The Challenge of Islam to the Church and its Mission
Published in the United States by Isaac Publishing
6729 Curran Street, McLean VA 22101
Copyright © 2008 Patrick Sookhdeo
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, photocopy or recording without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in brief quotations in written reviews.
ISBN 978-0-9787141-5-4
ISBN: 9780989290500
Printed in the United Kingdom by Creative Print and Design, Abertillery
This book is a revised and updated edition of Patrick Sookhdeo’s
Islam: the Challenge to the Church (Pewsey: Isaac Publishing, 2006).
A Personal Note from the Author
Preface
1 Introduction
2 Understanding Islam
Basic theology
Social issues
Spirituality, morality and culture
Diversity in Islam
Trends in contemporary Islam
3 Comparing Islam with Christianity
Theological understanding of Islam
4 Issues
Legal protection
Education
Treatment of women
Implementation of shari‘a
Media and freedom of speech
Politics
Cruel shari‘a punishments
Dhimmi
Apostasy
Jihad and the extension of Islamic territory
5 Christian-Muslim Relations
Building friendships
Places of worship
Joining in Islamic worship
“Dialogue”
Christian-Muslim cooperation on non-religious projects
Christian-Muslim cooperation on overseas aid, relief and development
Christian-Muslim cooperation on religious projects
Reconciliation
Mission and evangelism
Convert care
Involvement in society
Justice
6 Conclusion
Appendix
Barnabas Fund Response to the Yale Center for Faith and Culture Statement
Differences Between the Muslim and the Christian Concept of Divine Love - Dr. Murad Wilfried Hofmann
The Concept of Love in Islam - a paper by Barnabas Fund
Glossary
References and Notes
Index of Bible References
Index of Qur’an References
Index of Hadith References
Index
All quotations from the Qur’an in this book have been taken from the widely distributed translation Interpretation of the Meanings of the Noble Qur’an in the English Language: A Summarized Version of At-Tabari, Al-Qurtabi and Ibn Kathir with comments from Sahih Al-Bukhari Summarized in One Volume, by Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, 15th revised edition (Riyadh: Darussalam, 1996).
Different translations of the Qur’an can vary slightly in the numbering of the verses. If using another translation it may be necessary to search the verses preceding or following the reference to find the same text.
I was born in Guyana, South America in 1947 and lived there until I was 12. Guyana in the 1950s was – and still is – very mixed in terms of ethnicity, culture and religion. There were Muslims, Hindus and Christians, and people of African, Asian and European descent as well as indigenous Amerindians.
But we all lived together in peace and harmony. We ate each other’s food and celebrated each other’s festivals. No faith sought to gain religious or political dominance. No faith felt threatened or intimidated by another one. No faith was legally advantaged or disadvantaged more than the others. I was brought up in a Muslim family and started being taught the Qur’an at the age of 4½. The imam did not teach us to hate or despise other faiths, or that it was our duty to attack other faiths; he simply taught us to chant the Qur’an.
Now I am a Christian and live in another multiethnic, multicultural and religiously plural society, the UK. I remember in the 1960s how we immigrants did our best to assimilate into the majority culture and to become as British as we could as fast as we could. But nowadays some minorities have a different attitude. I am both grieved and alarmed to see how equality, peace and harmony in British society are fast disappearing, for which the main cause seems to be the egregious behaviour of a radical minority within one particular faith, Islam. There is such fear of radical Islam that few voices dare to point out what is happening.
It does not have to be like this. I know that from my personal experience. Hundreds of thousands of other Guyanese of my age will have similar memories. The same inter-religious harmony has also existed in other places at other times. It is possible for faiths to live together in peace without one subjugating the rest.
