Indeed, for an Islamic culture to affirm that God’s creation operates according to immutable principles would be nothing short of blasphemy. Allah’s hand is not fettered by consistency or by anything else. Allah is free to do anything he wills to do, without any expectations or limitations deriving from logic, love, or anything else. This idea made sure that scientific exploration in the Islamic world would be stillborn.
According to the physicist priest Fr. Stanley L. Jaki, the great Muslim philosopher al-Ghazali “denounced natural laws, the very objective of science, as a blasphemous constraint upon the free will of Allah.”74 Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), although himself a philosopher, delivered what turned out to be the coup de grace to Islamic philosophical investigation, at least as a vibrant mainstream force, in his monumental attack on the very idea of Islamic philosophy, Incoherence of the Philosophers.
Muslim philosophers such as Avicenna and Averroes, according to al-Ghazali, were not intellectual trailblazers worthy of respect and careful consideration. In positing that there could be truth that was outside of or even contradicted what Allah had revealed in the Qur’an, they had shown themselves to be nothing more than heretics who should be put to death and their books burned. Al-Ghazali accused them of “denial of revealed laws and religious confessions” and “rejection of the details of religious and sectarian [teaching], believing them to be man-made laws and embellished tricks.”75 He declared that the doctrines of Muslim philosophers such as al-Farabi and Avicenna “challenge the [very] principles of religion.”76
Al-Ghazali, said scholar Tilman Nagel, “was inspired by a notion that we frequently see in Islam’s intellectual history: the notion that everything human beings can possibly know is already contained in the Koran and the hadith [the voluminous traditions of Muhammad’s words and deeds]; only naïve people can be made to believe that there is knowledge beyond them.”77
At the end of The Incoherence of the Philosophers, Al-Ghazali reveals how high the stakes are: “If someone says: ‘You have explained the doctrines of these [philosophers]; do you then say conclusively that they are infidels and that the killing of those who uphold their beliefs is obligatory?”78 He then concludes that they should indeed be pronounced infidels, and therefore, presumably, be executed.
Although Islamic philosophy lived on, it was never the same; it had effectively been put to death. After al-Ghazali and the defeat of the relatively rationalistic Mu‘tazilite party, there was no large-scale attempt to apply the laws of reason or consistency to Allah, or, therefore, to the world he had created. Fr. Jaki explains: “Muslim mystics decried the notion of scientific law (as formulated by Aristotle) as blasphemous and irrational, depriving as it does the Creator of his freedom.”79 The social scientist Rodney Stark notes the existence of “a major theological bloc within Islam that condemns all efforts to formulate natural laws as blasphemy in that they deny Allah’s freedom to act.”80
By contrast, Fr. Jaki explains, in the Old Testament, “the faithfulness of the God of history is supported not only with a reference to another saving intervention of God into human affairs, but very often also by a pointed and detailed reference to the faithfulness of the regular working and permanence of a nature created by God.”81In contrast, the Qur’an affirms Allah’s changeability, even in what he reveals to mankind: “And for whatever verse We abrogate or cast into oblivion, We bring a better or the like of it; knowest thou not that God is powerful over everything?” (2:106).
The God whose message the Catholic Church preaches to the world has power over everything, but he does not exercise it with anything like this despotic inconsistency. In his absolute and unfettered sovereignty, Allah has doomed the Islamic world to over a millennium of intellectual stagnation and anti-intellectualism: A recurring idea in the Islamic world is that the Qur’an and Sunnah contain all that is needed for the proper functioning of human society, and everything else is either superfluous or heretical.
At this point we are worlds away from the God who blessed creation and human endeavor even to the point of becoming incarnate to save his creatures, and who in his goodness is consistent, such that observation of his creation and all intellectual endeavors are praiseworthy and worthy of the divine blessing. The Catholic notion of God, derived from biblical revelation, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and a venerable philosophical tradition, offers a notion of God that is almost diametrically opposed to the lone, capricious Allah of Islam. The God of Islam is not love. The God of Islam is will: absolute, untrammeled, unlimited will.
