Allah and Yhwh

I've just finished reading 'Revelation?' by Mark Durie (2006), which asks the question, do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?

it's a really interesting book - well written, easy to read. the main thing it is asking, is whether it is right to engage Muslims (or for Muslims to engage Christians) with the premise, 'we all are talking about the same basic thing - let me show you how our understanding is different/better/correspondent.'

this is basically the approach suggested by Colin Chapman (Cross and Crescent), where you talk about Isa in the Qur'an and say 'see, don't you want to know more about him? read his biography with me (in the Injeel)' (hopefully this isn't too simplistic a summary)

Durie wants us rather to look at the characters of Isa, Allah, the Ruh Al-Qudus, and see what similarities and differences exist (between, respectively, Jesus, Yhwh, and the Holy Spirit). now, whilst this approach isn't as conciliatory as Chapman's, it's also not as polemic as Sam Green's (he works for AFES in Tassie i think), who attempts to show how wrong Islam is - the unreliability of the Qur'an, the questionable character of Muhammad etc - pulling no punches.

again, i found it an engaging book (there are bargain bin copies for $6 at Moore Books!), especially in countering Islamic claims that they're all the same - even the names of Jesus and Yhwh are corrupted when taken up by Islam - having no linguistic links at all (supporting the understanding of Muhammad's syncretism of the religions around without fully grasping them). however it does this linguistically, and based on the characters of the characters - trying to enter into the conversation in a way that distances the two religions - they are not, nor ever were, the same religion. Neither Adam, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Moses, David, Solomon nor Jesus were Muslims - which is not to say the characters of the Qur'an - Sulemann, Isa, Lut et al weren't - but they aren't the same bunch of guys.

i still need to think about the relative merits of the approaches - what do we lose by Chapman's approach? what do we gain by Durie's?

The Mohammed that never was

a German Islamic scholar has obviously had a call from his superiors to get a bit of controversy generated, so he's come out and said that, as far as he can tell, the evidence would seem to suggest that Mohammed never existed. well, i wonder what he would say if someone told him HE didn't exist? probably not a lot - eh? not much you can say when you're gone in a puff of logic.

seriously though folks, i remember when the controversy (=bad history+james cameron television crew) about the misnamed 'Jesus' Family Tomb', and people remembered the comments by the west australian primate, saying that he didn't think finding the bones of Jesus would harm people's faith to any huge extent. now, whilst he may have some supporters in Spong and co, he obviously has a different conception of a God who reveals himself in history in the man Jesus Christ.

but what effect would it have on Muslims, i humbly enquire, if it were proved beyond reasonable doubt that Mohammed never were? Don Carson once said he thought, not much. at the end of the day, the Qur'an is the way Muslims know God. not thru their prophet. that he happened to use Mohammed is seen to be the physical conduit Allah chose to use is by the by - what matters is that Allah gave the Qur'an to all the Muttaqun that they may obey him in all righteousness.

sure, Mohammed may have been a good example of following Allah, but he was hardly the first - all the old testament prophets are listed as part of his forerunners in the faith.

it may be this will lead to anger, but i hope not. indeed, it may challenge Muslims to rethink about their functional deification of Mohammed, and to consider how it is they can truly know God - how it may be that he has made himself known.

those crazy crusaders!

i came across this map at justin's blog, found it a really helpful resource for understanding the scale of the different waves of empires in asia-europe-africa

reading Outline History of the Christian Church by Dorothea Jane Stephen (1938)* i noticed that after the saracens won back the middle east from the turks, they were more than willing to go back to good old days of ready trade with and hospitality to the pilgrims to the 'holy lands'.

The Crusaders, however, would not listen to their offer, but were bent on conquering the country. (p45)

one cannot help wondering what shape the middle east and the view of it by certain 'christian zionists' would be in today had the crusaders been happy to live happily side-by-side as they had, to a large extent, been doing for the 400 years beforehand. it feels as if a large extent of the muslim view of the west is shaped by the abhorent goings-on 1,000 years ago.

God willing, there will be a time when a better mutual understanding can be had.

*which i must add, bears an uncanny relation to my history of christian mission course

fun with fitna

ever since Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilder's film Fitna was released a week or so ago, there has been a furore of anger, from those agreeing with his sentiments, from those arguing that Christianity is every bit as evil as Islam, from the atheists arguing that every religion is equally evil.

the film has been removed, replaced, removed, replaced, many times over. last time i looked you could still watch it here.

the first voice of moderation came from Richard Shumack's article, followed by CPX's directors' discussion of it:


these encourage the viewer to actually listen to a Muslim hermeneutic of their own text.

a Saudi blogger Raed al-Saeed responds with the following film, an interspersing of OT verses mainly about God instructing Israel to take posession of Canaan, with images of Gulf War II and the documentary "Jesus Camp".


there are plenty of other video responses, most of them having lost any sense of reasonability.

an article on jesus.de by Rolf Krüger, here, maintains the critique of Koran inspired violence is valid, whereas al-Saeed's twisting is not - yet his reason seems to be more emotive than hermeneutical.
for whilst i disagree that the US-led invasion of Iraq and their behaviour there as seen (heard) by the leerish voice in al-Saeed's film are in no wise representative of Christendom, and "Jesus Camp" is likewise a scary indictment on how not to do church, the fact remains that for some Christians they somehow do see these things as representing them, and are proud to be associated with them.

so in the same way as we may see the attacks on the west as the valid working-out of Islam - as doubtless there are some Muslims who do too - listening to these as representative is unfair, and unreasonable.

if one gives an answer before he hears,
it is his folly and shame
Proverbs 18:13