LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

General Editor: Professor John Hick, Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, University of Birmingham

This series of books explores contemporary religious understandings of humanity and the universe. The books contribute to various aspects of the continuing dialogues between religion and philosophy, between scepticism and faith, and between the different religions and ideologies. The authors represent a correspondingly wide range of viewpoints. Some of the books in the series are written for the general educated public and others for a more specialised philosophical or theological readership.

Selected titles

Margaret Chatterjee GANDHI'S RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Dan Cohn-Sherbok ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY JUDAISM

Dan Cohn-Sherbok (editor) ISLAM IN A WORLD OF DIVERSE FAITHS

Clement Dore GOD, SUFFERING AND SOLIPSISM

Harold Hewitt (editor) PROBLEMS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

J. Kellenberger INTER-RELIGIOUS MODELS AND CRITERIA

Carl Olson THE THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF ELlA DE

Alan G. Padgett GOD, ETERNITY AND THE NATURE OF TIME

Joseph Runzo REASON, RELATIVISM AND GOD

Joseph Runzo (editor) IS GOD REAL?

Arvind Sharma A HINDU PERSPECTIVE ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

Norman Solomon JUDAISM AND WORLD RELIGION

Melville Y. Stewart THE GREATER-GOOD DEFENCE: AN ESSAY ON THE RATIONALITY

OF FAITH

Jonathan Sutton THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV

Roger Teichmann ABSTRACT ENTITIES

Donald Wiebe BEYOND LEGITIMATION

Richard Worsley HUMAN FREEDOM AND THE LOGIC OF EVIL

Islatn in a World of Diverse Faiths

Edited by

Dan Cohn-Sherbok Lecturer in Jewish TheolOKY

University of Kent, VisitinK Professor of Judaism

University of Wales, Lampeter and

VisitinK Professor of Interfaith DialoKue University of Middlesex

© Dan Cohn-Sherbok 1991, 1997

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world

First edition 1991 Reprinted 1997

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.

10 9 8 7 6 5 06 05 04 03 02 01

4 3 2 I 00 99 98 97

Published in the United States of America 1997 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010

ISBN 978-0-333-69067-3 ISBN 978-1-349-25324-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-25324-1

ISBN 978-0-312-05348-2 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-312-16597-0 (pbk)

For John Ferguson In Memoriam

Contents

Preface to the 1997 Reprint

Acknowledgements

Notes on the Contributors

Introduction

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Islam and Christian Monotheism John Hick

Incarnation and Trialogue Dan Cohn-Sherbok

Idolatry and Religious Faith Rex Ambler

The Qur'an and Revelation Yaqub Zaki

Progressive Revelation and Religious Uncertainty Dan Cohn-Sherbok

The Political Implications of Revelation Norman Solomon

The Qur'anic Conception of Apostleship Hasan Askari

Stereotyping Other Theologies Norman Solomon

Jesus and Mohammad John Hick

vii

ix

X

xi

XIII

1

18

33

41

55

72

88

104

114

Contents viii

10 The Prophet Mohammad in Christian Theological Perspective 119 David Kerr

11 Religion and Society: The Example of Islam 134 Muhammad Arkoun

12 Religion and State 178 Hasan Askari

13 The Abrahamic Ummah 188 Ahmed Shafaat

Index 201

Preface to the 1997 Reprint

When this book was first published in 1991, the West had become increasingly conscious of the Islamic faith. On television and in newspapers and magazines Islam was depicted as playing a central role on the world stage. Over the last few years, the Islamic presence has become even greater. Yet, there is still considerable confusion and misunderstanding about the nature of Islam - few Westerners are able to relate Islamic teachings to their own traditions. Hence this collection of essays continues to be highly relevant: for those seeking to make sense of the Islamic heritage in relation to their own religious tradition, it should prove an indispensible guide.

Of primary importance in this volume is the issue of religious pluralism. If the Qur'an is the literal word of God, is there room for dialogue between Islam and the world's faiths? Some contributors to this book contend that the Islamic faith is grounded in beliefs that are absolute; as a consequence, there is little point to interfaith encounter. Yet the majority of writers -Jewish, Christian and Muslim - maintain that recent theological developments in their respective faiths provide a new basis for fruitful exchange. What is now required, they believe, is an attitude of openness so that the adherents of the three great monotheistic traditions will be able to engage in a mutual quest for religious truth. In the view of one Muslim contributor, these three faiths need to form one single ummah. This, he argues, was Mohammad's goal- to draw these three religions together, united in the worship of the one true God. In our troubled and war-torn world, this vision of Shalom among the nations is of the greatest urgency as we stand on the threshold of the next millennium.