And so we do indeed worship the same God, as the Second Vatican Council tells us, but the operative aspects of that affirmation are, as we have seen in this chapter, extremely limited. Catholics and Muslims both consider themselves to be within the Abrahamic tradition, although they understand it in different ways, and believe in one God who created the heavens and the earth ex nihilo, although they understand him in vastly different ways as well. Catholics would be wise to avoid false irenicism, or worse, the indifferentism that arises from misreading what the Council is trying to say. Catholics have a responsibility to preach the gospel to Muslims just as much as to everyone else.
4
The Same Jesus?
“I feel a divine jealousy for you,” St. Paul tells the Corinthians, “for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough. (2 Cor. 11:2-4)
More in common than we think?
Interestingly, while Muslims and Arabic-speaking Christians call God by the same name, they differ on the name of Jesus: Muslims call him Isa, whereas to Arabic-speaking Christians he is Yasua. The latter is similar to the Hebrew Yeshua or Joshua, while the Muslim usage more closely resembles the name Esau. Clearly, there are also differences in how Christians and Muslims view Jesus—or else Muslims would be Christians. But since Muslims use the presence of Jesus in Islam as a basis for outreach to Christians, the identity and role of Jesus in Islam bears close examination.
Several years ago, Ibrahim Hooper, an American convert to Islam and spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the highest-profile Muslim organization in the United States, wrote an essay entitled, “Muslim and Christians: More in common than you think,” which has been and continues to be reprinted in all sorts of publications, usually around Christmastime.
Hooper begins with an evocative quotation: “Behold! The angels said: ‘O Mary! God giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him. His name will be Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and in (the company of) those nearest to God.’”
Then he comes right to the point: “Before searching for this quote in the New Testament, you might first ask your Muslim co-worker, friend or neighbor for a copy of the Quran, Islam’s revealed text. The quote is from verse 45 of chapter 3 in the Quran.” Hooper then explains: “It is well known, particularly in this holiday season, that Christians follow the teachings of Jesus. What is less well understood is that Muslims also love and revere Jesus as one of God’s greatest messengers to mankind.”
He then goes on to adduce other Qur’anic passages about Jesus, saying that if Christians and Muslims understood all that they had in common, this mutual understanding would defuse a great many conflicts in the world: “As forces of hate in this country and worldwide try to pull Muslims and Christians apart, we are in desperate need of a unifying force that can bridge the widening gap of interfaith misunderstanding and mistrust. That force could be the message of love, peace and forgiveness taught by Jesus and accepted by followers of both faiths.”
Hooper adds: “When Muslims mention the Prophet Muhammad, they always add the phrase ‘pea
ce be upon him.’ Christians may be surprised to learn that the same phrase always follows a Muslim’s mention of Jesus or that we believe Jesus will return to earth in the last days before the final judgment. Disrespect toward Jesus, as we have seen all too often in our society, is very offensive to Muslims.” He acknowledges that “Muslims and Christians do have some differing perspectives on Jesus’ life and teachings,” but doesn’t explore those, leaving the impression that they are largely insignificant.
In keeping with his irenic thrust, he says that Jesus’ “spiritual legacy offers an alternative opportunity for people of faith to recognize their shared religious heritage” and claims that “America’s Muslim community stands ready to honor that legacy by building bridges of interfaith understanding and challenging those who would divide our nation along religious or ethnic lines.”
“We have,” Hooper concludes, “more in common than we think.”82
Another CAIR presentation asserts that “like Christians, Muslims respect and revere Jesus. Islam teaches that Jesus is one of the greatest of God’s prophets and messengers to humankind. Like Christians, every day, over 1.3 billion Muslims strive to live by his teachings of love, peace, and forgiveness. Those teachings, which have become universal values, remind us that all of us, Christians, Muslims, Jews, and all others have more in common than we think.”83
Hooper’s article and the CAIR piece are both canny and compelling. They are reasonable, they are conciliatory, and they resonate with the spirit of the age—the spirit that would prefer to focus upon what we have in common rather than upon what divides us, and to see in every present or historical enemy a potential friend.
