Not Peace but a Sword: The Great Chasm Between Christianity and Islam

by Robert Spencer

  Some Muslim websites contain claims that early Christians accepted it as part of the canon of Scripture. However, says one such site, the first ecumenical council—Nicaea in 325—“ordered that all original Gospels in Hebrew script should be destroyed. An Edict was issued that any one in possession of these Gospels will be put to death.”104

  This is utterly fanciful—the Council of Nicaea didn’t even deal with issues pertaining to the canon, much less violently suppress possessors of some Muslim proto-Gospel. (Claims of this sort have become popular in recent years, though, thanks in part to Dan Brown’s anti-Catholic historical fiction The DaVinci Code.) Still, Islamic apologists in the U.S. frequently refer to the suppression of the Scripture at the Council of Nicaea as if it were established historical fact. Somewhat ironically, Islamic tradition contends that the caliph Uthman collected all the manuscripts of the Qur’an in the year 653, standardized the text, and burned all the variants (although this incident is highly questionable from a historical standpoint).

  In any case, we find not even a mention of a Gospel of Barnabas until the sixth century, and no extant copy older than the sixteenth. It is no more likely to be the original Gospel, or even an accurate account of Jesus’ life, than the libretto of Jesus Christ Superstar. Numerous small errors destroy its credibility: For example, it records that “Pilate was governor in the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas” when Jesus was born; Pontius Pilate did not actually become procurator of Judea until the year A.D. 26. It refers to “casks of wood” that are “filled with wine,” even though the storage of wine in wooden casks did not begin until several hundred years after the time of Jesus, and even then only in Europe.

  No, the Gospel of Barnabas shows all the signs of being produced to fill a need: a need for a Muslim Jesus. It contains all the teachings about Jesus found in the Qur’an and hadith, along with material from the canonical Gospels that is recast in order to fit into this Islamic framework. Accordingly, in it Jesus excoriates as “impious” the idea that he is divine:

  As God lives, in whose presence my soul stands, I am not the Messiah whom all the tribes of the earth expect, even as God promised to our father Abraham, saying: ‘In your seed will I bless all the tribes of the earth.’ But when God shall take me away from the world, Satan will raise again this accursed sedition, by making the impious believe that I am God and son of God, whence my words and my doctrine shall be contaminated, insomuch that scarcely shall there remain thirty faithful ones: whereupon God will have mercy upon the world, and will send his Messenger for whom he has made all things who shall come from the south with power, and shall destroy the idols with the idolaters who shall take away the dominion from Satan which he has over men. He shall bring with him the mercy of God for salvation of them that shall believe in him, and blessed is he who shall believe his words.105

  In describing this coming messenger, who is, of course, Muhammad, Jesus sounds more like John the Baptist than himself, saying: “Unworthy though I am to untie his hosen, I have received grace and mercy from God to see him.” He says that the messenger “shall destroy every false opinion of me, and his faith shall spread and shall take hold of the whole world, for so has God promised to Abraham our father. And that which gives me consolation is that his faith shall have no end, but shall be kept inviolate by God.”106

  When Jesus reveals that Muhammad is the “blessed name” of this messenger, the crowd cries out, “O God send us your Messenger: O Muhammad, come quickly for the salvation of the world!”107

  The Gospel of Barnabas is so clearly inauthentic that, although it remains popular in some Muslim apologetic quarters, most Muslim scholars today follow Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s lead, contenting themselves with charging that the New Testament has so clearly been tampered with that it no longer had any value as a record of Jesus’ teachings. (Of course, they do not offer an unaltered version of what they say is Jesus’ original message; indeed, they cannot do so.)

