Towards Understanding Islam

Godstone Deanery, 19 May 2007

By David Marshall

What is Islam?

• Islam = submission (to God); muslim = one who submits to God.

• Confession of faith (shahada): ‘There is no God but God;

Muhammad is the messenger of God.’

Muhammad and the Origins of Islam

• For Muslims, Muhammad is not the ‘founder’ of Islam; Islam as primordial religion (from time of Adam); the natural religion for humanity (din al-fitra).

• Islamic understanding of religious history; affinities with Judaism and Christianity but distinct from them.

• Succession of prophets sent by God to preach monotheism and righteousness; greatest among these include Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

• Outline of Muhammad’s life:
• Born c570 in Mecca.
• 610: Called to be a prophet. Preaches to Meccans.
• 622: Hijra (migration) to Medina with followers. Founds first Islamic society/state. ‘Muhammad was his own Constantine.’
• Meccans defeated; Islam accepted throughout Arabian peninsula.
• 632: Muhammad dies.

• Significance of Muhammad:
• ‘Seal of the prophets’. Final brick in the building.
• The ‘illiterate prophet’ – the Qur’an in no sense his work.
• Sinless; perfect example of human conduct (devout Muslims imitate him in detail); intercessor on Last Day.
• Focus of devotion; ‘peace be upon him’; furore over Satanic Verses.

• Disputed succession to Muhammad; origins of Sunni – Shi’i divide.

• Expansion of Islamic Empire over following 100 years – from Spain to India.

What is the Qur’an?

• Understood by Muslims as compilation of messages revealed by God to Muhammad via the angel Gabriel, perfectly preserved in the original Arabic.

• The Qur’an only is the Qur’an in Arabic; translations are useful but are not the Qur’an. Contrast with Bible translations.

• Textual history. Traditional Islamic account recognizes some early variants but holds that the authentic text was standardized c 20 years after Muhammad’s death and has been perfectly preserved ever since. Resistance to critical scholarship. Range of Western views, some very sceptical.

• Islamic understanding of revelation. Compare Qur’an and Bible or Qur’an and Christ? Word made Flesh/Word made Book.

‘The Word of God in Islam is the Quran; in Christianity it is Christ. The vehicle of the Divine Message in Christianity is the Virgin Mary; in Islam it is the soul of the Prophet. The Prophet must be unlettered for the same reason that the Virgin Mary must be virgin.’ (S. H. Nasr, Ideals and Realities of Islam (revised edition), 43-4)

• Qur’an and beauty. Calligraphy. Recitation.

• Respect for Qur’an as physical object. Blessing from reading it even when not understood.

• On trying to read the Qur’an; need some kind of guide.

• Islam based on Qur’an, but also on traditions about Muhammad (Hadith, Sunna).

What do Muslims think about Christianity?

• Islam’s distinctive view of religious history, culminating in Muhammad.

• Jesus (Isa) respected as great prophet, but understood in Islamic terms:
• Forerunner of Muhammad (like John the Baptist to Jesus).
• Received from God a revealed scripture (‘the Gospel’).
• Preached same message as Muhammad and all other prophets.
• Virgin birth and miracles, but not Son of God. No Incarnation.
• Did not die on the cross; raised alive to Heaven; will come again.
• Brings guidance, not salvation, redemption.

• Original message of Jesus essentially the same as Islam; so why has the Christianity we know today deviated from this?
• Followers of Jesus mistakenly started worshipping him as Son of God and speaking of God as Trinity; Jesus would disapprove.
• The New Testament is a mixture of truth and error. The text has been corrupted (Tahrif). No need to read it as all truth is in the Qur’an.

• Muslims take a range of views of Christianity and Christians (‘People of the Book’), but all involve some balance of affirmation and criticism.

• Islamic witness (da’wa) to Christians. Converts.

• ‘We Muslims respect Jesus as a prophet. Why don’t you Christians respect Muhammad as a prophet?’ Discuss…

Islamic Belief and Practice

• Summary of key beliefs
• Oneness of God (Tawhid)
• Prophecy/revelation (Risala)
• The Afterlife (Akhira)

• Belief and practice. ‘Not just a religion; a complete way of life’. God’s revealed way for humans to live - Shari’a. Concern for transformation of society; historical norm for Muslims is to live in a Muslim society.

• Five pillars of Islam:
• Confession of faith (shahada) – as above
• Prayer (salat)
• Almsgiving (zakat)
• Fasting (sawm) in the month of Ramadan
• Pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca and Medina

• Sufism: emphasis on experience, the interior reality of Islam alongside external obedience. Popularity of Sufism today – e.g. Rumi.

Islam in the World Today

• Through most of Islamic history the Muslim experience has been of political power. Great Islamic empires. Islam born to rule. Muslims have typically lived under Islamic rule.

• Crisis for Islamic world in 19^th century under Western/Christian empires. Muslims no longer under Islamic rule. What has gone wrong?

• Birth of Islamic movements (eg Muslim Brotherhood); reassertion of Islamic identity in Muslim world over against Western powers and regimes backed by the West.

• Aspiration towards creation of Islamic societies: Pakistan; Iran; Sudan; current debates in Iraq.

• Some movements fuelled by sense of global solidarity of the worldwide Muslim community (umma) and grievance over sufferings of Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir…

• Particular hostility to US for its role in Middle East and Iraq.

• Variety among Islamic movements: some seeking to work gradually through political process; others outside political process, using violence. ‘Al-Qaeda’.

Muslims in the West

• Migration since 1950s. Muslim minorities outside the Muslim world.

• Lack of resources in Islamic tradition for living as a Muslim minority in a predominantly non-Muslim context. Traditional Islamic division of the world into the sphere of Islam (dar al-islam) and the rest of the world (dar al-harb); no expectation of Muslims living permanently in dar al-harb.

• Responses by Muslims:
• Assimilation; blending in.
• Maintenance of Islamic identity in ghetto; no serious interaction.
• Rejection of the West (fuelled by Iraq etc).
• Converting the West? An Islamic Britain?
• Integration? Maintaining Islamic identity while engaging in wider society.

• Is there a British Muslim identity emerging? Is there a way of being authentically Muslim in a permanently non-Muslim context? Role of imams.

Christian Responses to Islam

• One set of obligations, affirming our shared humanity, clustered around the calls to love our neighbour; to be peacemakers; and to work for the ‘common good’ (Matthew 5:9, 22:39; Romans 12:18; 1 Timothy 2:1-2):
• Understanding Islam and Muslim concerns; seeing the world through their eyes.
• Concern for minorities; ‘love the stranger’ (Lev. 19:33; Deut. 10:18f.).
• Working together; local initiatives; national Christian-Muslim Forum; addressing issues of shared citizenship.

• Another set of obligations, affirming our identity as Christians, clustered around the calls to bear confident witness to Christ and to support the Church:
• Giving a reason for the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15 – ‘with gentleness and respect’).
• Developing awareness of the world church; learning from it; supporting it.

• Humility, willingness to learn from encounter with the ‘outsider’, the religiously other. Strands in the Bible reminding us that God is not just at work among his covenant people. E.g. Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18-20); Job; Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1-7); the Book of Jonah; Jesus’ encounters with Samaritans and Gentiles; the Good Samaritan…
• What do we have to learn from our encounter with Muslims?