And there is apparently a great deal to recommend this point of view.
Less than meets the eye
Jesus in the Qur’an, as we have seen, is the Word of God, “a Spirit from him,” born of a Virgin, a miracle worker who numbered among his followers apostles who were exemplary in righteousness. Allah says that he “gave Jesus son of Mary the clear signs, and confirmed him with the Holy Spirit.” But then dissension arose among his followers—a fact with which no Christian could possibly disagree, although in the Qur’an it is attributed to Allah’s agency: “And had God willed, those who came after him would not have fought one against the other after the clear signs had come to them; but they fell into variance, and some of them believed, and some disbelieved; and had God willed they would not have fought one against the other; but God does whatsoever He desires” (2:253).
It is noteworthy, however, that although Hooper quotes Qur’an 3:45, which calls Jesus “a Word from Him,” that is, from Allah, he does not explain that the Qur’an’s understanding of what it means for Jesus to be the “Word of God” is significantly different from the biblical one. In the Qur’an there is nothing of the exalted theology of the Logos through whom the world was created. The idea that “the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1) is anathema to Islam. Rather, the Qur’an explains the term in language strongly reminiscent of the Christian theology of Jesus as the New Adam: “Truly, the likeness of Jesus, in God’s sight, is as Adam’s likeness; He created him of dust, then said He unto him, ‘Be,’ and he was” (3:59).
However, this is not an assertion of Christ the New Adam, as in St. Paul’s lapidary formulation that “as in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). It is merely an affirmation of the Virgin Birth: Both Jesus and Adam have no earthly father, but were created by divine fiat, the divine word. While it is momentous enough that the Qur’an affirms the Virgin Birth, this miracle is given no greater significance in Islamic tradition than any of the other signs of the divine power. In fact, at one point the Qur’an even uses this same language in the context of another denial that Jesus is the Son of God: “It is not for God to take a son unto Him. Glory be to Him! When He decrees a thing, He but says to it ‘Be,’ and it is” (19:35).
Jesus says of himself (miraculously, as an infant in the cradle): “Lo, I am God’s servant; God has given me the Book, and made me a Prophet” (19:30). He is not divine; he is a servant of Allah (Abdullah, or slave of Allah: 4:172; 19:30; 43:59). The gospel is not a message about him but a book that he has received from Allah, who by this delivery made him a prophet.
Not the Son
The centerpiece of the Qur’an’s teaching about Jesus, in line with all this, is another sharp departure from orthodox Christianity: The Qur’an repeatedly and strenuously denies that Jesus is the son of God (to say nothing of God the Son). “The Jews say, ‘Ezra is the Son of God,’” the book asserts, although no Jews have ever been found who actually did say any such thing; “the Christians say, ‘The Messiah is the Son of God.’ That is the utterance of their mouths, conforming with the unbelievers before them. God assail them! How they are perverted!” (9:30). The Qur’an emphasizes that Allah has no son no fewer than twelve times (2:116; 10:68; 17:111; 18:4; 19:35; 19:88; 19:91; 19:92; 21:26; 23:91; 39:04; 43:81).
Not only does Allah “assail” those who affirm that Christ is the Son of God; as we have seen, he also warns them not to deify Jesus: “The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God, and His Word that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him. . . . God is only One God. Glory be to Him—That He should have a son!” (4:171).
