24AR29-29

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AR 29:29 - Islam, a mosaic from pieces of other religious ideas

In this issue:

ISLAM - "a ‘unified field theory’ of Islam"

Apologia Report 29:29 (1,670)
July 31, 2024

ISLAM

"Islam as a Theological Mosaic" by Gene Daniels (Evangelical Review of Theology, (48:2 - 2024, pp153–166) -- we are told the pseudonymous Daniels "served as a church planter in Central Asia before becoming involved in research, training and writing. He holds a D.Lit et Phil in religious studies from the University of South Africa."

   He writes to address what he feels is one of the most far-reaching problems we face "as we seek to engage the Muslim world with the gospel [which is namely, that] even after one accounts for the differences between the different schools of Islamic theology, there is nothing like a ‘unified field theory’ of Islam. That is, there is no satisfactory, overarching explanation of Islam that both summarizes what it is theologically and promotes fruitful gospel engagement with Muslims. The models out there tend to do one or the other, not both." Examples follow.

   Daniels explains: "I will build a case for using the metaphor of a mosaic as a missiological lens through which to view Islam, as a collection of theological bits and pieces. This model not only attempts to deal honestly with the historical data but also offers important missiological insights that help us engage Muslims with the gospel."

   He begins by summarizing the "origins of Muhammad’s mosaic. ... Muhammad lived in an eclectic religious world which included many streams of theology. The backbone of his nascent religion was likely indigenous Arab religious expression, both polytheistic in nature and a lesser-known emerging Arab monotheism."

   This leads to explaining the "Qur’anic use of biblical material. ... Muhammad believed there were previous, inspired Scriptures with which he wanted to associate himself and his theology." Examples of this are described from Surah 3:3:8; 42:13 (where Muhammad "goes so far as to claim that Allah even directed him to consult these previous Scriptures") and 10:94, adding that "while most of the biblical bits and pieces in the Qur’an are short, even just allusions, it does contain a few fairly accurate versions of biblical events. Interestingly enough, two are rather long birth accounts - those of John the Baptist (Qur’an 3:37–41) and Jesus (Qur’an 19:16–21). Nevertheless, despite an appearance of respect for Scripture, Muhammad’s overall purpose was clearly to repurpose biblical characters and material to create his own new theological picture, rather than in any sense to communicate the existing message of Scripture.

   "One strategy in building his new mosaic was to connect with the previous inspired Word by using well-known biblical names, but specifically as a means to establish himself as part of the prophetic tradition of the Jews and Christians....

   "Creating the appearance of a direct connection to biblical prophets would have been important to Muhammad because his own claim to prophethood was challenged from the very beginning. Thus, connecting himself to a well-established prophetic lineage would have been greatly to Muhammad’s advantage both religiously and politically. In his book The Muslim Jesus, <www.tinyurl.com/4zpwvv9s> Tarif Khalidi points out: 'The stories of the various prophets are not found together but are scattered throughout the Qur’anic text. ... Thus we may speak of a typology of Qur’anic prophets, a model of prophecy recognizable ... which proclaims that no distinction is, or should be, made among prophets and that true belief must include belief in all prophets (Qur’an 4:150).'"

   In reference to Surah 3:66, Daniels writes: "Here the man the Jews called their father (Jn 8:39), and whose fatherhood Paul extended to encompass all who have true faith (Rom 4:16), is cleaved away from both Jews and Christians and attached to Muhammad. This repurposing was an attempt to make Abraham ‘the prototype for all Muslims who follow because he lived his life in complete submission to God’s will.’

   "Muhammad’s habit of revising biblical characters is most disturbing when done to the person of our Lord. Jesus is often mentioned in the Qur’an, but as with other material, Muhammad usually refashions him to fit his new theology. This begins subtly in the annunciation narrative" of Surah 3:45. "In another passage, Muhammad goes so far as to place an anti-trinitarian diatribe in the mouth of Jesus," (re: Surah 5:116 "... Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah?"). 

