لطفا منتظر باشید ...
Al-Serat
Revelation
and Salvation
Towards
an Islamic View Of History
Mahmoud A. Ayoub
Islam is a conscious act of submission of the creature to the will of
the creator. I use the words 'conscious act' deliberately to distinguish
between inherent islam, which is the law of God for all created things
in nature, and voluntary islam, which is the human faith-commitment to
affirm the Oneness (tawhid) of God and obey His will. Faith and
obedience, however, presuppose knowledge and knowledge requires communication.
This communication of the divine will to humankind is what Islam calls
wahi, or revelation. Yet revelation is not simply the issuance of
edicts which must be unquestionably obeyed. It is rather a relationship
of intense involvement of God in human history and of man in the divine
challenge as God's viceregent (khalifa) in the earth. [1].
God, the Qur'an tells us, [2]
communicates to all creatures what we may call their instincts of survival.
He communicates through normative laws to the sun and the moon, to the
stars, and to day and night to follow a predetermined course and not to
overstep their limits. [3]
In this general sense, all things are 'muslims', submitters to the will
of God. This universal islam is presented in the Qur'an as a challenge
to man's willful rejection of faith. How would you, humankind, reject
faith in God when to Him have submitted all that is in the heavens and
on the earth voluntarily and by coercion? (3: 38). Thus what we term
the laws of nature, such as the law of gravity, are according to Islam
the ways in which nature expresses its islam to God.
Angels, like the rest of creation, are muslims by nature or, in some
sense, by compulsion. They lack the faculties which distinguish man as
a volitional being from the rest of creation. Angels cannot disobey God
or commit acts of evil and sin. I believe Satan was not an angel even though,
under the influence of Jewish and Christian tradition, some Qur'an commentators
and tradi- tionists have argued this only as a possibility. [4]
Nor is Satan's power to do evil beyond the divine will and decree. He is
simply given respite to the day when they (humankind) shall be raised
up (15: 28-35). Hence human evil-the only true evil in the world because
it is an act of voluntary choice can be overcome by divine guidance which
is the task of prophets, the recipients of divine revelation.
Islam insists, both in the Qur'an and prophetic, hadith tradition,
that every human being is born with an innate knowledge of God. This knowledge
is not so much awareness or information, rather it is a state of innocent
faith, a state (fitra) of the original creation expressed anew in
every child. 'Every child,' the Prophet is said to have declared, 'is born
in the (state) of fitra; then his parents make him into a Jew, a
Christian, or a Magian (i.e., Zoroastrian).' In another version of the
same tradition, the Prophet adds: 'And if (the parents) are Muslims, then
a Muslim.' [5]
The Qur'an states, even more precisely, that this state is the fitra
in which God created humankind, there is no changing of God's creation
(30: 30). Man is therefore created with a primitive but wholesome knowledge
of God. The role of the prophets is to guide humanity through revelation
to live the full implications of this knowledge.
History is, according to the Islamic view of revelation, the history
of God's dealing with humanity through His prophets. Yet revelation in
its primordial beginnings belongs to metahistory, the time when we were
all in the realm of atoms, ideas in the mind of God. On that primordial
day, the Qur'an states, God took from the children of Adam, from their
loins, their progeny and made them bear witness against themselves, saying:
'Am I not your Lord?' They answered: 'Yes, we hear and we witness'
(7: 172). This primordial act of divine revelation was the covenant which
God made with all human beings to 'hear and witness' to His absolute sovereignty
and lordship over all creation. The rest of human history continues to
echo, through the prophets whom God sent to every nation, this divine challenge.
History is, moreover, the stage on which we act out our response to this
primordial question.
In yet another Qur'anic verse we read: We have offered the trust
(amana) to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refuse
to bear it and cowered before it. Yet man bore it, for man is truly wrongdoing,
foolish (33: 75). This trust is, according to tradition, divine Oneness
with all the implications of this knowledge for human life and history.
Man is foolish not because he is unable to bear the trust he voluntarily
chose to bear, but rather because he continuously wrongs his own soul by
knowingly breaking his covenant with God through the sin of association
(shirk) of other things with Him, yet God is All-Merciful and Compassionate.
In His infinite mercy, He called man time and again back to Him. This He
did through a long series of prophets from Adam to Muhammad whose number
was, according to tradition, 124,000.