  In any case, believing that the original religion of all the prophets is Islam, and that Christianity is a corrupt version of the true message of Jesus, Muslims accordingly enter into dialogue with Christians regarding them as at best ignorant, at worst deliberately rebellious. It should therefore come as no surprise that virtually all Muslim attempts at outreach to Christians are actually thinly veiled invitations to accept Islam, not genuine efforts at dialogue and mutual understanding. Islam simply does not consider Christianity, a deliberately twisted version of the original message of their prophet Jesus, or Christians, the “vilest of creatures” (Qur’an 98:6), as worthy of respect. Some individual Muslims may accord Christians that respect, of course, but if they do, it is respect that springs from their common humanity, not from the teachings of Islam.

  Most Catholics who engage in interfaith dialogue regard their dialogue partners as equals, and assume that they’re returning the favor. But mainstream Islam does not mandate regarding orthodox Christians as equals, but instead as rebels from the true faith and the true God. Catholics who enter into this dialogue should be aware of this. The extreme religious chauvinism of Muslims makes genuine dialogue as equals essentially impossible.

  It bears noting in conclusion that this chauvinism goes far beyond any Catholic view of Protestantism (in any of its forms) as a corrupted and incomplete version of the true teaching of Christ. Whereas Catholics can recognize in separated Christians a shared divine revelation and a common confession of the salvific work of the Son of God, Islam sees in Christianity only apostasy and idolatry. Furthermore, Islam holds apostates and hypocrites in furious contempt, prescribing death for both. However dimly a Catholic may regard the errors of Protestantism, he recognizes that he is bound to regard all Protestants in charity—a virtue that is notably absent in Islam’s commands about how to treat unbelievers.

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  A Common Desire for Justice?

  Catholics may be tempted to dismiss the revisionism of Islam’s replacement theology. After all, we have serious theological disagreements with adherents of all other faiths, too, but we can make common cause with them—for example, on moral issues, as we have done with Muslims in the past. When it comes to contemporary debates in the moral sphere, Catholics might wish to look past theological disagreements to the many moral beliefs they presume Christianity and Islam hold in common.

  Some Catholics go even further than that. Appraising the moral compromises of comfortable American middle-class Catholicism, they see in Islam not only a potential moral partner on life issues but also a positive moral exemplar.

  In this vein, Peter Kreeft has compiled a list of “what Christians should obviously [emphasis in original] learn from Muslims,” including “the absoluteness of the moral laws and of the demand to be just and charitable.”108 Dinesh D’Souza argued in his 2007 book The Enemy at Home that it is the West’s “social and moral corruption” that have largely motivated Islamic jihadists, asserting that “the Muslims who hate us the most are the ones who have encountered Western decadence, either in the West or in their own countries.”109

  It’s true that Western immorality is a frequent feature of the Islamic critique of the post-Christian West, as well as a target for the morality police of Sharia states.110 In the summer of 2009, Iranian authorities even published a list of hairstyles that were acceptably moral and Islamic, as opposed to “decadent” Western imports, among which were the ponytail and the mullet.111

  That same Western decadence is indeed also a frequent preoccupation of Islamic jihadists. In December 2010, a Muslim named Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly set off explosives on a street in Stockholm that was crowded with Christmas shoppers, killing himself and injuring two others. His wife, who was later arrested for helping plan the attack, explained that Abdulwahab “disliked the decadent side of society here.”112

  Christian writers such as Kreeft and D’Souza seem to think the Islamic world has something to teach today’s decadent West. Yet although it is obvious that Christians should learn “the absoluteness of
the moral laws and of the demand to be just and charitable,” it is far less clear that Muslims have these laws to teach, or believe them themselves.

  It is all-important to examine whether Muslims do or not, for it is on the basis of their vision of Muslims as upright, moral, God-fearing, and pious that many Catholics see them as potential allies and are apt to regard criticism of Islam’s violent and supremacist doctrines, or of the Muslim persecution of Christians in Muslim lands, as self-defeating.

  In reality, Islamic morality is quite different from what these Catholics want to believe. Not only does it have much less common ground with Catholic morality than most Catholics assume, but in fostering genuine virtues it compares unfavorably even with the decadent West.

