages in the Quran include the sublime
majesty of God, the futility of idol worship, the certainty of God’s judgment,
and human responsibility for faith in God and for fair, compassionate behavior
in society. Later themes include a variety of doctrinal teachings as well as
social and ethical responsibilities in areas such as marriage, divorce, and
inheritance. Numerous passages address responsibility toward children, the
poor, and oppressed, commercial dealings and also prohibitions against criminal
behavior such as theft, adultery, and murder.
The life of faith begins with the affirmation of God’s oneness. This is the
first of the five devotional-ritual duties known as the "‘pillars of
Islam." Prescribed prayer is the second and most conspicuous manifestation
of piety. Five times each day, Muslims are called to prayer. The worshippers
stand in rows of straight lines oriented toward the central sacred site, the
Ka’bah, in Mecca. The symbolic unity of Muslims in prayer reflects the
conviction that all people stand equally before God.
The three other pillars include almsgiving, fasting during the daylight
hours throughout the month of Ramadan, and, at least once in one’s lifetime,
making the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca during the time set apart each
year for this striking ritual. Woven through these devotional-ritual practices
are threads symbolically uniting Muslims as equal members of their community of
faith. This does not mean that all is harmonious in the house of Islam. Ask 10
Muslim women in different countries about equality in Islam, for instance, and
you will find no consensus.
A close look at Islamic history reveals patterns that are common in other
religious communities: a rich tradition, inspiring people to their highest
good, and at the same time one replete with schism, power struggles, and
political and military conflicts.
Even so, it is important to underscore the inaccuracy of the stereotypical
Western image of Islam as backward, anti-intellectual, and unsophisticated. The
error of this image is particularly ironic in view of the major contributions
Muslims have made in the shaping of Western civilization as we know it.
When Europe was languishing in the "‘Dark Ages," Islamic
civilization was thriving from Spain, across North Africa, through the Fertile
Crescent and Mesopotamia, and eastward into India. Most people are surprised to
discover the substantial contributions of Muslims in science, engineering,
navigation, mathematics, chemistry, medicine, astronomy, philosophy,
architecture, horticulture, and calligraphy.
Muslims are very proud of their history and civilization. For the past four
centuries, however, much of the Muslim world has been dominated by external
powers. Some of the convulsions and upheavals evident in various predominantly
Muslim lands today are born of frustration stemming from centuries of external
control, superpower domination, and contemporary leaders who are rarely in
power by virtue of popular choice.
Many Muslims today believe that Islam can once again provide the framework
for civilization--political, religious, economic, and social. Careful
contextual analysis in settings such as Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia
reveals widely diverse views on how best to implement any kind of authentic
Islamic state. Implementing the ideal continues to prove an elusive goal.
Similarities and Differences with Christianity
Rooted in the monotheistic tradition of the patriarch Abraham, Christians
and Muslims share a common heritage with Jews. Both acknowledge one God, an
omnipotent creator of the universe, the immortality of the soul, the existence
of a future state of rewards and punishments. Both affirm similar moral and
ethical standards for life in community.
Muslims perceive Muhammad as the last in a long succession of prophetic
messengers sent to humankind. Many of the prophets named in the Quran are also
major figures in the Bible. These include Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, John the
Baptist, and Jesus. Most Christians are surprised to discover the importance
Muslims attach to Jesus. Mentioned by name in 93 different verses, Jesus is venerated
as one of the greatest prophets. He is unique by virtue of the miraculous
virgin birth as well as his distinctive names. Jesus is called a
"‘word" from God, the "‘messiah," and "‘a spirit from
God." In the final analysis, however, Muslims are clear: Jesus, like all
the prophets, was human.
The error of Jesus’ followers, according to the Quran, is that they claim
things about Jesus--namely, that he was God’s son, divine, that he was resurrected
by God and is now part of the Trinity--that Jesus never claimed for himself.
These are dangerous teachings in the Islamic understanding because they
challenge the absolute oneness and unity of God. Accordingly, the Quran
includes stern words of warning for Christians and others who associate
anything so immediately with God.
At the same time, Jews and Christians are called "‘People of the
Book" and even promised their reward in paradise (Quran 2:62 and 5:69).
