19AR24-04
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AR 24:4 - Yahweh vs. Allah in the "Abrahamic matrix"
In this issue:
ISLAM - "getting to the core of the Abrahamic matrix," only to find that "Yahweh is a fertility god"
+ "step-by-step instructions for shaping the future of Islamic law"
POLITICS - "the ways the politically powerful have used Christianity"
Apologia Report 24:4 (1,412)
January 23, 2019
ISLAM
In "The Roots of Islam: Two new books, about the Quran and Muhammad, go back to the sources of the Muslim faith," Mustafa Akyol reviews God in the Qur'an by Jack Miles [1] and Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires by Juan Cole [2] for the New York Times Book Review (Dec 30 '18, p13).
Akyol, <www.mustafaakyol.org> senior fellow on Islam and modernity at the Cato Institute <cato.org>, thinks these works may help answer questions about Allah and "give a deeper understanding of Islam's theology and history." Miles, <www.jackmiles.com> a professor of religion at the University of California, has written "a highly readable, unbiasedly comparative and elegantly insightful study of the Quran, in which he sets out to show that the three great monotheistic religions do indeed believe in the same deity - although they have 'different emphases' when it comes to this God, which accounts for their divergent theologies. ...
"The Quran's 'divine speaker,' Miles writes, 'does identify himself as the God whom Jews and Christians worship and the author of their Scriptures.' That is also why Allah reiterates, often with much less detail, many of the same stories we read in the Bible....
"'Yahweh is a fertility god,' Miles provocatively suggests, whereas 'Allah is a theolatry god' - theolatry meaning the worshiping of God alone. ...
"Through such scriptural comparisons, Miles gets to the core of the Abrahamic matrix: The monotheism that the Jewish people developed over the centuries was inherited by Islam and was turned into a global creed. All the national elements within Judaism, meanwhile, were then muted.
"What about Christianity, the third, and the largest, piece of the matrix? It seems to be, just like Islam, a universalization of Judaic monotheism. But Christianity introduced a new theological element to the scene - a divine Christ and triune Godhead - which proved unacceptable to both Judaism and Islam. ...
"Miles shows this by explaining how Islam rejects Christian theology, while showing great respect for Jesus Christ and Mary. He also sees 'a brilliant symmetry' in how Islam combined Judaism's criticism of Christian theology with Christianity's criticism of Jewish particularism. ...
"Miles, a Christian, is as objective, fair and gracious as one can get. ...
"Non-Muslims who take the time to read the Quran may end up feeling a bit baffled, though. For they will hear a lot about Abraham, Moses, Joseph or Jesus, but almost nothing about the person they may be expecting the most: Muhammad. For while the Quran often speaks to Muhammad, it almost never speaks about him.
"That is why the Islamic tradition developed a post-Quranic literature on the life and times of Muhammad, recorded in the books of sira, or biography. And a cutting-edge version of sira comes from the pen of Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan and the author of the popular blog Informed Comment. <www.juancole.com>
"Cole's book, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires, is not just eruditely informative, but also ambitiously revisionist, with two unorthodox arguments he keenly advances throughout the book.
"The first argument links the birth of Islam in early-seventh-century Arabia to the major geopolitical conflict of the time - the clash between the Christian Byzantine Empire based in Constantinople and the Zoroastrian Sasanian Empire based in today's Iran. ...
"Cole's second argument is more important. Going against familiar if not frequent militant images of the Prophet Muhammad in the West, he portrays Islam's founder as a peacemaker who wanted only to preach his monotheism freely and who even tried to establish 'multicultural' harmony. ...
"Cole goes as far as rejecting some of the violent episodes attributed to the Prophet Muhammad as later fictions by belligerent Muslim empires. ...
