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Understanding Islam Theologically: A Christian Worldview Primer

Gregory Alan Thornbury, Ph.D. - Dean of the School of Christian Studies

When we speak,” wrote anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson on the influence of her parents on her life, “we echo many voices.”  In context, Bateson framed her comments about her own career within the broader picture of her famous parents Margaret Mead and George Bateson.  When we consider religious movements in general, we remember that by seeking to speak for the whole, many perspectives vie for a place in the definition.   In order for one to speak accurately about Islam in particular, one must recognize that Muslims see themselves as a family.  Families, of course, are notoriously diverse.  While the leading beliefs of Muslims may be summarized for a brief synopsis such as in the present paper, one needs to remember that a framework for interpretation and certain qualifications always guide one’s understandings of basic facts.  Historical, cultural, economic, and theological factors all play a role in understanding a particular religious worldview. 

Christians certainly appreciate the problems involved with identity.  The dizzying number of expressions of Christian belief (Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostals, et. al.) give us a better understanding of the difficulty involved in addressing Islam as a single phenomenon.  What Southern Baptist, for example, would feel comfortable with a non-Christian assuming that Pope John Paul II speaks for his local Baptist congregation?  Not all who take the name Christian bear witness precisely to the same confession.  The same is true for those who profess Islam.  Nonetheless, despite the diversity, certain theological beliefs and principles provide us with a boundary for understanding Islam. 

All professors of Islamic faith summarize their worldview with the following straightforward statement: “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle.”  This motto encompasses the foundation for all faithful Islamic theology: monotheism.  Monotheism is belief in only one God. For Muslims, Allah is the only God, and Allah is all-powerful, irresistible, and supreme.  Allah possesses total control over the universe and reveals himself to those whom he wills.

The Arabic root for the word Islam means “submission.”  Islam means total submission to the will of God as revealed through the Muslim holy book, the Qu’ran.  In Islam, idolatry is the worst possible offense to Allah.  

 

Background

            The history of Islam begins with the life of the prophet Muhammad.  Although detailed biographical facts about Muhammad’s life are somewhat limited, we do know that Muhammad was born in approximately 570 A.D., was orphaned while still a young child and labored as a poor, purportedly illiterate shepherd near the city of Mecca.[1]  While still a youth, Muhammad joined a caravan business owned by a woman named Khadija.  Although Khadija was considerably older than Muhammad, the two wed around 595 A.D.  When Khadija died, Muhammad subsequently took several wives.  Islamic tradition tells us that in approximately 610 A.D. Muhammad began receiving direct revelations from Allah through the angel Gabriel during the month of Ramadan.  Although the initial revelations purportedly unsettled Muhammad (he thought he might be going insane), another monotheistic prophet assured Muhammad he was not possessed by evil spirits (called jinn in Islam).  At this point, Muhammad came to believe he was the prophet of God, and claimed to receive revelations throughout his life. 

            Muhammad’s message of monotheism received considerable resistance from leaders and businessmen in his home city of Mecca who profited from those who traveled to Mecca to venerate the gods and purchase idols.  After years of tension between Muhammad and city leaders, the citizens of Yathrib, a city north of Mecca, invited Muhammad to arbitrate certain political disputes. Having fled Mecca, Muhammad’s leadership in Yathrib enjoyed tremendous success.  The city eventually changed its name to Medina (the city of the prophet) and began to follow Muhammad’s teachings regarding monotheistic worship.  Soon after these events, war broke out between Medina and Mecca.  In the decisive Battle of Badr (624 A.D.), the followers of Muhammad gained the upper hand militarily and eventually Muhammad gained political control over much of the Arabian peninsula.   He died in 632 A.D.[2]

 

The Theology of Islam

            Islam builds its entire doctrinal system upon the divine revelation claimed in the Qu’ran.[3] For the Muslim, the Qu’ran is the pure, untainted, direct and only final revelation concerning Allah/God and his desire for human beings. Because the Qu’ran was given in Arabic, the majority of Muslims claim that the Qu’ran either cannot be adequately translated into any other language, or that it should not be translated at all.  To the best of our knowledge, Muhammad never actually wrote down his revelations, but passed them on to his followers through the means of oral tradition.  A series of caliphs (leaders of Islam after Muhammad’s death) subsequently gathered and copied down the sayings in successive generations in a series of collections.  The sayings were then organized in 144 suras or chapters.

            The Qu’ran reveals that there are two basic paths to knowledge about Allah: positive information, gained from the text of the Qu’ran, about the person and character of Allah, and negative knowledge, which amounts to any portrait of Allah not explicitly approved by the Qu’ran.  Positively, ninety-nine names for God are given which, if recited, will gain a person entrance into Paradise.  Negatively, the Qu’ran disavows both Jewish and Christian conceptions of God as idolatrous paths which lead one to judgment.  The Qu’ran also gives information on the origin, nature and activity of angels, human beings, Satan, and the jinn (evil spiritual beings).