This divine insistence on our salvation through prophetic guidance implies
two important but paradoxical principles. It implies first that man is
a sinner, capable of great evil. The second principle is that man is nonetheless
God's viceregent in the earth whose ideal goal is prophetic existence.
These two principles are dramatically expressed in the Qur'anic portrayal
of Adam as the crown of creation before whom angels had to bow down in
respectful obeisance. In contrast, the Qur'an portrays Adam and Eve as
disobedient sinners begging for divine mercy and forgiveness. [6]
The story of Adam's creation, fall and restoration as related in the
Qur'an is an instructive commentary on the biblical account which the Qur'an
accepts in its broad outlines. When God decided to create Adam, He announced
to the angels: 'I am about to make a viceregent in the earth.' The
angels protested: 'Will you place in it one who would spread corruption
in it and shed blood while we proclaim Your praise and sanctify You?'
Then God told Adam all the names, which may be regarded as the first
act of divine revelation to man in history. God then challenged the angels
to name the things whose identities He revealed to His viceregent, but
they admitted their ignorance and sought God's mercy. 'Praise be to
you, we have no knowledge save that which You taught us....' Adam,
who was taught by God the art of language with all its symbolism, was higher
than the angels. Thus they were ordered to prostrate themselves before
him in veneration, not worship; they all did except Iblis (Satan) who
refused and was puffed up with pride (2: 30-34).' [7]
In an interesting colloquy between God and Satan, reported in the Qur'an,
we see both the reason for man's exultation and for Satan's pride. God
asks Iblis: 'What prevented you from prostrating yourself before one
whom I fashioned with my two hands . . . ?' Satan answered: 'I am
better than he; you created him of clay and created me of fire' (38:
75). [8]
Thus God expelled the arrogant Satan from his presence and placed Adam
in the garden of Paradise.
Adam, however, was made not for Paradise but for the earth. God therefore
gave Satan authority over Adam and his descendants in order that the eternal
battle between good and evil should rage on its legitimate stage, earth.
Adam was tempted by Satan with eternal life, everlasting dominion and angelic
existence. He fell and was sent with his spouse to the earth to exercise
their true mission, God's viceregency.
From the beginning, God created the human soul and inspired it with
its evil and piety (91:6-7). Thus man is as prone to evil and destruction
as he is to righteousness and good deeds. With this choice, however, go
sin and repentance, and forgiveness and guidance. Adam did disobey his
Lord, but then he received certain words from his Lord and He turned
towards him, for He is truly relenting, compassionate (2: 36). Thus
Adam sinned and was guided back to God by God through revelation. Adam
was both the first sinner but also the first prophet. Every man and woman
thereafter carries in him or herself the same potential. This is not to
say that every human being is a prophet, but that the goal of humanity
is life with God. Nowhere more powerfully and aesthetically has this ideal
been interiorized and presented than in the lives and works of the mystics,
the friends (awliya') of God, whom we call Sufis.
It has already been observed that every human individual is born in
the state (fitra) of innate faith in God as the one and only creator
and sovereign lord of all beings. What then, it must be asked, is the role
of the prophets in human history? Their role is twofold, first to remind
men of their covenant with God, or bring them back to the state of pure
faith. Man, according to the Qur'an, is a forgetful creature. The Qur'an
was sent, as were other scriptures, from God as a reminder. Indeed, one
of the many names of the Qur'an is al-Dhikr (the remembrance). The second
task of the prophets, or to be more precise, the prophet-messengers, is
to transmit divine precepts or moral imperatives which are to regulate
human conduct. In Islam, this is known as the shari'a, or sacred
law.
Islam distinguishes between a prophet and a messenger, and between these
and the righteous friends (awliya') of God. A prophet is one who receives
revelation in dreams and by other indirect means. He may be sent to only
a few people and for a specific purpose, or he may be a prophet in himself.
In contrast, a messenger is one who receives direct revelation through
an angel, or even more directly from God, as was the case with Moses. A
messenger, in addition, is a legislator. Every messenger (rasul)
is a prophet (nabi) but not every prophet is a messenger. This is
because the main distinction between the two rests not on revelation, but
on the promulgation and application of sacred laws based on revealed divine
principles.
Among the 124,000 prophets, tradition asserts that there were 313 messengers.