The Iranian liberal Muslim writer, Amir Taheri, has pointed out how extraordinarily politicized Islam in the West has become, to the point where God is hardly mentioned in sermons. He says that the UK’s 2,000 or so mosques are basically “a cover for a political movement”, i.e. that British Islam has become “a political movement masquerading as a religion.” Taheri suggests three reasons for this. Firstly, Muslims in the West come from a wide variety of backgrounds but are unable to continue here their historic sectarian feuds. So they lay aside theol ogical issues and unite on other issues such as hatred of gay marriages or of Israel. Secondly, Western freedoms have allowed Islamic political movements to flourish, movements which are suppressed or banned in many parts of the Muslim world. Thirdly, there has been a rapprochement between British Islam and the extreme Left, which work together on issues such as anti-war, anti-America and anti-Israel.1
We need to guard our liberties, not take them for granted. Although we know that the gates of hell will not ultimately prevail against the Church which the Lord is building, there are sections of his Church which have disappeared completely in the face of the challenge of Islam, for example, North Africa which was once a major centre of Christianity. Christians in Victoria State, Australia, are bitterly regretting that they did not oppose the passing of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act in 2001 which now stifles their preaching and teaching. “We did not give enough thought to it at the time,” some said to me in January 2006.
Another main challenge which Islam presents to the Church is the care of converts. Becoming a Christian was a difficult experience for me, with all its attendant trials and alienation. Being a Christian from a non-Western background is also very difficult, as I have lived through the end of colonialism and have also faced considerable racism from the white Christian community.
It is my hope and prayer that this book will help Christians in the West to think about the issues which surround Islam, so that they will be enabled to respond to the challenge of Islam before it is too late.
Patrick Sookhdeo
McLean VA
April 29, 2008
Islam is a religion of law, rituals, duties, faith, power and territory. A Muslim’s worldview and values are derived from these essential Islamic principles, in just the same way that a Christian’s worldview and values are derived from Christian spirituality.
The aim of this book is to help Christians in the West to understand Islam and the challenge which the rise of Islam in the West poses to the Church and its mission. While these challenges affect Christian individuals not only as Christians but also as members of society, this book will mainly focus on the challenge of Islam to the life, work and witness of the Body of Christ.2
The book is written from within a Western context of massive loss of confidence among Christians, accompanied by confusion, uncertainty and sometimes even shame. This context is the result of a process which became evident after the end of the Second World War, a process in which individualism, utilitarianism, materialism and hedonism gradually gained prominence and influence. Meanwhile duty, loyalty and even Christianity itself became increasingly scorned. The vacuum left by the virtual demise of Christianity was first filled by secular humanism but latterly Islam is gaining many converts from those with a spiritual hunger who are seeking a faith to follow. The more radical sections of Islam are in turn joining forces with traditionally atheistic movements such as the hard Left who share their anti-globalism, anti-capitalism sentiments and their deep-seated animosity towards Western liberal democracies. A third ally for the Islamism-Extreme Left partnership is found in liberal Christianity.
At the same time there has been an increasing sense of shame amongst some white Westerners, particularly Britons, who have been taught to believe the very worst about the British Empire. They feel they can do no right, and believe that because of the “sins” of earlier generations (such as colonialism and the Crusades) they have forfeited the right even to comment on other people’s culture or religion. Thus, in preparation for the 2007 bicent enary of the abolition of the slave trade by the British Parliament, the Church of England, under the guidance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, made a statement apolog izing to the descendants of the slave trade’s victims, but making no mention at all of the victory of abolition. This all-pervading shame and sense of ineligibility to critique non-Westerners may be one reason why (until recently) very few white Britons offered any criticism of the radical and violent aspects of Islam.
In the United States it is not so much a matter of shame and loss of confidence, as in the UK and parts of Europe, but of increasing political correctness. An entrenched multiculturalism works against the recognition or establishment of any common culture that is too closely related to the history and values of the majority, and especially those rooted in traditional and Judeo-Christian concepts of morality and reason. A further aspect is the way in which black identity has become increasingly merged with a new kind of Islam, which many orthodox Muslims believe to be heretical, i.e. the Nation of Islam.
The accusation of Islamophobia is often leveled against those who draw attention to aspects of Islam which do not meet modern standards of human rights etc. It is important to recognize the distinction between Islam the religious ideology and Muslims the people who follow it. While it is possible and in some situations necessary to draw attention to negative aspects of a religious ideology, the attitude of Christians to Muslims as fellow human beings should always be one of love, compassion and concern.