DAN COHN-SHERBOK

ix

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the contributors to this book for giving permission at the conferences for their presentations to be pub­lished in a single volume. I would also like to acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor David Kerr for his help in preparing an initial collection of conference papers which was printed privately with the assistance of the Edward Cadbury Trust, who have also generously paid for the typing of this manuscript. Thanks are also due to the Selly Oak Colleges for hosting the conferences, and to Annabelle Buckley and Charmian Hearne of Macmillan for their help and encouragement.

X

Notes on the Contributors

Dr Rex Ambler teaches philosophical and practical theology at the University of Birmingham. He has published Global Theology, and The Relevance of Gandhi in the West.

Professor Muhammad Arkoun is Professor of History and Islamic Thought at the University of the Sorbonne. He is the author of numerous works about Islam.

Professor Hasan Askari was formerly professor at Selly Oak Col­leges, Vrije University of Amsterdam, the American University of Beirut, and Osmania University.

Rabbi Professor Dan Cohn-Sherbok teaches Jewish theology at the University of Kent at Canterbury and is Visiting Professor of Judaism at the University of Wales, Lampeter, and Visiting Professor of Interfaith Dialogue at the University of Middlesex.

Professor John Hick was formerly Danforth Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Claremont Graduate School. He is the author of numerous works in the field of the philosophy of religion including An Interpretation of Religion and is the General Editor of Macmillan's Library of Philosophy and Religion.

Professor David Kerr was formerly the Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian Muslim Relations at Selly Oak College, and Professor of Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary. He is currently a professor at the University of Edinburgh.

Dr Ahmad Shafaat was born in Pakistan and taught at universities in Canada and Saudi Arabia. He has published numerous articles in the fields of mathematics and Islamic Studies.

Rabbi Dr Norman Solomon was formerly Director of the Centre for the Study of Judaism and Jewish Christian Relations at Selly Oak College and currently teaches at Oxford University.

Dr Yaqub Zaki, also known as James Dickie, was born in

xi

xii Notes on the Contributors

Scotland and is a graduate of the Universities of Glasgow, Barcelona, and Granada. He has taught at the Universities of Manchester, Lancaster and Harvard.

Introduction

In recent years Islam has played an increasingly central role in world affairs. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the revolution in Iran, hostilities in the Middle East, the Salman Rushdie affair and the war against Iraq have all highlighted the presence of the Islamic faith and its millions of adherents around the globe. Yet despite these events, thoughtful observers are often mystified how to relate Islam to their own religious traditions. This volume seeks to offer a remedy to this situation by providing a framework for understanding Islam in a world of diverse faiths.

The contributors to this collection participated at conferences sponsored by the Edward Cadbury Trust and hosted by the Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham, England, where Muslims, Christians and Jews explored the issues raised by contemporary religious pluralism. At these sessions there quickly developed a spirit of mutual trust among all the participants. As members of the Abrahamic family of faiths, participants came to perceive the necessity of three-sided encounter in attempting to make sense of Islam in modem society.

As will be seen, the contributions themselves raise a number of central issues concerning Islam in relation to Judaism and Christianity. First, various writers wrestle with the problem of religious exclusivism and absolute truth claims. In his study of Islam and Christian monotheism in chapter 1, Professor John Hick draws attention to recent developments within Christian theology concerning the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incar­nation. According to Hick, it is now possible to understand traditional Christological doctrines as theological theories rather than divinely revealed truths. This means that theological beliefs in Christianity - and for that matter in all religious faiths - are not immutable. Instead they must be reconstructed in each cultural epoch. As for Christianity, the traditional concept of the Trinity was developed to safeguard the belief in the deity of Christ, a conviction which entails the superiority of the Christian faith. But in light of contemporary liberal Christian theology, such a view is no longer tenable. Today Christianity must be understood as one religion among many, and this leaves the way open for genuine dialogue with Islam as well as other religious traditions.

xiii

xiv Introduction

This new vtston of religious pluralism is echoed in Rabbi Professor Dan Cohn-Sherbok' s discussion of Incarnation and dialogue in chapter 2. Like Hick, he advocates a liberal inter­pretation of traditional Christological doctrines; such a re­interpretation, he believes, more accurately takes into account the nature of religious truth. In the past the belief that Jesus was literally God Incarnate served as a major obstacle to positive Jewish-Christian dialogue. What is required in the modem world is for Christians as well as Jews and Muslims to free themselves from absolutist claims about the nature of God. If this were accomplished, the three great monotheistic faiths would be in a position to engage in fruitful interfaith relations. In this regard, he gives examples (in the spheres of symbolism, worship, ritual, ethics, pilgrimage, nationhood and society) of the ways in which such trialogue could develop. Such encounter, he maintains, is increasingly important as religions are forced to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