The Qur'an refers to eighteen, five of whom are known as ulu-al-'azm,
or messengers with power or resolve. These are: Noah, the father of humanity
after the Deluge; Abraham, the archetypal man of faith in the one God;
Moses, the recipient of the Torah; Jesus, the Word of God and His spirit
and the recipient of the Evangel; and Muhammad, the recipient of the Qur'an,
the seal of the prophets and last messenger to humankind. Moses and Muhammad,
however, occupy a special place in prophetic history because they were
prophets and statesmen. They did not simply transmit the message, they
implemented it in the life of a socio-political order.
Islamic tradition insists that God never left any community without
a warner, in order that men should have no argument or contention (hujja)
against God after the apostles (4: 165). The question was inevitably
asked: What becomes of humanity in times of prophetic interruption (fatra),
and even more seriously after prophecy has ceased altogether? Several answers
to this question have appeared in the form of minority sects in Islam,
some of which, like the Bahais, broke away completely from the community.
What may be termed the 'orthodox' Shi'i answer has been more or less tolerated
as a fifth way (madhhab) alongside the four official Sunni schools.
Based on a complex system of Qur'an exegesis and prophetic hadith
tradition, Shi'i Muslims early in the community's history posited another
cycle concentric with that of prophethood and extending beyond it. This
is the cycle of walaya, (authority or allegiance) or imama
(temporal and spiritual headship) of the Muslim community. The imams must
always be physical as well as spiritual heirs to the prophets. With the
exception of Jesus whose first heir or viceregent (wasi) was Simon
Peter, the imam must be a brother or descendent of the Prophet. The imam
may also be a prophet, as was the case of Abraham. [9]
But in general, the imamate is higher than prophethood and below apostleship.
The imam is the bearer of the knowledge of the prophet whom he succeeds
and by prophetic inheritance from one prophet to the next, the imam is
also heir to the knowledge of all previous prophets. His task is not to
promulgate new laws, rather it is to interpret, safeguard and implement
the shari'a of the prophet of whom he is the heir. Like prophets,
the imams must be protected (ma'sum) by God from error. They must
also manifest miracles as proof of their imamate.
The doctrine of the imamate no doubt evolved as part of the general
loyalty of an important segment of the Muslim community to 'Ali (the cousin
and son-in-law of the Prophet) and his descendents. As a result of complex
historical circumstances which cannot be considered here, the Shi'a (followers)
of 'Ali and devotees of the ahl al-bayt (household) of the Prophet Muhammad,
built an impressive philosophy of history and a tragic ethos around the
personalities of the imams. For the purpose of this discussion, it must
be observed that while the imams are not recipients of revelation, they
are muhaddathun (i.e., spoken to) by angels. [10]
More importantly, the imamate is a necessary extension of prophethood.
Without it, revelation remains unfulfilled beyond the time of the prophet
to whom the revelation was sent. Of course, Shi'i Muslims in all this had
the Qur'an in mind. But it was inevitable that a universal doctrine of
the imamate had to evolve to fit the Islamic universal doctrine of prophethood
and revelation. [11]
I spoke earlier of Abraham as the 'archetypal man of faith'. He exhibits
in the Qur'an and Islamic tradition a robust and dynamic personality. More
significantly, however, Abraham typifies man's spiritual journey from that
primal state (fitra) of innocent faith in God to doubt, then to
faith, and finally to absolute certainty. From a contemplative observation
at night of the universe around him, Abraham deduced that it must have
a lord. He first took the moon, on account of its splendour, to be that
Power. But the moon set and Abraham cried with disappointment: 'I do
not love those that set.' He then saw the sun, even more luminous and
of much greater magnitude. Abraham exclaimed: 'This is my lord, this
is greater!' But when the sun also set, he exclaimed: 'O my people,
I dissociate myself from what you do' (7: 76 8). Finally, in an outburst
of divine illumination, Abraham cried out: 'I turn my face to Him who
created the heavens and the earth, a man of pure faith, nor am I one of
the Associators [i.e., of other things with God]' (6: 79).
