Legacies & Hopes Shaping Muslim-Christian Relationship
A) Legacies:
+ Memory of historical supercession of Christian faith in the East & North Africa by the expansion of Islam in the 7th & 8th Century.
- The heartland of Tertullian, Cyprian & Agustine passed to
Islam.
- The Titular bishoprics
- The Haran al- Sharif in Jerusalem
+ The calligraphy of the grand Mosque (The first & many believe still the finest) is about Jesus as if serving notice by its splendor & motifs-the Holy City & its church of the resurrection now had a permanent presence sharing the skyline & monopolizing the rule.
+ Isa vs. Yasu' - one & yet not the same... The duality of the of the names deepens into the stress & tension of the prophet/saviour dichotomy, of the non-incarnational & the Incarnational understanding of Christ’s person significance.
+ The Qur'an disallows the suffering of Jesus & with it the elimination of the Eucharist & the whole structure of Christian worship, as well as the whole theological form of Christian faith.
+ The long tradition of Islam tolerance of the church & its faith in terms of a freedom to remain only & not the freedom to recruit.
+ The dhimmi status of the Christian minorities (the status of the protected people).
+ Freedom of movement of belief within the Islamic Empire was only into Islam.
+ The whole history of Crusades
+ More recently the situation has been still more embittered by the Christian involvement in that Western dominance of Muslim peoples politically & economically from the period of colonialism to the present - which Islam sees as a kind of aberration from the true course of Islamic history where power must always be in the hands of Muslims.
+ The lingering resentments & injustices are deep in the psyche of relationship.
* Therefore, with some form exceptions, there was no mutual openness between faiths, but only survival within supercession, and the steady accumulation of the instinct by which both faiths developed a sort of exclusivism of culture & identity around their inner focus of faith & rite drawing all things into a calculated otherness & reciprocal from which we now struggle so hardly to escape.
* All those legacies are familiar enough & part of our problem that is simply escaping from their tyranny over our spirits. Thus, we have steadily to school ourselves to resist & reject the habit of preferring suspicion to trust; Instinct to prefer familiar confrontation to venture into new relationship.
Why? Is it because despite these legacies of enmity & otherness. there are fascinating areas of common spiritual territory within a simple religious ancestry?
* Islam & Christianity, for all their historical antipathy, have profound community in truth.
* The quarrel between Islam & Christianity is squarely within a common ground of conviction about God & Man. Yet, there is often a strange affinity of thought inside these disputes...!
Examples:
1. S 4:172 declares that "Messiah will never scorn to be servant to God " (Lan Yastankif al-Masih an Yakuna 'abdan li-llah).
* The similarity of thought here with Philippians 2:6-8 is striking: “Gave no consideration to a seizure, namely that he should be equal with God, but he emptied himself & took a slave form & came to be in the likeness of men. "alla eauton ekenosen morphen doulou labon en homolomati anthropon genomenos".
Christian Tradition: Jesus does not hold "sonship "as a status at all cost to be preserved, clutched tight & jealously prized. On the contrary, sonship is fulfilled in being " of no reputation" and in "taking the form of a servant". In line with S.4: 172-- " the Messiah does not scorn to be servant, & never would..."
Islamic Tradition: S4: 172 is made the ground of the view that, therefore, Jesus--The Christ--servant, would never pretend to "Sonship". Clearly some pampered oriental sonship is in mind.
* The denominator of Servanthood is in common. But servanthood for Christian Tradition is the meaning of sonship but for Islamic tradition servanthood excludes sonship.
* The Christian reason for identifying "sonship" in Jesus - namely the will to self-expenditure, is the reason for denying it! Thus Christianity & Islam are united, we might say, in differing.
2) S.57: 27: Be the followers of Jesus... in whose hearts God has planted "compassion & mercy" ... Then it goes in, rather abruptly:" as for monasticism, they invented it. We did not prescribe it for them", all that God prescribed was” the desiring of the pleasing of God" (ibtiga'a ridwan lillah). This expression is very close to a basic NT idea most memorably expressed in the angel,s nativity song about "men of good will"
- It means " men whose good pleasure, what they delight in, is the good pleasure of God, - What God delights in". This is the characteristic of Mary (LK 1:28)"of being highly favored" “kecharitomene” of the believers as Paul describes is Phil. 2:13 " God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to obey his own purpose". Likewise in Col. 1:10, "You will be able to live as the Lord wants, and always do what pleases him".
- In Christian Tradition: Such “ desire of divine pleasing", i.e., this "co-inciding of will with will whereby man obeys God is, precisely, the purpose of monasticism. True in its concrete & historical reality, not all monasticism has been worthy of its meaning & vocation. But institutions surely, must be understood and assessed, not in terms of their aberrations, but of their intentions (though, truly the aberrations are within their responsibility).
- In Islamic Tradition: as in 4:172, The Qur'an would appear to reject the institution while stating in a most memorable phrase, precisely what the institution is about. It decries & dismisses monasticism on behalf of that very direction of the soul, by self discipline, into the divine pleasing, which is what those “ houses of prayer", admired & commended in S.24: 36, where divinely permitted to nurture and achieve. Thus the ground of the censure that antagonizes is the truth that is shared.
