July
13, 2003
Genesis 16: Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar,
so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can
build a family through her.”
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in
Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and
gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.
Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering.
I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she
despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
“Your servant is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever
you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was
the spring beside the road to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai,
where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and
submit to her.” The angel added, “I will so increase your descendants that
they will be too numerous to count.”
The angel of the Lord also said to her: “You are now with child and
you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of
your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against
everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward
all his brothers.”
She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who
sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” That is why
the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and
Bered.
So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son
she had borne. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
When I was in college, I minored in history and political science. Whenever people tell me that they think history is
boring, it’s as if they speak in a foreign language because I can’t make sense
of such a statement. History has never been boring
to me, and I can’t imagine that it will ever become boring to me.
One aspect of studying history that I especially enjoy is pondering counterfactuals. Counterfactuals are events that never happened. For
example, consider the following:
The point of counterfactuals is not to figure out how history would be
different if the counterfactuals were true. It’s
impossible to know for sure, and there’s no way to arbitrate disputes when
people arrive at different conclusions. The point
of counterfactuals is to contemplate the possibilities and to recognize
that history turns on what seem to us to be coincidences. If there is purpose
to history, it is God’s purpose because the reasons for these coincidental
twists and turns are largely inscrutable to us.
Another counterfactual worth exploring this morning is the following: At
the age of 85, Abram rejected his wife’s idea that he father a child with
her servant Hagar.
It might seem odd to us at first that Sarai would even suggest such a thing
and perhaps even odder that Abram would agree to it.
However, when we consider that Sarai was apparently infertile and
past her childbearing years, that such surrogate motherhood was not unknown
to Abram’s contemporaries, and that God had already promised Abram would
have a son, the scheme starts to make more sense. That
it can be rationalized does not mean that it was justified, though. I think it is fair to conclude that Abram thought
he needed to take matters into his own hands to make sure that God’s promise
would not turn out to be a lie. “God said I would
have a son. Sarai can’t have children. Therefore, someone else will need
to be the mother.” I’m not sure I would say Abram’s action stemmed from a
lapse in faith. After all, the promise God made to Abram in Genesis 15:4 did
not mention Sarai by name, and the very promise of fathering a child required
that Abram would have to work for at least a few minutes to bring it to fruition.
Regardless of whether Abram’s faith faltered or not, he agreed to Sarai’s
plan, and his decision had tremendous consequences for us today. Why? Because
Ishmael’s descendants include the Arabs. One Arab in particular, Mohammed,
founded the religion of Islam.
Mohammed was born in Mecca around AD 570. By his own description, he was
illiterate. Around the year 609, so he claimed, the angel Gabriel appeared
to him and dictated to him the first verses of what came to be known as the
Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. Over the next 13 years, about two-thirds
of the Qur’an was written. A tradition holds that Gabriel also took Mohammed
one night from Mecca to Jerusalem, then through the seven heavens, and finally
into the presence of God. This story increased hostility against Mohammed,
and when his wife and protector both died, Mohammed’s life was in serious
danger. On September 24, 622, Mohammed and about 150 others fled from Mecca
to Medina in what came to be known as the Hejira, or the flight. It is from this time that the
Islamic lunar calendar is reckoned. In the second or third year of the
flight, Mohammed’s group, which had grown to around 300, defeated a larger
force from Mecca in the Battle of Badr. In 628, they started toward Mecca,
eventually taking the city in 630. The city was sacred not only because
Mohammed had fled from there, but also because he believed that Abraham
and Ishmael founded the sanctuary there. Mohammed died in June 632.
By 635, the followers of Mohammed took Damascus and Syria; in 636, Persia;
in 641, Egypt; in 647, Turkey and Armenia. The conquest spread throughout
northern Africa, southwest Asia, and Western Europe until 732 when Charles
Martel defeated the Saracens at Tours, France.
The Qur’an is slightly shorter than the New Testament. It is organized
into 114 Suras, 86 of which were revealed at Mecca and 28 at Medina. They
are not arranged in any particular order except roughly by length. Islam means “submission,” and Muslim means “submitted one.” The submission in this
case is to the divine will. Muslims regard the Qur’an as the expression of
the divine will. In other words, the Qur’an is to Islam what Jesus—not the
Bible—is to Christianity. A Muslim might say, “In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word became a book.” The Qur’an is never held below the waist and
is usually stored higher than anything else when not in use. Not all parts
of the Qur’an are considered equal because there is a doctrine of abrogation,
by which later revelations can annul earlier revelations.