It was after this discovery of the truth by his unaided reason that
Abraham received revelation. He discovered God, as it were, then God guided
him and granted him the gift of prophethood, then chose him as His intimate
friend (khalil) and finally appointed him as the imam (leader) of
humankind. It is perhaps not fortuitous that Abraham, the father of prophets
and first muslim, left us no specific corpus of revelation. 'The scrolls
of Abraham' are mentioned in the Qur'an, [12]
but tradition asserts that they were lost. Abraham left no revelation of
his own because he belongs to all revelation. He is the hero and maker
of revelation-history rather than its guide. The mission of Muhammad and
the Qur'an was to call men to the pure (hanif) faith of Abraham,
who was neither a Jew nor a Christian but a man of pure faith, a muslim,
that is, a submitter to God. [13]
The Qur'an is, for Muslims, the final revelation to humankind. Before
discussing the nature of the Qur'an and its relationship to human history,
it may be well to say a word about the life and character of Muhammad and
the manner of the revelation of the Qur'an to him. Mecca before Islam was
a thriving commercial city in north Arabia lying on the trade route between
Syria in the west and south Arabia and India in the east. Mecca also housed
the ancient shrine of the Ka'aba, which was an important place of pilgrimage
and a lucrative source of income for the city. With the rise of material
wealth, morals declined so that sensitive men and women rejected the idolatry
of their society and its moral turpitude. They either turned to Judaism
or Christianity, or privately worshipped God in anticipation of a new prophet
who would usher in a new era. It was in this highly charged atmosphere
that Muhammad, son of 'Abd Allah, was born in 570 or 71 AD. Muhammad lost
his parents in infancy and was cared for by his grandfather, 'Abd al-Muttalib,
and when he died, he was cared for by his uncle, Abu Talib. Muhammad was,
according to tradition, a man of mild and contemplative nature. At the
age of 25, he married a rich widow, Khadija, who stood by him until she
died about ten years later. Khadija had a Christian cousin named Waraqa
b. Nawfal who may have been well-versed in scriptures. Tradition tells
us that Waraqa could read and write both Hebrew and Arabic and that he
read the Gospel in Hebrew and translated it into Arabic. At the beginning
of Muhammad's prophetic career when he was uncertain of the source and
nature of his revelation, he found great support in this Christian man
who on seeing him and hearing what he had to say, cried out: 'Holy, holy!
Verily by Him in whose hand is Waraqa's soul, . . . there has come unto
him the greatest Naimus (law) who came to Moses aforetime, and lo, he is
the prophet of this people.' Soon, however, Waraqa died. [14]
Every year, we are told, Muhammad used to leave his home during the
month of Ramadan for Ghar Hira, a cave on a mountain outside Mecca. There
he spent his nights in devotion and contemplation until one day an angel
appeared to him, later identified as Gabriel, the angel of revelation,
who communicated the first five verses of the Qur'an: (1) Recite in
the name of your Lord who created (2) created man from a blood clot.
(3) Recite, for your Lord is most magnanimous, (4) Who taught
by the pen. (5) He taught man that which he knew not (95: 1-5).
After a brief interruption, revelations continued to come, warning the
Meccans of the coming day of judgement and calling them to moral righteousness
and the worship of the one and only God. (1) Have you considered him
who cries lies to the faith? (2) It is he who repulses the orphan;
(3) nor does he urge the feeding of the needy. (4) Woe to them
that pray, (5) but are negligent in their prayers; (6) they
who act hypocritically, (7) and withhold the utensil (102).
In this brief sura of the Qur'an is expressed the entire message of the
Book. The message is to have faith in God and manifest this faith through
worship and good works.
In Mecca, this message was couched in a powerful, eschatological language.
When, however, the Prophet and a small band of his followers migrated to
Medina in 622 AD, the message was expressed in normative moral and religious
precepts necessary for the regulation of a socio- political and religious
community. These norms were to provide the primary source of Muslim sacred
law, the shari'a. By the time the Prophet died in 10 AH/632 AD,
all the fundamentals Islam and its rites of worship were instituted. In
one of the last verses of the Qur'an to be revealed, God says: I have
perfected your religion for you; I have completed my favour towards you,
and have accepted Islam as a religion for you (5: 3).
The Qur'an was revealed over a period of twenty-two years during Muhammad's
prophetic career, first for twelve years in Mecca as a warner and preacher,
then the remaining ten in Medina as a warner, preacher, prophet, and statesman.
Thus we can see how the Qur'an is intimately related to the life of an
actual society. Yet the Qur'an is also the transcendent Word of God, preserved
from eternity in the well-guarded tablet (85: 21-2). It is at once
a book of guidance sent down by God through the angel Gabriel, who actually
taught it to Muhammad, and a numinous power sent down upon your (Muhammad's)
heart (26: 194). Two modes of revelation are described by tradition.