It is important also to recognize that all faiths, including Christianity, have been misused by their followers at various times and places. We must acknowledge that atrocities and injustices have been perpetrated in the name of Christ, and we must avoid the pitfall of comparing the beautiful ideals of one faith with the less than perfect practices of another.
Although Islam is basically totalitarian in nature and dissent is rarely allowed, paradoxically there is and always has been a wide diversity of opinion within Islam, and numerous mutually intolerant divisions, sects and movements exist. Despite this there is a core orthodoxy which is fairly easy to identify and it is this “standard” Islam which will be our main focus. We will also look briefly at the differences between some of the major groupings and trends within Islam.
Islam is multifaceted in a way that is unlike any other religion. In Islam there is no separation between sacred and secular, or between spiritual and material. Islam encompasses the social, legal, cultural, political and even military aspects of life. Because of this there is a serious problem of understanding with regard to Christians approaching Islam; many of the terms used by the two faiths are ident ical, giving the impression of a close similarity of thought-processes, and yet the meanings can be radically different.
Christians seeking to enter into dialogue with Muslims need to understand this core orthodoxy and inherent unity within the Islamic faith. Recent years have seen a rise in the phenomenological approach to other religions, which looks for commonalities between different faiths such as holy men, holy places or holy things. This approach does not suit Islam. Focusing on aspects of religious phenomena in Islam which are apparently held in common with Christianity does not lead to a correct understanding of Islam. This book will therefore attempt to look at Islam as a Muslim does, i.e. seeing the whole rather than the separate parts. While examining in turn a multi plicity of issues, each must always be understood in the light of the whole system that is Islam.
We have already considered the importance of distinguishing Islam the religion, which is not only a faith but also seeks political power and territory, from Muslims the followers of that religion. Muslim people are like every other human being on earth, made in the image of God. They are loved by God and must be loved by Christians as well. We are called to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44). There can be no place for hatred or fear in our relationships with Muslims. Furthermore, as Christians we have a divine mandate to witness to Muslims of the saving work of our Lord Jesus, who died not only for us but also for them. This we do with the love of Christ, for as Paul the apostle wrote, “The love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all.” (2 Corinthians 5:14) It is hoped that this book will not only help in the understanding of Islam the religion but will also act as a spur in our witness to Muslim people who so desperately need the Savior.
The tragic events of September 11, 2001 spawned a huge interest in Islam. In the seven years since then Islam has become a frequent topic of debate and analysis in Western media, society and Church. Perhaps it could be said that we have never had so much information in so many areas on Islam and Muslims. Added to this are factors such as the growth of Muslim minorities in the West, the “war on terrorism” (which so far has been largely a war on Islamic terrorism), the American-led incursions into Afghan istan and Iraq, the reactions of the Muslim community worldwide, Iran’s proposed nuclear program, and the international Muslim reaction against publication of cartoons of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. All these issues have brought Islam to center stage and are forcing a radical re-think of Western opinion on the nature of Islam.
Formerly driven chiefly by factors such as post-colonial guilt and sympathy for the perceived underdog, the debate is now fueled by fresh theories such as a revisionist approach to history, by Samuel Huntington’s thesis of an inevitable “clash of civilizations” (between Islam and the West), and by a philosophical and linguistic deconstructionism that negates all absolutes.
Interestingly there has also been a dramatic change in Muslim presentations of their faith to outsiders. This phenomenon began before September 11, 2001, but the rate has increased rapidly since that date. The impetus is the desire to defend Islam from any negative criticism and to present it as entirely positive and devoid of anything blameworthy throughout its history. This has been described as “the turbaning of the mind”. Muslim governments with their multiplicity of agencies and institutions as well as Muslim communities in the West are determined that their religion be understood and respected and so have launched major movements through television, radio, newspapers, books, articles, internet, lecturers and preachers to educate non-Muslims. Islam appears to aspire literally to rewrite the text-books.