The Qur’an is not the only holy book in Islam. Muslims also regard the
Torah of Moses, the Psalms of David, and the Gospels of Jesus as holy books.
Some only accept Jesus’ prescriptive statements in the Gospels as inspired.
However, Muslims also believe that the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospels
have been corrupted or forged to communicate a message that was never intended.
Mohammed wanted to restore and complete the uncorrupted monotheism of Abraham.
In addition to the Qur’an, some Muslims also accept the Hadith, or the Traditions.
These Hadiths are narratives reported by Mohammed’s companions concerning
his utterances. However, not all Muslims accept all the Hadiths, and the
procedure for deciding which to accept and which to reject is arbitrary, so
some Muslims reject all the Hadiths.
Islam has several sects. The Sunni branch thought Mohammed’s successor
should be elected, separated the offices of religious and civil leaders,
and stressed the authority of written traditions. The Shi’a branch thought
Mohammed’s successor should be a blood relative, joined the offices of religious
and civil leaders, and stressed the authority of imams, or one class of religious leader. The rivalry
between the Sunni and Shi’a wings was chiefly political in nature.
During the Middle Ages, there was also an ideological rivalry among five
significant groups.
The Murji’tes were advocates of tolerance and equality. They didn’t believe
that any race or class of people had any more right to go to Paradise than
any other. They also didn’t think that political control was worth the price
of war.
The Mu’tazilites were advocates of the role of reason and the first sect
to rise to political dominance within Islam. They were readers of Greek philosophy
and logicians who believed that, although reason’s fallibility required
the Qur’an, reason could provide significant knowledge about what was good.
They did not believe that the Qur’an was eternal, but rather that it was
created to reveal what was necessary to overcome the fallibility of human
will and reason.
All of these groups found a common enemy in the Kharijites, who violently
and lethally opposed any deviation from what they deemed perfect practice.
They believed that Allah would reveal the true leader of Islam on the battlefield.
After two centuries of warfare, the Kharijites were finally suppressed and
rejected. However, a legalist strain arose, primarily among Sunnis, that eventually
supplanted the Mu’tazilites and defined the religion in terms of permanent
divine law. By AD 1200, attacks on reason were more common, and in 1258,
the Mongols sacked Baghdad, bringing a physical end to the centers of learning.
When the Ottomans began their conquest later that century, Shar’ia, or Islamic
law, and geographic territory became central to Islam. In Muslim-ruled territory,
which at one point stretched from India and Central Asia to Spain, non-Muslims
were allowed to live in a state of dhimmitude, or subordination, that excluded them from
citizenship and was enforceable by death. Some chose forced conversion to
Islam to avoid such status. During this time, Muslim Arabs also engaged in
an active slave trade that moved more Africans eastward than were moved westward
by Europeans. This slave trade still exists in some countries.
Sufi is the mystical wing of Islam and has been found in both the Sunni
and Shi’ite sects. It arose largely in response to the legalists. They believed
that they could achieve oneness with Allah through the inner life and moral
purification. Their mysticism flourished during this period when intellectual
pursuits, such as science and philosophy, were discouraged.
Today, Sunni Muslims account for about 80% of all Muslims, whereas Shi’ites
represent fewer than 20%. Smaller off-shoots include Wahhabi, which is a
very radical and legalistic Sunni sect concentrated in Saudi Arabia that
arose in response to Sufi mysticism and that is the leading promoter of Islamic
terrorism today; Druze, which is primarily found in Lebanon, Syria, and
northern Palestine; Alawite, which is found mainly in Syria; Ahmadiya, which
is a heretical group from Pakistan that is the most active Muslim missionary
group in the West; Sikhism, which is a blend of Islam and Hinduism; Baha’i,
a blend of Islam and Zoroastrianism whose followers claim their founding
prophet superseded Mohammed; and the Nation of Islam, which is mainly in
the U.S.