  Moral absolutes and the raid at Nakhla

  First and foremost, in Islamic morality there are no absolutes. After Muhammad and the earliest Muslims moved from Mecca to Medina in 622, the event known as the hijra (flight) that is generally understood to mark the beginning of Islam, he began ordering his followers to raid the caravans of the Quraysh, the pagan Arabs of Mecca who had rejected Muhammad’s claim to be a prophet. (Muslims would say this was an instance of a prophet’s not being without honor except in his own country, as Muhammad was a member of the Quraysh tribe and had grown up among them.)

  On one occasion, Muhammad ordered nine of his men to raid a Quraysh caravan that was making its way back to Mecca. He gave the leader of the Muslim raiders, Abdullah bin Jahsh, sealed instructions with orders not to open and read them until his group had already journeyed for two days away from Medina.

  Once two days had passed, Abdullah read Muhammad’s instructions, which said, “When you have read this letter of mine proceed until you reach Nakhla between Mecca and Al-Ta’if. Lie in wait there for Quraysh and find out for us what they are doing.”

  Thereupon, Abdullah told his men, “The apostle has commanded me to go to Nakhla to lie in wait there for Quraysh so as to bring us news of them. He has forbidden me to put pressure on any of you, so if anyone wishes for martyrdom let him go forward, and he who does not, let him go back; as for me I am going on as the Prophet has ordered.” None went back. Abdullah was referring to martyrdom not in the Christian sense but in the Islamic sense: A martyr is one who “fight[s] in the way of God; they kill, and are killed” (Qur’an 9:111).

  Abdullah and his men spotted the Quraysh caravan earlier than they had expected: It was the last day of the month of Rajab, one of the four “sacred months” of the pagan Arab calendar. During these months, by mutual agreement of the various Arab tribes, it was forbidden to take up arms. However, this presented Abdullah’s band with a dilemma: “If you leave them alone tonight they will get into the sacred area and will be safe from you; and if you kill them, you will kill them in the sacred month.” Nonetheless, they eventually decided, in the words of Muhammad’s first biographer, Ibn Ishaq, to “kill as many as they could of them and take what they had.”

  When they returned to Medina, they found Muhammad wrathful: “I did not order you to fight in the sacred month.”113 He refused to accept the fifth of the spoils that they had set aside for him. The moral absolute that fighting was prohibited during the sacred month was paramount, and Abdullah and his men had violated it.

  However, then Allah revealed this passage of the Qur’an to Muhammad: “They will question thee concerning the holy month, and fighting in it. Say: ‘Fighting in it is a heinous thing, but to bar from God’s way, and disbelief in Him, and the Holy Mosque, and to expel its people from it—that is more heinous in God’s sight; and persecution is more heinous than slaying’” (2:217).

  Ibn Ishaq explained what this meant: The Quraysh “have kept you back from the way of God with their unbelief in Him, and from the sacred mosque, and have driven you from it when you were with its people. This is a more serious matter with God than the killing of those whom you have slain.”114 Thus, the Muslim raiders’ fighting during the sacred month was justified, and Muhammad thereupon took his share of the spoils of the raid.

  This incident taught a profound lesson that future Muslims would take to heart: In Islam, any moral law can be set aside for the good of the Muslims. That is Islam’s only functional moral absolute.

  Honor thy father and mother . . . unless they’re infidels

  In the Qur’an’s many retellings of the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt, the one notable omission is any specifics about the contents of the “tablets” that Moses brings down from the mountain, beyond that “in the inscription of them was guidance” (Qur’an 7:154). There is, however, one key passage of the Qur’an that does contain what appears to be a set of moral principles on the order of (and reminiscent of) the Ten Commandments:

  Set not up with God another god, or thou wilt sit condemned and forsaken.