The first is the direct communication by the angel to the Prophet who then
dictated the verses or suras to scribes as he did not know how to read
or write. The second mode is a sound which the Prophet heard in his ears,
while in a trancelike state, a sound like the ringing of a bell. 'This,'
the Prophet said, 'was the hardest for me to bear.' [15]
This is the Qur'an in its primordial essence, unfettered by human sounds
and letters. It is the Qur'an as it is 'in the Mother of the Book,' the
archetypal source of revelation.
The Qur'an is, for Muslims, the literal and timeless divine Word which
entered our time. It became a book which Muslims write down, memorize,
recite, and live by. The Qur'an is therefore analogous to Christ in Christianity,
who is the eternal Logos that was made flesh and dwelt among us
(John 1: 14). Yet with this similarity, there is an essential difference.
Christ is God's self-revelation or disclosure through incarnation. Hence,
the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1: 1). The Qur'an,
on the other hand, is the revelation of God's will and purpose for humanity.
Although the Qur'an shares in divine transcendence, God remains the wholly
other, absolutely transcendent lord over his entire creation. This crucial
difference has, as we shall see, set the two communities of faith far apart,
thus making any meaningful dialogue between them a hard challenge to the
principles of love and tolerance which are basic to the faith of both communities.
The analogy of the Qur'an with Christ may be carried a step further
into the history of Muslims and Christians. The christological controversies
which so intensely engaged the Fathers of the early Church were paralleled
in early Muslim history by theological controversies regarding the createdness
or eternity of the Qur'an. In both cases, the issue was the relationship
of the revelation to the revealer, and hence the fear of compromising the
unity and transcendence of God. Furthermore, as the Church has through
the ages been occupied with the humanity of Christ, so have Muslims been
occupied with the question of earthliness, or humanity, of the Qur'an.
In my view, neither community has been able to recognize the full implication
of the humanity of the revelation even though in both cases the man Jesus
and the earthly Qur'an have imposed themselves so powerfully on our history
and theology.
For Muslims, this is clear from the fact that the Qur'an followed the
course of their formative history with an amazing intimacy. It dealt with
the community's hopes and failures; it consoled the Prophet and his people
and reproached them. Of even greater significance has been the fact that
many of its verses were revealed in answer to specific problems or questions
of individual Muslims. Thus the occasions or reasons (asbab) of
the revelation (nuzul) of the Qur'an has become an important branch
of the sciences of the Qur'an.
Having considered the Islamic view of revelation as it relates to the
Qur'an, we shall now consider more specifically the Qur'anic view of previous
revelation. The Qur'an asserts that to every nation or community God sent
an apostle to convey to them the message of his lord in their own tongue.
Thus what has been said regarding the Qur'an applies to all scriptures.
They were all with God, preserved in a celestial archetype which the Qur'an
calls umm al-kitab (Mother of the Book). The truth they contain is, moreover,
one and the same: to have faith in God alone and not associate any other
thing or being with Him, to worship God, and to do good works. Differences,
when they exist, are simply due to the variety in human culture and historical
circumstances. Each messenger had to let the message entrusted to him by
God speak the truth as it relates to the condition of his people. It may
be further argued that inasmuch as all the major revelations are meant
for humanity in the various stages of its progress, revelation must also
be progressive so as to speak meaningfully to the human condition at every
stage of its history. Thus details relating to laws of sanction and prohibition
in one revelation could be changed or abrogated by a subsequent one. Jesus
thus claims in the Qur'an, 'I have come to make lawful for you (the
Jews) some of the things that were unlawful' (3: 50). This process,
however, stopped with the Qur'an. Thereafter men are to understand and
apply the precepts of this final revelation in their lives. Henceforth
God's guidance will be through inspiration and not revelation.
The Qur'an deals only with the Torah of Moses and the Gospel of Jesus
as specific instances of revelation. Christians and Jews are called 'people
of the book,' an appelation which applies indirectly to Muslims as
well: Say, O people of the book, come to a common word [of agreement]
between you and us that we worship no one beside God ... (3: 64). The
Qur'an further asserts that in the Gospel ... there is guidance and
light (5: 44). Let therefore the people of the Gospel judge in accordance
with what was revealed in it, the Qur'an enjoins (5: 47). The Qur'an
further challenges Muhammad and the Jews who came to ask him to judge among
them, How could they make you a judge over them when they have the Torah
in which is the judgement of God? (5: 43).