The vast majority of Muslims live in African and Asian countries between
10° and 40° north latitude—the so-called 10/40 Window. For example,
there are about 172 million Muslims in Indonesia (83% of the country’s total
population), 138 million in India (14% of the population), 137 million in
Pakistan (97% of the population), and 107 million in Bangladesh (87% of the
population). By way of contrast, there are probably about 2 million Muslims
in the U.S., less than 1% of the total population. The global population
of Muslims is estimated to be about 1.2 billion, or about one-fifth of the
world’s population. We have been told repeatedly since 9/11 that Islam is
the fastest-growing religion in the world. That is false. It is based on
a crude calculation that uses birth rates. However, when conversions and
actual practices are taken into account, Christianity is clearly the fastest
growing. Most of this growth is occurring in Africa and South America among
Catholic and Pentecostal churches.
Muslims have five central beliefs. According
to Islam, “Righteous is he who believes in Allah and the Last Day and the
Angels and the Scripture and the Prophets.” We
have already discussed the holy books, so we will take the other four articles
of faith in turn.
Allah is the Arabic word for God, but the attributes that Muslims recognize
are not necessarily identical to the attributes of Yahweh. Allah has absolute
unity, complete sovereignty, mysterious volition, ultimate equity, arbitrary
mercy, and utter unknowability. Humans can know only the will and commands
of Allah. Prayers to Allah are recitations of portions of the Qur’an, not
petitions. In terms of morality, something is good because Allah wills it.
With regard to the Last Day, Muslims believe that all human beings will
be physically resurrected at that time and judged on the scale of absolute
justice. There is no Original Sin for which atonement is necessary because
in Islamic theology humans are considered to be innately good or, at least,
morally neutral at birth. Many people characterize the salvation plan of
Islam as works-based, but it would be more correct to say that salvation
is by grace through works. In other words, salvation is still ultimately
an act of mercy on Allah’s part.
With regard to angels, Muslims believe they are incapable of error or sin.
They are Allah’s servants, flawlessly carrying out divine commands. In order
to account for spiritual deception, Muslims believe in another spiritual
species known as jinn. Jinn have freedom of choice, so they are capable
of good or evil, but they are not human.
With regard to the prophets, Muslims believe there were many, but five hold
particular prominence: Noah, preacher of God; Abraham, friend of God; Moses,
speaker with God; Jesus, word of God; and Mohammed, apostle of God, the last
and greatest of the prophets. Some Muslims also include a sixth prophet on
the list, Adam, the chosen of God. Mohammed is regarded as the fulfillment
of Deuteronomy 18:15-18:
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among
your own brothers. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of
the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let
us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore,
or we will die.” The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise
up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my
words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.”
The word brothers would seem to
indicate that this prophet would come from Israel, which would eliminate
Mohammed as a possibility. The fact that Genesis 17:21 and 21:12 both indicate
that the prophetic line would descend through Isaac would also seem to eliminate
Mohammed as a candidate. However, Muslims point to Deuteronomy 34:10, which
reads, “Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord
knew face to face.”
A Muslim’s faith rests on five pillars or practices, including the duty
to recite the Shahadah, the duty to pray, the duty to fast, the duty to give
alms, and the duty to make the pilgrimage.
The Shahadah is the one-sentence summary of Islam: “There is no God but
Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet.”
Prayer, as I mentioned earlier, consists of recitations of portions of
the Qur’an. There are 17 complete prayers to be said each day, distributed
among five designated prayer times (at dawn, at noon, at mid-afternoon, at
dusk, and two hours after sunset). Friday is the Sabbath day, when Muslims
are supposed to pray at the mosque.
Fasting takes place during the month of Ramadan, which is the ninth month
of the Islamic calendar, believed to be the month when the first verses of
the Qur’an were revealed. The fast is supposed to last from dawn to sunset.
A pre-dawn meal and a post-sunset feast mark the fasting period each day.
These meals are large enough that it is not uncommon for Muslims to gain
weight during Ramadan. Muslims who observe Ramadan abstain from putting anything
in their mouths during the fasting hours. For those who like to smoke cigarettes,
this abstention can lead to irritability. Some Muslims also believe that
they are prohibited from swallowing during the fast, so they must spit all
day long to get rid of their saliva. In predominantly Muslim countries,
Muslims who do not observe Ramadan risk violent reprisals from more observant
Muslims.