  Thy Lord has decreed you shall not serve any but Him, and to be good to parents, whether one or both of them attains old age with thee; say not to them ‘Fie,’ neither chide them, but speak unto them words respectful, and lower to them the wing of humbleness out of mercy and say; ‘My Lord, have mercy upon them, as they raised me up when I was little.’ Your Lord knows very well what is in your hearts if you are righteous, for He is All-forgiving to those who are penitent. (17:22-23)

  Yet even in the believer’s relationship with his parents, the overarching principle is that Muslims must be “hard against the unbelievers, merciful one to another” (48:29). The Qur’an says: “O believers, fight the unbelievers who are near to you; and let them find in you a harshness; and know that God is with the godfearing” (9:123). This includes unbelievers of one’s immediate family: The Muslim holy book specifically forbids believers from being friendly with their non-believing relatives:

  O believers, take not your fathers and brothers to be your friends, if they prefer unbelief to belief; whosoever of you takes them for friends, those—they are the evildoers. Say: “If your fathers, your sons, your brothers, your wives, your clan, your possessions that you have gained, commerce you fear may slacken, dwellings you love—if these are dearer to you than God and His Messenger, and to struggle in His way, then wait till God brings His command; God guides not the people of the ungodly.” (9:23-24)

  Explains Ibn Kathir: “Allah commands shunning the disbelievers, even if they are one’s parents or children, and prohibits taking them as supporters if they choose disbelief instead of faith.” Unlike superficially similar recommendations in the New Testament,115 such statements in an Islamic context are not balanced by exhortations to universal charity and prayer for the unbelievers. Recall that the Qur’an holds up Abraham as an example for Muslims in his hatred for his unbelieving family, but specifically rules him out as an example when he says he will pray for his unbelieving father.

  The Qur’an emphasizes not only that a Muslim must have nothing to do with his parents if they are unbelievers but that he should not even pray for them: “It is not for the Prophet and the believers to ask pardon for the idolaters, even though they be near kinsmen, after that it has become clear to them that they will be the inhabitants of Hell” (9:113).

  In a Qur’anic account of Noah and the great flood, when the flood kills Noah’s son, Noah appeals to Allah on the basis of his promise to save Noah’s family: “And Noah called unto his Lord, and said, ‘O my Lord, my son is of my family, and Thy promise is surely the truth. Thou art the justest of those that judge’” (11:45). But Allah responds: “Noah, he is not of thy family; it is a deed not righteous,” referring to Noah’s son saying that he would flee to the top of a mountain to save himself from the flood (11:43, 46).

  Lying is a sin . . . except when it is a positive good

  The prophet of Islam was unequivocal about the Muslim’s responsibility to be truthful: “It is obligatory for you to tell the truth, for truth leads to virtue and virtue leads to Paradise, and the man who continues to speak the truth and endeavors to tell the truth is eventually recorded as truthful with Allah, and beware of telling of a lie, for
telling of a lie leads to obscenity and obscenity leads to Hell-Fire, and the person who keeps telling lies and endeavors to tell a lie is recorded as a liar with Allah.”116

  However, Muhammad also said, “War is deceit” and that lying is permissible in wartime. He said that lying was permissible when a husband needed to keep the peace in the household by deceiving his wife.117 Shi’ite Islam has elaborated doctrines of deception (taqiyya and kitman) to which the believer may resort when in danger for his life, but since the Qur’an also teaches that this deception is allowed, this is not solely a Shi’ite concept: “Let not the believers take the unbelievers for friends, rather than the believers—for whoso does that belongs not to God in anything—unless you have a fear of them. God warns you that you beware of Him, and unto God is the homecoming” (Qur’an 3:28). A Muslim is thus not to take non-Muslims as friends unless he has “a fear of them” and is only feigning friendship to protect himself.

  Ibn Kathir explains this verse: “Allah prohibited His believing servants from becoming supporters of the disbelievers, or to take them as comrades with whom they develop friendships, rather than the believers.” However, exempt from this are “those believers who in some areas or times fear for their safety from the disbelievers. In this case, such believers are allowed to show friendship to the disbelievers outwardly, but never inwardly.”118 He explains, “the scholars agreed that if a person is forced into disbelief, it is permissible for him to either go along with them in the interests of self-preservation, or to refuse.”119