In his discussion of idolatry and religious faith in chapter 3, Dr Rex Ambler argues along similar lines. There is, he believes, a tendency in all religions to regard the medium by which truth is revealed Js truth itself. Such an attitude is tantamount to idolatry .. When adherents use their own religious doctrines as a basis for evaluating reality with their own limited understanding, this is the essence of idolatry, and believers must guard against the sin of worshipping images of God instead of God himself. Thus representations of the divine in the monotheistic faiths must be regarded as relative and provisional rather than as absolute and final. The true God, Ambler maintains, is not tangible; He cannot be thought about with confidence. As an eternally elusive being, God invites trust, acceptance and submission, and such faith is grounded in the experience of the impenetrable mystery of ultimate reality.

A second issue discussed in this collection concerns the status of revelation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In chapter 4, Dr Yaqub Zaki outlines the nature of progressive disclosures and periodical reaffirmation in the Islamic tradition. Prophethood and Scripture, he notes, are the twin vehicles of revelation -both testify to the truth of the Muslim faith. The Qur' an itself is the transcript of the celestial archetype, and is unassailable from the standpoint of literary or textual criticism. Thus the Qur' an should be understood as the literal word of God, uncreate, and

Introduction XV

co-eternal with Him. As a divine utterance, it transcends all human speech and partakes of the essential nature of the divine. Such an orthodox conception of revelation is far removed from the liberal approaches adopted by the first three chapters of this book. Instead of regarding religious conceptions as limited products of human reflection, Zaki contends that Islamic faith is grounded in beliefs which are absolute and final.

An alternative approach to revelation is presented by Professor Cohn-Sherbok in his discussion of progressive revelation in Judaism in chapter 5. Parallel with Islam, traditional Jews view Scripture as of divine origin. The implication of this belief is that everything which is contained in the Torah is immutable. Thus, the Five Books of Moses serve as the bedrock of the Jewish faith, and Sinaitic revelation is also understood as embracing the oral law consisting of interpretations and amplifications of the written Torah which Moses passed on to those who followed him. Progressive Judaism, however, has rejected this conception of an infallible chain of tradition and has substituted a belief in evolutionary divine disclosure whereby God is conceived as conveying enough of His truth which is sufficient for each generation. The difficulty with this model of divine revelation is that it paves the way for individualism and creates great uncertainty about which Jewish laws should be retained in modern times. This altered conception raises questions which are of equal significance for Muslims as well as Christians in a world where the absolutes of the past have vanished.

Turning from a consideration of the nature of revelation, Rabbi Dr Norman Solomon in chapter 6 examines the logic of the pro­cedures by which political theories or decisions may be related to divine revelation. As he illustrates, it is not logically possible to make valid inferences from scriptural texts to specific decisions or general theories. Thus, it is important to recognise that in seeking to define the attitude of a faith to a particular problem, it is logically necessary to call upon the resources of a tradition as well as general philosophical assumptions. Further, a tradition of faith cannot be totally committed to any definite political system, although it can be shown to conform with certain aspects. Moreover, the adherents of a religion with sacred texts must take care not to equate contemporary events with those written in Scripture. In light of these observations Jews, Christians and Muslims must handle their Scriptures carefully, and be careful

xvi Introduction

not to draw decisions and theories from revelatory texts in an unwarranted fashion.

A third issue raised in this collection concerns the conception of apostleship. As Professor Hasan Askari points out in chapter 7, the Qur' an offers a framework for understanding the concept of apostleship in the Abrahamic faiths. In Qur'anic prophetology, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus are supreme examples of God's apostleship, and it is necessary for Muslims to bear witness to all the apostles who are mentioned in the Qur'an. The Qur'anic conception of risala (apostleship) is comprehensive to all human communities, and God must be understood as sending his apos­tles to all lands. The Islamic conception of apostleship thus serves as an important framework within which fruitful Jewish-Christ­ian-Muslim encounter can take place, and it has the potential to include in its conceptual scheme other apostles and saints of God outside Biblical and Qur'anic prophetology.