Thus, the Quran includes both an affirmation of the similarities in basic
theological and ethical perspectives and a clear rejection of the central
Christian understanding of Jesus’ divinity.
The different religious communities are explained as part of God’s plan. The
diversity is caused, ironically, by different reactions to the various
prophets. The fact that humankind is divided into various communities is
explained as a test for people of faith. The emphasis falls on responsible
behavior here in this life.
If God had so willed, He would have made all of you one community, but
(He has not done so) that He may test you in what He has given you; so compete
with one another in good works. To God you shall all return and He will tell
you (the truth) about that which you have been disputing (Quran 5:48).
In our increasingly fragile and interdependent world, this verse presents a
positive challenge. While Christians and Muslims will not come to complete
theological agreement (with one another or among themselves), we can come to a
better mutual understanding. And, by living out the best of our religious
traditions, we can "‘compete with one another in good works."
Steps Toward Understanding and Cooperation
Given the long history of animosity and misunderstanding between Christians
and Muslims, it is clear that there are no quick fixes. There are no easy
answers or simple solutions that will ensure mutual understanding, respect, and
cooperation. But the road is not blocked. There is a way forward. There are
specific things that Christians and local churches can do to work for a future
wholly different from the tortured past.
Education provides the basis for mutual understanding. Uninformed or
erroneous views about the other are at the root of many problems plaguing
Christian-Muslim relations. Churches can and should develop study programs to
learn more about Islam. Through presentations by informed leaders or working
through an introductory text, Christians can develop a more accurate
understanding of this rapidly growing religious tradition. Building on such a
foundation, it is possible to address numerous questions in a fair and balanced
manner: What is the difference between Sunnis and Shi’ites? Who speaks for the
larger Muslim community? How are the roles of men and women understood in
Islam? To what extent does Louis Farrakhan represent Islam or even the
African-American Muslim community?
Happily, there are resources to assist in this educational process. Many
denominational bodies have offices devoted to Jewish-Christian-Muslim
relations. Various ecumenical organizations--from local and state councils of
churches to the National Council of Churches and the World Council of
Churches--have been working on interfaith issues for several decades. The staff
in these various offices are happy to provide resources and guidance on
developing study programs in local churches or as an ecumenical initiative in a
community.
A second type of program involves dialogical encounter with Muslims. My
former church, First Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina, engaged in
such a dialogue this fall. The leader of the local mosque came to First Baptist
for four weeks both to talk about Islam and to engage the Christians on various
issues he and other Muslims face as a minority community in Greenville. In the
process, the participants in the dialogue were able to put a human face on
Islam. This experience is particularly important since dramatic events in the
news often tend to do the opposite: dehumanize the other.
Not all dialogical encounters are productive. Since people have different
agendas and perspectives, it is important to be clear about the focus and the
ground rules for the encounter. There are so many questions and issues that
might be addressed, it is wise to focus the parameters for the dialogue.
Beyond educational efforts and structured dialogue, Christians and local
churches might consider working together with local Muslims on social projects
of mutual concern. Societal problems such as homelessness, poverty, and the
proliferation of drugs plague many communities. In some settings, Christians
and Muslims can strengthen their efforts by working together. Many Christian
clergy and chaplains, for instance, have discovered that their Muslim
colleagues have been remarkably successful in programs of drug and prison
rehabilitation. Why not learn from one another?
As the Muslim population continues to grow in the United States, more and
more communities will be faced with new questions. How can public schools
accommodate dietary needs or religious holidays for Muslim students? How does
the presence of Muslim students relate to debates about prayer in school? Now
is the time to be building the foundation needed for a healthy, pluralist
society.
Christians and Muslims have traveled a long and often bumpy road together
for some 14 centuries. On the eve of the 21st century, there are ominous signs
that continuing mistrust and misunderstanding combined with upheaval and rapid
political change may make the journey forward even more difficult and
dangerous. But we are sojourners together on that road into the future. The
ways in which Christians and Muslims choose to travel that road will have
profound consequences for both communities--and for the world.
CHARLES KIMBALL is professor of religion and chair of the department of
religion at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He
is the author, most recently, of Angle of Vision: Christians and the Middle
East (Friendship Press, 1992).
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