   "In other instances, Muhammad reworked Jesus’ own words to affirm his role as Allah’s messenger" giving the example of Mk 4:26-29. Daniels finds that in "the Qur’anic version of this same thought [Surah 48:29], Muhammad (and his followers) replace Jesus as the one bringing the kingdom of God.... 

   "These and many other Qur’anic passages show a clear pattern of literary appropriation of biblical materials for Muhammad’s own purposes. Martin Accad of Arab Baptist Theological Seminary puts it this way: 'I believe that in its primary purpose, the Jesus metanarrative in the Qur’an was in fact designed as proof of Muhammad’s prophethood, and only incidentally became a counter-narrative, not to the Gospels themselves, but to the Christians’ interpretation of their texts.'

   "However, Accad also contends that despite Muhammad’s counter-narrative, we should still use whatever parts of the Bible are embedded in the Qur’an as part of a respectful proclamation of the gospel....

   "I would suggest that even though we reject Muhammad’s end product - that is, his theological revision of biblical material - we should still acknowledge the place from which he snatched these bits and pieces, because doing so may establish important connections with Muslims, the nature of which I will explore below. ...

   "Some have written that in the light of historical context, the teaching of the Qur’an sounds a lot like a program aimed at uniting the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula with the goal of supplanting the political orders of the Byzantines and Persians.18 Not only does this perspective help us understand why Muhammad may have wanted to gather broken pieces, but it could possibly minimize the religious meaning of the pieces in his new assemblage. ...

   "Conceptualizing the Qur’an at least partly as a mosaic filled with pieces repurposed for political ends is a very different perspective from [Daniel] Strange’s argument for a universal, ‘subversively fulfilled’ religious impetus. From this perspective, the Qur’an looks less like the words of a false religious prophet and more like those of a very religious, would-be military conqueror navigating a complex socio-religious environment. Yet we are still left with an important question: What did Muhammad use to fill in the gaps?"

   Before addressing this, Daniels asks: "What should we make of Muhammad personally?" Along the way, he mentions that "when I was teaching academic writing at a university in the Muslim world, a student who had come to Christ was being pressured by his uncle and financial benefactor to read the Qur’an. He asked me what I thought he should do, and I told him he had liberty to read it if that would ease the tension with his family. Another missionary who was also involved with his life was quite against this, but I assured him that everything would be fine, just wait and see. A few weeks later the student came up to both of us and said, ‘Well, I read the Qur’an. All of it.’ So I asked him: what did he think? His reply was insightful and proved that he had been paying attention in my writing classes: ‘Muhammad was a plagiarizer, and a bad one at that. He took a lot of stuff from the Bible, but then he got most of it wrong.’"

   This leads to a section which considers the "Bible in Muhammad's mosaic" and for which Daniels uses the heading "A Very Contested Space" and begins with the focus: "The idea that Muhammad’s religion can in any way prepare the way for the gospel touches on a sharp fault line in the evangelical world. Over 40 years ago, the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization formally wrestled with this question. It identified five different attitudes held by Christians about the Qur’an, which can be briefly summarized as follows:

   "1. The Qur’an should never be used in discussions with a Muslim, because using it implies that we accept it as inspired and are putting it on the same level as the Bible.

   "2. The Qur’an should be studied, but only to help us to know and appreciate what Muslims believe, and to enable us to learn Muslim terminology.

   "3. The Qur’an should be used against itself, to demonstrate that it is self-contradictory. Such a polemical use of the Qur’an will show its weakness and create a hunger for something better.

   "4. The Qur’an should be used as a starting point; e.g. the many verses that speak about Jesus and other biblical characters can be used to point to the biblical version of these same stories.

   "5. The Qur’an can be used as a source of truth. Our recognition of the truths which the Qur’an does contain makes the Muslim much less defensive and more open to reading the New Testament.

   "While this list is a bit of a simplification of more nuanced positions, it does give us a good view of the range of evangelical views of the Qur’an. ...

   "A number of fine missiologists argue that Islam and Christianity are so fundamentally different, at the theological and worldview level, that it would be wrong to use the Qur’an, in any positive light, as a part of our witness. The literature on this topic is quite extensive; therefore, I will attempt only to identify and briefly address the deeper issues that undergird certain views."