"Some of Cole's well-intentioned hypotheses, clearly aimed at challenging Islamophobia, may never be proved. But he is demonstrably right in concluding that Islamic orthodoxy deviated from its foundations by 'abrogating' the peaceful and tolerant verses of the Quran, by reserving salvation only to Muslims, or by adopting some cruel practices like stoning. Beneath this thick layer of what became Islamic tradition, there is a more uplifting image of the Prophet Muhammad, waiting to be discovered not just by non-Muslims, but also many Muslims themselves.'" <www.nyti.ms/2FBdFuF>
For much more on Jack Miles, visit <www.bit.ly/2CuFpx6>
Sharia Compliant: A User's Guide to Hacking Islamic Law, by Rumee Ahmed, Associate Professor of Islamic Law and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia <rumeeahmed.com> [3] -- the publisher explains that it "covers the ins and outs of Islamic legal change and provides readers with step-by-step instructions for shaping the future of Islamic law. ...
"This book is designed to revitalize the hacking tradition by getting readers involved in the process [and] it provides step-by-step instructions for readers to hack laws for themselves, so that through their engagement and creativity, they can help Islamic law regain its intrinsic vitality and resume its role as a forward-looking source for good in the world."
Choice (Dec '18) adds that the book is "aimed mainly at fellow Muslims" and "suggests that more efficient solutions can recapture the ability of Islamic law to adapt to contemporary needs. ... Although the author discusses by whom and when such interventions may be made, he does not credit the personal connections that make a commentator credible, nor does he refer to the role of court personnel in the law. Written in a clear, if overly chatty, manner, many of the arguments remain imprecise and idealistic."
For another review, mentioned in AR 23:19, see <www.bit.ly/2T2ciZ5>
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POLITICS
Christian: The Politics of a Word in America, by Matthew Bowman [4] -- from the promo: "... for many American Christians, concepts like liberty and equality are rooted in the transcendent claims about human nature that Christianity offers. ... [Bowman] shows, for many American Christians, concepts like liberty and equality are rooted in the transcendent claims about human nature that Christianity offers."
Library Journal (no date credit): "Alongside the struggle to define Christian is a parallel debate about the meaning of its traditional nemesis, materialism, which has been traditionally used to describe whatever a particular group of Christians happen to fear or oppose. Verdict: This fascinating book will appeal to readers interested in understanding the historical complexities of a ubiquitous word in American politics that is deceptively difficult to pin down."
Choice (Dec '18): "Bowman <www.matthewbowman.net> analyzes the ongoing struggle between conservative and progressive Christians, a struggle that has dominated the American political landscape."
Publishers Weekly (Feb '18 #4): Bowman "pulls together a thought-provoking series of case studies that charts the long history of Christian political rhetoric in the United States. He is particularly interested in how “Americans have used the language of Christianity to assert the transcendent authority of their democracy against threats they labeled materialistic” during the 20th century.... Most striking for our current political moment may be Bowman's attention to the ways the politically powerful have used Christianity to claim a divine right to govern, derived - as they saw it - from the superiority of a racialized white Christian cultural heritage."
The book's table of contents is interesting (note chapter 7):
1 - Reconstruction, Spiritualism, and the Shape of an Argument
2 - Creating Western Civilization at Columbia University
3 - Challenging Western Civilization at Howard University
4 - Catholic Community in the Great Depression
5 - The Anxiety of Christian Anticommunism
6 - Global Christianity and Black Freedom
7 - Cult and Countercult (in which Bowman highlights the Unification Church, the Children of God, and evangelical agencies like the Christian Research Institute and Spiritual Counterfeits Project)
8 - Civil Religion, the Religious Right, and the Fracturing of Christian Republicanism
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - God in the Qur'an, by Jack Miles (Knopf, 2018, hardcover, 256 pages) <www.amzn.to/2FLAZFq>
2 - Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires, by Juan Cole (Bold Type Books, 2018, hardcover, 336 pages) <www.amzn.to/2RCrCPp>
3 - Sharia Compliant: A User's Guide to Hacking Islamic Law, by Rumee Ahmed (Stanford Univ Prs, 2018, paperback, 272 pages) <www.amzn.to/2JvMXFq>
4 - Christian: The Politics of a Word in America, by Matthew Bowman (Harvard Univ Prs, 2018, hardcover, 320 pages) <www.amzn.to/2MqUHYt>
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