To the efforts of Muslim governments are added those of Western governments who increasingly believe that, in order to avert Islamic violence, they must accord respect to the religion of Islam. They have therefore launched their own movements to educate the non-Muslim public about the nature of Islam. Thus the US governments are seeking to counter the perceived terrorist threat at home and abroad by promoting the concept that Islam is essentially peaceful, like Christianity, but has been subverted and distorted by a small number of violent extremists. Furthermore Western governments have created an interfaith “industry” which they are funding in the belief that through interfaith relations Muslims will become more moderate, violence will be averted, and peace and harmony will result. Interfaith has now become a vehicle not only of the US government but also of other governments’ policies.
Churches, first the liberals and now increasingly the evangelicals as well, have followed this lead and taken on the governmental interfaith agenda. Whereas in the 1980s the World Council of Churches was the architect of inter-religious dialogue and propounded an interfaith movement emphasizing the commonality of all religions, now evangelicals are increasingly taking on this mantle.
Of course, it is right and proper for governments, for churches and for individual Christians to work for good community and religious relations and to prevent religiously motivated violence. But where a government is in effect using the Church as its tool to achieve this task, the effect can be very damaging; it associates Christianity with government policy which can have negative effects for Christian minorities in the Muslim world who are held responsible for the acts of Western governments.
Through engagement with Muslims, through inter-religious dialogue, through support for Islamic causes and interests, many Christians of all kinds now seem to believe that they must help to rehabilitate Islam and establish it in the public domain. Together with secular politicians, Christians are emerging as the defender, protector and unifier of Islam. Some do this in the hope that Muslims will reciprocate by respecting Christians and allowing evangelism to occur freely within their countries. Others do it out of fear inasmuch that they believe - as the Muslims would have them believe - that the two religions will soon be involved in a catastrophic war with each other. Thus they seek to avert this war by joining forces with Islam. Still others do it because they have let their emotions guide their intellect and theology; they have generalized from a moderate peaceable Muslim individual whom they know and like and have come to believe that those are the characteristics of the religion as a whole. Such Christians have great difficulties in critiquing Islam because of their love for Muslims in general or their friendship with particular Muslim individuals. Whilst Christians are most certainly called to love Muslims, those who have followed this track of affirming and promoting Islam seem unable to distinguish Islam the theology and ideology from Muslims the people. Such Christians have unwittingly embraced Islam the faith as they sought to embrace Muslims the people. Then there are those Christians who believe that the Church has much to learn from Islam. They emphasize the commonalities between Islam and Christianity, and see Christ’s reconciling work as involving the whole of humanity.
Such a plethora of positions on Islam has led to great confusion, and Christians are now deeply divided. Islam has in fact become an agent of division amongst Christians both liberals and evangelicals. Some denominations such as the Roman Catholic Church led by Pope Benedict XVI and the Orthodox denominations have not capitulated to the increasing Islamic demands. Rather they have sought to hold on to their theological foundations. For Protestant Christians, and in particular evangelical Christians, caught up in post-modernity and loosened from their theological moorings, Islam may well prove to be decisive in terms of their own survival. It was Professor Johan Bouman of Marburg, Germany, who observed that Islam could pose a much greater challenge to Christianity in the twenty-first century than Gnosticism did to the early Church.
President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.” For Christians in our day it is important that we choose righteousness, which includes truth and justice, rather than sacrifice them in the uncertain hope of peace with Islam. This principle is true for the Church as well as for nations, as Roosevelt observed.
So what attitude should the Christian Church adopt towards this other major world faith, seemingly sharing so much doctrine in common with Christianity and yet clearly so very different in reality? The purpose of this book is to help Christians answer this question. We shall first look at the nature of Islam, and compare it with Christianity. Key contemporary issues will be examined in turn, each one being crucial to the way in which Islam is manifested in contemporary society. Finally, we look at some of the practical issues of Christian-Muslim relations in the West.