   After further discussion, Daniels relates "that all Muslims do not share a common worldview is supported by empirical research. In 2012, the Pew Forum conducted a survey of 38,000 Muslims in 39 countries concerning their beliefs and practices. The study did indeed find some key issues on which the vast majority of Muslims agree, but there were also significant differences concerning many beliefs and practices. ... Furthermore, the wide diversity of thought uncovered by this study encompassed a question that is particularly relevant to the present topic: how Muslims understand the Qur’an itself. Survey responses affirming the Qur’an as literal truth varied across countries, from a low of 50 percent to a high of 90 percent. ...

   "Therefore, it is highly problematic to use concerns about a ‘Qur’anic worldview’ supposedly shared by all Muslims as an objection to using the Qur’an in Christian witness.

   "Another major criticism of using contextualized approaches, such as those encouraged by the mosaic metaphor, concerns the difference between the theology of the Bible and that of the Qur’an."

   There is a "deep theological disconnect between the Bible and the Qur’an, too deep to sustain the view that Islam arose out of Christianity or Judaism in any meaningful sense. Yes, the Qur’an incorporates biblical (and extra-biblical) Christian and Jewish materials, but it repurposes them to serve a radically different theological agenda: the Qur’an marches to the beat of its own theological drum. ...

   "If we adopt a missiological approach that emphasizes opposition to Qur’anic theology, we may miss important ways to connect with the many Muslims who are not actually Islamic in the sense just described.

   "The mosaic metaphor helps us shift our focus away from the sharp lines of theological differences, because metaphors are by nature imprecise - and that is a good thing. ...

   "This leaves us with a tricky passage to navigate with Muslim friends. Christians often worry that if they affirm anything found in the Qur’an, they will seem to be affirming Muhammad’s prophetic mission."  Lebanese pastor Fouad Accad "invited us to find points of connection with Muslims by recognizing the places where the Qur’an and the Bible share common material. This allows a space to connect with them without recognizing Muhammad’s own words as a source of truth. ... 

   "Unfortunately, his fine work seems lost to many because of the pain of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as the bitterness of ideological debates in the mission community.

   "Perhaps Timothy Tennent was thinking along the same line when he wrote that the emergence of Muhammad’s religion represented ‘a potential preparatio evangelica, which may yet serve as a bridge for Islamic peoples to cross over and receive the Christian gospel.’ ...

   "The bits and pieces of truth scattered through Muhammad’s mosaic don’t have enough substance, even collectively, to convey the gospel. But they can soften a Muslim’s emotional soil so that he or she may more readily receive the Word of God. This is really no different from God using tragedy or other of life’s circumstances as a means to prepare the human heart. ...

   "For some evangelicals the idea of connecting to the fabric of a Muslim’s prior cultural experience will raise the red flag of syncretism, but I would argue that it is more productive to frame this approach as a matter of normal discipleship. All converts, from whatever background, bring existing knowledge into their new faith in Christ, and often a significant amount of that background information is inconsistent with Scripture. Rather than rejecting everything they already know, the antidote to syncretism is to help them renew their minds by the washing of the water of the Word of God (Eph 5:26). This is not to dismiss the possibility of syncretism, which is very real, but to place it in a more helpful and biblical context. ...

   "As the early church wrestled with the practical details of a similar enormous gospel leap - from being a Jewish movement to welcoming gentiles - James made this profound observation: ‘It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God’ (Acts 15:19 NIV). No one believes that James was calling for the early church to make a doctrinal compromise."

   Daniels concludes: "Thinking of Islam as a mosaic made from pieces of other religious ideas frees us to recognize whatever bits of truth Muhammad repurposed from the Bible, without agreeing that he personally received any divine revelation, and while still rejecting the worldview of the Qur’an. Perhaps most importantly, instead of arguing about these biblical fragments and allusions as if they are propositional truths for us to use in appealing to the rational intellect, the mosaic metaphor presents them as emotional touchstones that can open Muslim hearts to the gospel." <www.tinyurl.com/mryktjxx>

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