Our reason for citing those detailed instances:
1. This situation is the characteristic of the whole range of Muslim/ Christian issues in their essence.
2. The contra-Christian animus of Islam has Christian criteria -- "vice-versa".
3. Islamic reason for continuing Christian!
Reflection of this situation Mirrors: - God Transcendence - Human sacrament of nature. Theological abstract leads to nowhere. Concretely, what do we truly reckon when we say:
- " God is!”
- " God reigns!”
- " God loves!”
Why? It is out of that conviction - believed to be in history & experience that the doctrinal formulation derives. If doctrinal formulations are converted & contested as formulas prior to the mediation of the experiential meaning, we not only invite, or incite, contention, but we abandon the apostolic sequence of discovery & conviction.
What are the points of doctrinal formulas within the urgencies of our contemporary work? Is it, as some would say a cerebral abstraction, an intellectual indulgence, and a diversionary escapism, irrelevant to the harsh alternatives of war & peace, of poverty & malnutrition, of technology and alienated man?
Are there not far more urgent problem of development, of economic imbalance, of commercial exploitation, weighing down humanity which make such abstraction irrelevant or worse?
Will dialogue achieve anything unless it is closely related to the "criticism of earth” rather than the mysteries of heaven?
In our modern times, it is often said that religions divide. Maybe atheism, at least in operative terms, is what alone can unite us (secularity... being the only option)? This option is neither Islamic/Christian. Why? To let man be man... we must let God be God!
The problem lies in our credibility as believers! If believers are true & honest-- The theology is inseparable from its concrete practical liabilities. Islam has always understood itself amidst the world of Jahil as set for " Peace under God". It stood for a human order under the divine authority. How? Christianity-- understood itself in that kenosis. I.e., the measure of the divine stake in our humanity in one whom "does not scorn to be servant" - in the eternal son whose cross & passion redeem us all!
B. THERE ARE 5 KEY AREAS OF CONCERN IN THE ONGOING MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE
1. The need for a theological understanding of power.
- There is the danger of religion becoming tool of "nationalism” or being exploited by a government or party for narrow political ambition or perpetuation of the status quo.
2. The need for theological understanding of pluralism.
- Pluralism within and under the Shari'a...
- Pluralism in secular society...
- Social framework or actual social conditions...?
- Existing models of social, political & cultural pluralism
- The need for theological assessment in the search for new
concepts.
- The understanding of the concept of "co-citizenship".
3. The need for the renewed critique of religion.
- The modern understanding of religion...
- The radical theological reaction to the above...
- The theological criticism of political injustice...
4. The need for vigilance in Human Rights.
- Abuses of Human Rights...
- The international agreements/covenants...
- Claiming for one another basic human rights and liberties
including the freedom of religion.
5. The need to avoid stereotyping others & ourselves.
- The presumed weaknesses & failings of one side are contrasted
against the proclaimed ideals of the other.
- Examples:
3 tendencies of Christian stereotypes of Islam...
- Simplistic: Oversimplifying the complex realities.
- Essentialism: tends to cast Islam as a monolithic religion &
all Muslims as the same.
- Extremism: regards all Muslims as fundamentalists or
terrorists witH implication that they are dogmatic,
reactionary, anti-modernism, etc.
C. The Islamic Movements
1. The radical Islamic movement is often referred to as a movement of Islamic fundamentalists. Radical Islam rejects the very idea of western concept of nation-state and its promises. It is opposed to Islamic concept of the ummah, the universal Islamic community, which transcends local and regional differences and does not recognize national ones and whose existence can be guaranteed only by government based upon the shari'a.
2. The Islamic State movement is the striving to established a state governed in accordance with the Islamic law, shari'a. And since the Shari’a originates from divine revelation, it may not be developed or modified, but merely applied. Their application involves interpretation in particular cases and enforcement not legislation in the sense of innovative law making.
3. The ruler (khalifat) of the Islamic State is legitimate in so far as he ensures the application of the Shari’a and thereby preserves the moral order upon which the integrity of the community of believers depends. That is to say, that the Khalifa performs his functions within the legal parameters laid down in advance and immutable.
4. It is the common view of all radical Islamic movements that the true Islamic government was realized under the rule of the first four "rightly guided" caliphs: abu Bakr (632-634), 'Umar (634-644), 'Uthman (644-656) & 'Ali (656-661).
5. Radical Islam, in general, derives its inspiration from the "nahda" (renaissance), which is stimulated by the teachings of the salafiyya movement. The salafiyya movement preached a reformation of Islam on the basis of a return to a strict adherence to the Qur'an and the hadith...and thus the purification of the faith of all blameworthy innovations.
6. The reform movement (Islah) has its origin from the celebrated Egyptian reformer, Shayk Muhammad 'Abduh. Its principal purpose was to promote a reformed scripturalist and puritan Islam and the revival of Arabic language and culture.
7. The Da'wah movement in not to be understood simply as preaching crystallized around mission (da'i). It is a religious reform, which embraces all profane aspects capable of reinforcing the cohesion of the group. It feels itself to be invested with a mission of reform that leads necessarily into a mission of conversion from the necessity of commanding,, that which is proper and forbidding that which is reprehensible. This mission implies the jihad. This logic involves ultimately the exercise of political power. But the taking of power is not an explicit objective, for the first duty is the censorship of morals (hisba) and those who do not observe good morals are unbelievers to be combatted.
Fr. Eliseo “Jun” Mercado,Jr.,OMI
#Badaliyya_Philippines
February 2019
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