Contemporary Islam increasingly focuses on classical Islam and its manifestations. Classical Islam was formulated in the first few centuries after Muhammad, and in the tenth century AD it was agreed that the work had been completed. The consensus (in Sunni Islam, which comprises at least 80% of Muslims today) is that no alteration can now be made to the regulations laid down by the early Islamic scholars. The process by which such change could be made is known as ijtihad and this is what both liberal Muslims and Islamists claim to be doing as they seek to reform Islam in their respective directions. However, among the great mass of Muslims in general there is enormous fear of making any alterations to the traditional rulings, as this would be deemed blasphemy or apostasy.
Thus it is effectively impossible to change or adapt Islam. Consequently there is an inevitable conflict between certain aspects of Islam and some modern societal norms. This conflict is far more than just a question of mental anguish for the individual, because a vital part of Islam is living out one’s faith in society. Faith, to a Muslim, is not merely personal but has social, political and cultural implications. A typical Muslim believes that their faith must impact the society in which they live and must contribute to the Islamic character of that society. This political aspect appears to have become the dom inant feature of Islam in the West. It is only the relatively few liberal Muslims who would consider flouting orthod oxy by trying to adapt their faith to integrate into modern society.
The late Dr Zaki Badawi, who was president of the Muslim College in London, expressed the underlying assumption within Islam that Muslims must live in an Islamic society, ordered according to the teachings of Islam.
The history of Islam as a faith is also the history of a state and a community of believers living by Divine law. The Muslims, jurists and theologians have always expounded Islam as both a Government and a faith. This reflects the historical fact that Muslims, from the start, lived under their own law. Muslim theologians naturally produced a theology with this in view – it is a theology of the majority. Being a minority was not seriously considered or even contemplated.3
Badawi went on to explain that there is no consensus within Islam about how Muslims should live as a minority within a non-Muslim majority.
Omar Ahmed, the founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim “civil liberties” group in the United States that works “to promote a positive image of Islam and Muslims in America,” believes that Islam must become dominant in the US.
Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.4
Thus Islam is bound to impact the societies in which it finds itself. This impact is felt in six primary areas, as defined by Rev. Albrecht Hauser: spiritual, theological, missiological, societal, political and in the area of justice.
Islam is a spiritual movement, which throughout history has had a strangling effect on the Christian Church. There has been much oppression and suffering, since Islam considers Christians to have gone astray and since Islam rejects and considers the central beliefs of Christians to be obsolete.
Theologically the whole concept of incarnation, the vicarious death of Christ and his redemptive cross is rejected in Islam, so also is the Trinitarian understanding of God. The cross is veiled and the challenge for the Christian Church is to understand and happily confess why Jesus is truly God and truly man. Since Islam believes in the unity of the sacred and secular, and of the state and religion, it also poses a political challenge. Islam needs to be viewed in many ways as an ideology seeking to gain political power. Islam is not only a religion in the Western sense, but also an ideology with a total claim on the society and political life of its adherents, ruled by divine, rather than secular law. Since the divine law (shari‘a) is considered superior to all man-made laws of secular societies there is always a tendency to push for other legislation to be made to conform to the shari‘a.5
Western Christians who are concerned to react in an appropriate, loving, scriptural and Christ-like way to the presence of Islam in their societies must have a clear understanding of the nature of Islam – its theology, ethics and culture – so as to discern where there is common ground and where there are differences. This will help in the crucial decisions that have to be made on how to approach Muslims, and indeed how to respond to the approaches that they make to Christians. For it must not be forgotten that, while many Christians are seeking a rapprochement with Islam, many Muslims are at the same time seeking to neutralize and negate all forms of Christian mission. Increasingly Muslim countries are seeking the removal of all foreign missionaries and the cessation of missionary activities. National evangelists are being persecuted and threatened, with some being killed. International Islamic agencies are claiming that mission and evangelism are divisive, anti-Islamic and responsible for growing Islamophobia, and therefore must cease.