If the Torah, the Gospel and the Qur'an are one in their message and
purpose, they why are they so different in reality and why are the three
communities of faith in such discord among themselves? These differences,
the Qur'an asserts, are due to the fact that some of the Jews and Christians
have willfully altered words from their rightful places (4: 46).
This accusation of tahrif (altering or distorting) by the Jews and
the Christians of their own sacred books has played an unfortunate role
in Muslim-Jewish-Christian polemics. The problem of tahrif is a
very complex one which cannot be discussed in this general essay. It must
be observed, however, that the Qur'an seems to suggest that such alteration
or distortion was more of the interpretation or meaning rather than the
actual text of the Torah and Gospel. An example of this misinterpretation
is the verses in both scriptures referring to the coming of Muhammad and
which were given different interpretations by the scholars-priests and
rabbis of the two communities. [16]
Another and even more serious example of Christian misinterpretation of
the message and personality of Christ is their assertion that Christ is
God or the Son of God. [17]
All this notwithstanding, the Qur'an still leaves much room for dialogue
and amity among the faithful of the three communities. It was unfortunately
not the scriptures of the three communities that were called upon to judge
and decide among their people; but rather political, economic, and military
exigencies were to determine the relations among Muslims, Christians and
Jews.
The Qur'an never criticized the faith of Christians and Jews, or Judaism
and Christianity as such. Rather it always qualifies its statements with:
Some among the people of the book . . . or a group of the people of
the book ..., and so on. Later tradition could not be satisfied with
such an open relationship. Thus tahrif was taken to mean an actual
change of the text of the scriptures through interpolations and deletions.
In an interesting, hadith the Prophet says: 'Do not believe the
people of the book nor disbelieve them. Rather say, we believe in that
which was sent down to us.' [18]
This ambivalence towards the people of the book is even less apparent in
the Qur'an. In several places the Qur'an invokes previous scriptures and
their people to argue for its own claim to authenticity. Thus the Qur'an
addresses Muhammad: If you are in doubt concerning that which we have
sent down to you, then ask those who have been reading the book before
you ... (10: 194). The Qur'an similarly enjoins the Muslims: Ask
the people of remembrance (ahl al-dhikr) if you do not know (16: 43).
The people of remembrance are the people of the scriptures which the Qur'an
often designates as the Remembrance. [19]
Every religious tradition, or at least the three with which we are here
concerned, must in the end see itself as in some way the last word of divine
truth or revelation to humanity. Islam adopted an open and unique attitude
to previous religious traditions and their revelations, an attitude made
necessary by the Islamic view of history as revelation-history. Since revelation
ceased with the Qur'an, and apostleship with Muhammad, Islam has seen itself
as the final confirmation and fulfillment of all previous revelations.
By dint of geographic and cultural proximity of the Muslim community to
Christians and Jews, this openness and challenge had to be directed at
the people of the book. Thus it was inevitable that conflict would arise.
The Qur'an sees itself not only as dependent for its own claim to authenticity
on the Torah and the Gospel, but also as 'confirming' the truth which they
contain and superceding them. This view which the Qur'an holds of itself
and the attitude it evinced within the Muslim community of Medina led to
sharp and tragic conflict with the well-established Jewish community. This
in turn resulted in open hostility on both sides.