            The Qu’ran extends far beyond pure doctrinal assertions.  Since Islam views itself as a religion of submission, it proscribes certain actions and habits which characterize the faithful Muslim.  Although many different feasts, rituals, and observances are required of Muslims, five practices in particular compose “The Five Pillars of Islam.”  They are as follows:

1.       The Shahada: “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle.”

2.       Salat:                     Required prayer five times daily.

3.       Ramadan:              An observed month of fasting during the daytime.

4.       Zakat                     Almsgiving and charity to the poor.

5.       Hajj:                      The pilgrimage to Mecca.

 

Although the Qu’ran does not catalog the Five Pillars in order as listed above, subsequent traditions in Islam brought these requirements to the fore as the proof of a faithful Muslim’s expression of submission to Allah.  Islam is a religion which emphasizes law with a strict obedience to authoritative revelations and traditions.  The social and cultural context determines the particular expression of exactly what strict obedience to the Qu’ran and Islamic law means.  For example, the Islamic understanding of jihad (holy war) varies widely depending on the theological and social context.  Many Muslims see jihad as the war against the self which brings the individual person in submission to God.  On this view, no political or military violence is envisioned. Other Muslims see jihad through a temporal lens, and condone acts of violence in defense of Islamic rule.

In brief, there are fundamentalists (Shiite) and liberals (Sunni) within Islam.  A multitude of derivations stem from these two historic expressions.  Competing views regarding the interpretation of the Qu’ran define Islam historically.  As David F. Forte, Professor of Law at Cleveland State University has recently written,

Barely a quarter century after the death of The Prophet in A.D. 632, Islam was rent by a civil war between the adherents of the assassinated third Caliph, Uthman, and the partisans of Ali, the fourth Caliph.  The war eventually led to the division between Sunni and Shiite Islam.  As the question of political leadership of Islam was disputed, a philosophical and theological debate began that has never really ended.[4]

 

Differences Between Christianity and Islam

            Some attempt has been made within the modern “history of religions” movement to affirm the similarities between the three great living world religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  Because all three religions share an “Abrahamic” origin, or so the  argument goes, these three faiths exhibit complementary perspectives on God and the world.[5]  To make such a claim, however, is to do violence to the truth claims of all three religions, Christianity and Islam in particular.  While we might say that each religion claims common roots, we cannot say that any combination of the three contain finally reconcilable presuppositions.  The understandings of monotheism are fundamentally different.  Because it is the youngest of the three religions, Islam makes explicit its repudiation of Judaism and Christianity as adequate expressions of theistic belief.  One sura puts the matter this way:

They are unbelievers who say, “God is the Messiah, Mary’s son.”

Say: “Who then shall overrule God in any way, if He decides to destroy the Messiah, Mary’s son, and his Mother, and all those who are on the earth?

For to God belongs the kingdom of the heavens.

 

Say to the Jews and the Christians, “We are the sons of God and His Beloved Ones.”

Say: “Why then does he chastise you for your sins?

No, you are mortals, of His creating; He forgives whom He will, and He chastises whom He will.[6]

Elsewhere we read,

 

They are unbelievers, who say, “God is the third of three.”

No god is there but one God.

If they refrain not from what they say, there shall afflict those of them that

Disbelieve a painful chastisement.

Will they not return to God and pray his forgiveness?

God is all-forgiving, all-compassionate.

 

The Messiah, the son of Mary, was only a messenger;

Messengers before him passed away; his mother was just a woman; they both ate food.  Behold, how clear the signs we make to them; then, behold, how perverted they are!

 

Those who disbelieve, and cry lies

To our signs–they are the inhabitants of Hell.

            Although Islam views Jesus as one of the five great prophets in history, affirms the Virgin Birth, and generally holds a high view of Jesus, Islam denies that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God.[7]  For the Muslim, a re-explanation of the Mosaic law to national Israel comprised Jesus’ primary mission while on earth.  In addition, according to the Qu’ran, Jesus was never crucified, nor did he die, but he ascended directly to heaven by the power of God.[8]  For Muslims, equating Jesus with God commits the idolatrous fallacy of suggesting partners with God (called shirk, in Arabic).  These issues comprise but a few of the many divergences between Christianity and Islam.

The Islamic disavowal of the primary tents of Christianity demonstrates the fundamental incompatibility of the two religions as mutually reconcilable theologies.  Although one might argue that Islam and Christianity share common ground at the philosophical level (e.g. both affirm the reality of objective truth, the existence of one God, and a divinely mandated moral compass in living), the two faiths have basic and profound disagreements regarding the nature, person, and purpose of God in history.  Traditionally, both Christianity and Islam made claims to exclusivity, the idea that only one religious belief leads to salvation.  In an odd way, this shared belief in exclusivity serves as the most profound source of agreement between these two major world religions.  In affirming the unity of truth, historic Christanity and Islam mutually agree both faiths cannot be simultaneously right.

Conclusion

            Since the attacks on America on September 11, two equal but opposite erroneous perspectives have gripped the American public with respect to Islam.  In one view, the radical fundamentalist political and theological beliefs of the hijackers and those supportive of them have, in the minds of some, been superimposed upon Islam as a whole.  This is an unfortunate and tragic misunderstanding.  Another view sees all religions as equally viable paths to God, a belief commonly referred to as pluralism.  Advocacy of this position, however, does injustice to all but the most theologically permissive of Muslims and Christians. 

            In summary, profound theological differences separate Christianity and Islam at the level of presuppositions.  Both religions claim to represent accurately the truth about God and his revelation to human beings. Respect for Islam requires that we honor its historic repudiation of Christianity as a peer worldview.  Although political co-belligerence mandates that all Americans join together to defend the common good, freedom of religion also allows us to acknowledge true theological disagreements.  Christians who care about their own beliefs need to study the differences between Christianity and Islam, and to be prepared to answer the challenges which Islam brings to the Christian worldview.  As the apostle Peter once exhorted the Church, “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is within you.” (1 Pet. 3:15)