Furthermore, Muslims are also increasingly active in proselytization themselves. In the spiritual vacuum found in the materialistic twentyfirst century West, Muslim missionaries often find their message is welcomed. They are skilled at presenting their faith in a positive light and in persuading the general public that words like jihad and shari‘a, have purely benign meanings. They also make good use of more familiar words like “freedom” and “equality” which actually carry different meanings in Islam but this is not clarified to the non-Muslim audience. They are working not only to make individual converts but also to change the worldview of Western societies as a whole to conform to Islamic beliefs and values. The Church – which should be able to recognize this challenge more easily than society at large can – has a vital role to stand in the gap and help Western society at large to protect its Judeo-Christian heritage and to re-attach itself to its long-forgotten spiritual roots in the Bible, roots which have formed and guided Western society so much more than is usually realized.
Basic theology
Definition of Islam
The term “Islam” is defined as follows: “The Arabic word ‘Islam’ simply means ‘submission’… In a religious context it means complete submission to the will of God.”6 Muslims sometimes claim that Islam means peace. It is true that both salam (peace) and islam (submission) come from the same root. But in Arabic a root can carry a variety of different meanings. The root S-L-M has eight or ten different “measures” or forms, each carrying different meanings, including to touch, to betray, to consent, to be safe. Form 1 leads to the noun salam (peace). Form 4 leads to the nouns islam (submission) and Islam (the religion).
Muhammad’s life
Muslims believe that Muhammad was the final prophet, after whom no other prophets will come. All previous prophets were only relevant for their time.
According to Islamic teaching, Muhammad (c. 570 – 632 AD) was an Arabian merchant who at the age of 40 began to receive a series of messages for mankind, which Muslims believe came from the angel Gabriel. (Christians will of course question whether the angel who announced the birth of Christ could 600 years later have brought a message so contrary to the teachings of Christ.) He and his early followers were mocked and persecuted in his home town of Mecca so they began to flee to Medina, with Muhammad himself finally joining them in 622. In Medina Muhammad set up an Islamic state, with himself as judge, ruler and military commander.7
The attitude of most Muslims to Muhammad is best described as veneration. This is a paradoxical aspect of Islam, a faith which in theory affirms the believer’s direct access to God without the need for any intercessor. Accordingly, Muhammad should be viewed by Muslims as simply a human channel for God’s revelation. In practice, however, Muhammad’s figure towers over Islam not just as its founder, but as the “perfect man” who was divinely inspired not only in his Qur’anic revelations, but in all his sayings and deeds, thus making his life normative for all times. “As a messenger he is the last and greatest, about whom the early messengers have predicted and who thus completes the process of revelation. He is therefore the Perfect Ideal for Mankind, the perfect servant of Allah and hence the most complete and ideally balanced manifestation of the attributes of Allah.”8 He is considered infallible, free from sin, and serves as the supreme example whom all Muslims are obliged to emulate in every small detail.
Muhammad is also seen as the intercessor with God who can change the divine decrees and admit those he intercedes for into paradise. Love for Muhammad (and his family) is strongly instilled into most Muslim children. Many Muslims, especially in the Indian subcontinent, hold that Muhammad was created from an eternal heavenly substance (Muhammadan light) that pre-existed with God. He is a logos-like figure similar to Christ – a sinless mediator and intercessor.
A main concern of Muslims is the person of Muhammad who must be protected from any criticism or slight. Protecting his honor is an obligation on all. Any suspected denigration of Muhammad immediately creates distur bances and riots in many Muslim countries and com munities, more so than blasphemy against God himself.
Scriptures
The Qur’an is a record of the exact words revealed by God through the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad. It was memorized by Muhammad and then dictated to his Companions, and written down by scribes, who cross checked it during his lifetime. Not one word of its 114 chapters, suras, has been changed over the centuries, so that the Qur’an is in every detail the unique and miraculous text which was revealed to Muhammad fourteen centuries ago.9
The original is believed by Muslims to be inscribed in Arabic on a tablet in heaven, hence the great reverence accorded to it and to the Arabic language. Islam has a similar concept of revelation to Mormonism.