The Qur'an exhibits greater hostility towards the Jews than towards
the Christians but here again it may be argued that this hostility was
directed towards the Jews of Medina with whom the Prophet and early Muslim
community had many political and economic problems. The Qur'an admits the
favour of God towards the children of Israel and their covenant with Him,
but rejects the Jewish notion of chosenness and exclusivity. This problem,
I believe, is older than Islam. It was quite prevalent in the earlier culture
of the Syro-Aramaic Near East and is reflected even in the Gospel. [20]
The contrast between the Qur'anic treatment of the Jews and Christians
may be best seen in a late verse revealed in the context of much Jewish-Muslim
conflict in a still nascent and imperiled
Muslim community. The verse reads: You would find the greatest of
hostility among men towards those who have faith to be Jews and those who
have associated (other things with God); and you would tind the nearest
of them in love towards those who have faith to be those who say, 'We are
Christians.' This is because there are among them pastors and monks; nor
do they act arrogantly (5: 82). But by the Jews, the Qur'an intended
those of Medina, and by the Christians those of Abyssinia and their legendary
king, al-Najashi (Nagus), who received Muslims well when they had to flee
Mecca in the first Muslim migration. [21]
Every sacred book, be it the Qur'an, Torah or Gospel, is open to many
kinds of interpretation in accordance with our increased knowledge of one
another and the historical circumstances which we together share. The ancient
biblical promise to the Jews of Zion has been interpreted both spiritually
and politically. The political ramifications of that interpretation are
still very much with us. Likewise, the Gospel parable of the king's wedding
feast [22]
gave St. Augustine scriptural authority to argue for the compulsion of
the Donatist back to the Church even if coercion were necessary. Sufis
have often interpreted the Qur'anic verses enjoining the faithful to strive
in the way of God with the sword to mean striving against the evil in one's
own heart and soul with the sword of truth. They found clear support in
prophetic hadith for this view which called the jihad against
the carnal soul 'the greater jihad.' The Qur'an also distinguishes
between the jihad in the way of God and jihad in God, where
God says: And those who strive in Us, We shall guide them to our ways
(29:69). The ways of God are designated by another verse as the ways
of peace (51:16).
The ancient divine promise of guidance in the face of evil and sin was
made not only to Adam and his spouse but to all their progeny after them.
Guidance in Islam is analogous to the Holy Spirit in Christianity. God
will still guide those who seek peace to understand His revelations and
learn from them. In our world of great possibilities for a better life
of health and plenty or total devastation, we need to interpret our scriptures
in ways that promote a meaningful dialogue which would lead to a true fellowship
of faith. He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the
Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk
humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8 (RSV)). You will know the truth
and the truth will make you free (John 8:32). ... Guidance shall
come from me to you, and whoever follows My guidance, no fear shall come
upon them, nor will they grieve (2:38).
Notes:
[1]
See 2: 30.
[2]
See 16:68.
[3]
See 36: 40.
[4]
See Ayoub, The Qur'an and its Interpreters, 1, New York: SUNY Press,
1983, ad 2: 30-34.
[5]
Sahih Muslim, 3rd ed.. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr. 1398/1978. XVI, 210
[6]
See Ayoub, op. cit., 1, ad 2:30-38.
[7]
See the previous footnote.
[8]
See also 7: 12.
[9]
See 2:123.
[10]
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kulayni al-Razi, Al-Usul
min al-kafi, 3rd ed., Tehran: Dar al-Kutub al-lslamiyya. 1388, I, 174
6.
[11]
For a useful summary of the doctrine of the imamate, see M. Ayoub, Redemptive
Suffering in Islam: a Study of the Devotional Aspects of 'Ashura' in Twelver
Shi'ism, The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978, pp. 5348; and Henri Corbin,
'De la philosophie prophetique en Islam Shi'ite', Eranos Jarbuch,
xxx (1962), 49-1 16
[12]
See 82:18-1 9
[13]
3:67. On Abraham in the Islamic tradition see Kenneth Cragg, The Privilege
of Man, London: University of London, Athlone Press, 1968, ch. 3; and
Youakim Moubarac. Abraham dans le Coran, Paris: Librairie Philosophique
J. Vrin, 1958.
[14]
A. Guillaume. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaqs
Sirat Rasul Allah. 3rd ed.. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1970,
p. 170.
[15]
'Imad al-Din Abu 'l-Fida' Isma'il b. Kathir, Al-sira al-nabawiya,
Beirut: Dar al-Ma'rifa, 1396/1971, I, 421.
[16]
See Guillaume, op. cit., p. 103; and Ali b. Rabban al-Tabari, Al-din
wa'l dawla, 3rd ed., Beirut: Dar al-Afaq al-Jadida, 1979. (The book
has also been translated into English under the title Religion and the
Empire.)
[17]
See Q. 5:17, 73. and 116.
[18]
Sahih al-Bukhari, Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, n.d., v, 150.
[19]
See 15:9 and 21: 105
[20]
See J. Spencer Trimingham, Christianity among the Arabs in Pre-Islamic
Times, London: Longman, 1979, pp. 41 49. See also Matt 3: 9.
[21]
See Guillaume. op. cit., pp. 146-50.
[22]
See Luke 14:16-24