In his discussion Professor Askari attempts to formulate a basis for positive religious dialogue free of religious bias. Yet prejudice has in the past all too often prevented fruitful encounter. As Dr Solomon explains in chapter 8, this frequently results from stereotyping other people's beliefs. On the basis of an analysis of several cases, he illustrates how self-definition vis-ii-vis another religion incurs the risk not only of caricaturing the other religion, but also distorting one's own. Searching for differences between religions is, he believes, ultimately a superficial exercise, given the complexity of each religious tradition. What is required instead is to engage in joint explorations free from self-definition and apologetics. Enriched by the resources of our different faiths, it is possible to confront constructively the practical and theoretical problems that beset all religious-minded people today.

A fourth issue raised in this volume concerns the perception of Mohammad in non-Islamic faiths. In chapter 9, Professor Hick compares Mohammad with Jesus. These two religious figures, he believes, point to two aspects of religious truth. The first is the transforming claim of God upon the individual, thereby creating a redeeming community of saints. The second is the claim of God upon society as a whole with laws which take account of sinners as well as the faithful. Jesus' own life, he contends, embodied the first aspect, but the second quickly entered into Christianity beginning in the New Testament and becoming dominant within Christendom. Thus Jesus was a pure pacifist, while the church

Introduction xvii

became a patron of wars. Mohammad, however, was never a pacifist, although he did attempt to moderate the savagery of war. From the first, Qur' anic teaching embodied the call to surrender to God and the demand for a well-regulated society. Thus both faiths have constituted comparable mixtures of the ideal and the all-too-human. Such a recognition of these affinities should serve as the basis for profitable dialogue between Christianity and Islam in place of suspicion and mistrust.

In the next chapter Professor David Kerr also calls for a sympathetic Christian understanding of the prophet Mohammad. In the past Christians as well as Jews engaged in polemics against Islam. Today, however, in a world of religious pluralism, it is possible to acknowledge that God's revelation is evidenced universally in nature and human history. According to Kerr, God has left no people without witnesses to His divine revelation. Thus the Church should search for God's presence in the many extra-Biblical testimonies of divine activity. Within this context Christians should respond to Mohammad's prophethood and commit themselves to work together with Muslims - as well as all other human respondents to the universal divine revelation­in order to bring about the realisation of God's rule on earth.

A final issue explored in this collection covers the relation between Islam and society. In chapter 11, Professor Muhammad Arkoun explores the present understanding of Muslim society. Through a searching analysis, he concludes that a new awareness of Islam and society must be constructed. In this reformulation two central facts must be remembered. First, its future is linked to natural phenomena which are as yet unmastered. The second is that Islam today serves as a resort for societies overwhelmed by problems. The interplay of influences on a world level puts an end to the simplistic distinction between state and religion and forces the modem observer to reconsider theological problems that hdd heretofore been viewed as resolved.

The discussion of religion and state is explored further by Professor Askari in chapter 12. The Qur' anic vision of the people of the Book, he argues, rests on the unity of the Biblical heritage. However it is understood, it holds the promise of a common struggle to bring humanity to justice and peace. The Qur'anic dialogue - which is both critical and affirmative of Jews and Christians - presupposes a framework of free and equal com­munication which demands a socio-political structure which

xviii Introduction

is able to sustain it. Yet a theocratic state assumes a political inequality between the people of the Book, and hence threatens the Qur' anic perspective on the dialogical relationship between the Abrahamic faiths. Thus it is necessary to look elsewhere for models which do justice to the Qur' anic vision. What is required instead are justice, peace, and service.

A final contribution to the debate about Islam and society is provided by Dr Ahmed Shafaat in chapter 13 where he maintains that Judeo-Christian-lslamic history is part of the history of revelation in which a divine purpose is being fulfilled. But to be fully realised, he argues, members of these three faiths need to come closer together and behave more as a single ummah. Such was the prophet Mohammad's aim- to draw all three faiths together, united in faith in the one true transcendent God but following their own separate traditions. During his lifetime this goal was impossible, but there is hope today that this vision can be realised. Yet, there is an obstacle which must be overcome from the Muslim side if this is to be accomplished: Muslims must not identify revelation with the system of Shariah. Instead they must accept that salvation and authentic relationship with God is possible in other religions as well.

These five central issues - religious exclusivism and absolute truth claims; the doctrine of revelation; apostleship; the con­ception of Mohammad in non-Islamic faiths; and religion and society - do not exhaust the spheres of inquiry about Islam in contemporary society. Yet they do highlight some of the central concerns raised by religious pluralism in the modern world. The dialogue which unfolds in these pages is restricted to a three-way exploration between adherents of the three Abrahamic traditions, but this is simply a starting point. It is our hope that members of other religions will be stimulated by the discussion and become participants in a much wider debate about Islam in the context of the universe of faiths.

Dan Cohn-Sherbok