The Qur’an declares that to say that Allah has a Son would be to impugn his total power and sovereignty. Indeed, to affirm that he has a son is “something hideous” that upsets the entire equilibrium of creation: “And they say, ‘The All-merciful has taken unto Himself a son. You have indeed advanced something hideous! The heavens are well nigh rent of it and the earth split asunder, and the mountains well nigh fall down crashing for that they have attributed to the All-merciful a son; and it behoves not the All-merciful to take a son” (19:88-92). The idea of divine sonship is conceived of in physical terms more appropriate to the Greek myths than to Christian theology, as the Qur’an dismisses the possibility that Allah could have a son on the grounds that he has no wife: “The Creator of the heavens and the earth—how should He have a son, seeing that He has no consort, and He created all things, and He has knowledge of everything?” (6:101).
Here again, we see the assumption that to affirm that Allah has a son would somehow impugn the ideas that he created everything and is omniscient. The first is reasonably easy to understand, as apparently the Qur’an was envisioning a God with a son after the fashion of ancient pagan schemata in which one god was responsible for the creation of one part of the universe, while another god created a different part. Why having a son would challenge Allah’s omniscience is less clear. The assumption is apparently that Allah would regard a son the way a farmer might: as someone who could help him with his tasks and make up for his deficiencies. Since in Allah there are no deficiencies, hence he has no son.
The Qur’an says that Jesus is “a sign unto men and a mercy from Us” (19:21)—that is, from Allah. Mary, too, is called a sign (21:90; 23:50). But a sign of what? In what way are Jesus and Mary signs of Allah in a way that the other prophets, and their mothers, weren’t? No explanation is given.
In Islam, not only is Jesus not the son of God, but to assert that he is renders one an infidel: “They are unbelievers who say, ‘God is the Messiah, Mary’s son.’ Say: ‘Who then shall overrule God in any way if He desires to destroy the Messiah, Mary’s son, and his mother, and all those who are on earth?’ For to God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth, and all that is between them, creating what He will. God is powerful over everything” (5:17). The beginning of that passage appears again in the Qur’an, as if it were a kind of refrain: “They are unbelievers who say, ‘God is the Messiah, Mary’s son.’ For the Messiah said, ‘Children of Israel, serve God, my Lord and your Lord. Verily whoso associates with God anything, God shall prohibit him entrance to Paradise, and his refuge shall be the Fire; and wrongdoers shall have no helpers’” (5:72).
The Qur’an envisions the Incarnation not as God becoming man bu
t as a heavenly being visiting the earth without fully taking on human form. Thus it warns the Christians: “The Messiah, son of Mary, was only a Messenger; Messengers before him passed away; his mother was a just woman; they both ate food. Behold, how We make clear the signs to them; then behold, how they perverted are!” (5:75). Offering the fact that Jesus ate food as evidence that Jesus is not the Son of God manifests a deep misunderstanding of the nature of the Incarnation. The Qur’an apparently envisions it solely as God’s taking the form of a man but not becoming a man in any real sense; the idea that God would have “become like us in all things except sin” (Heb. 2:17) is a concept completely alien to the Qur’an and Islam in general. Where the Qur’an envisions the Incarnation at all, it does so only in the sense of God taking flesh as a garment, rather like a boss going incognito among his employees to see what they really think of him, but not becoming a fellow employee in any genuine sense.
A miracle worker, by Allah’s permission
In the Qur’an, this messenger of Allah, although emphatically just a human, does have the ability to perform miracles and even to raise the dead. But this is not to indicate (as in the Gospels) that he is divine, with his own authority and power over life and death; instead, he performs all his miracles only with Allah’s permission. Jesus tells the children of Israel: “I have come to you with a sign from your Lord. I will create for you out of clay as the likeness of a bird; then I will breathe into it, and it will be a bird, by the leave of God. I will also heal the blind and the leper, and bring to life the dead, by the leave of God. I will inform you too of what things you eat, and what you treasure up in your houses. Surely in that is a sign for you, if you are believers” (3:49).
Not Peace but a Sword: The Great Chasm Between Christianity and Islam Page 7