Muslims are generally expected to give one-fortieth of their incomes toward
alms for the poor.
The annual pilgrimage is known as the hajj. Those who are financially and physically able
to make the pilgrimage are obligated to do so at least once in their lives.
All pilgrims wear a white garment that is intended to eliminate class and
ethnic distinctions. If you have read The Autobiography of Malcolm
X, you might recall that it was this
egalitarian aspect of the hajj that prompted him to drop his militant racialism
and thereby lose the confidence of the leaders of the Nation of Islam, who,
quite probably, had him assassinated as a result.
Some Muslims consider jihad, or
holy war, to be a sixth pillar of faith. Jihad is the belief that one should engage in the
holy struggle to preserve Islam, or the House of Submission against non-Muslim
beliefs, or the House of War. When the concept originated in the eighth and
ninth centuries, there were two types. The first was a normal, rule-governed,
collective war under the direction of the chief political leader. The second
was an exceptional, emergency defense against direct attack, in which all
individuals at the point of attack were expected to take up arms on their
own authority. Today, there is no single political or religious leader of
Islam, so the former type of jihad is not possible. The second form of jihad has been re-interpreted by terrorists in several
significant ways. For example, the House of Islam is defined as any country
with a predominantly Muslim population that was once part of Islamic territory.
Thus, all non-Muslim countries and people within that region must be resisted
and subdued or eliminated. Anyone or any country that supports these non-Muslim
elements in any way is defined as an aggressor. Under this interpretation,
all Muslims become combatants engaged in self-defense, and all non-Muslims
become legitimate targets. Death while engaged in jihad is the only way a Muslim can be sure of gaining
entry into Paradise.
The current war on terrorism and its attendant security issues, such as
illegal immigration, airport security, racial and ethnic profiling, and the
like can impart antagonistic tension to our relationships with our Muslim
neighbors but can also give us unprecedented opportunities for outreach. I
want to inform you of some dos and don’ts for reaching out to Muslims.
First, don’t unnecessarily offend their cultural sensibilities. For example,
Muslims consider the idea of writing in the margins of a Bible or a Qur’an
to be sacrilegious, so use a clean Bible if you intend to refer to passages,
and don’t treat the book with disrespect by throwing it on the floor and
that sort of thing. Muslims are not permitted to lose face or lose an argument,
so try not to argue with them. Peer pressure is a negative factor, especially
for those who come from Muslim countries, so it is generally more productive
to talk to them one-on-one as opposed to in groups. Respect their dietary
restrictions, which include prohibitions of pork and alcohol. Be sensitive
to their relational boundaries between males and females. Dress modestly.
Second, love them, and pray with them. The sacrificial nature of your love
and the personal nature of your prayer will likely leave a much more lasting
impression than the intellectual points you make.
Third, unless you can read the Qur’an in Arabic, I would recommend you
avoid trying to use it to make your points. Even if you think you have a
solid passage to cite, the Muslim can always respond that an English translation
is flawed and distorts the true meaning of the passage. Because the Suras
are not arranged in chronological order, it is also difficult to know which
doctrines abrogate or annul other doctrines.
Fourth, as the political spin doctors say, stick to your talking points.
Although the way they are presented can be many and varied, the bulk of Muslim
criticisms of Christianity fall into four main categories: criticism of the
reliability of the Torah, Psalms, and Gospels, criticism of the deity of Christ,
criticism of the Trinity, and criticism of salvation by the Cross. The better
able you are to recognize the real objection, the better able you will be
to stay on topic.
As stated earlier, Muslims believe that the Bible has been intentionally
corrupted and/or forged to support Christian claims. You could make sure
that you are familiar with some of the evidence that supports the reliability
of the New Testament, but you might also try shifting the burden of proof
and ask the Muslim which portions were corrupted. If the Muslim cannot cite
any, then that should put an end to discussion of that topic. If the Muslim
cites some passages, then you can ask why those passages were selected. The
response to your question might reveal that the Muslim has used circular reasoning
to declare those passages that conflict with Islamic belief the ones that
have been corrupted. Another question worth asking is whether the Gospels
were accurate when they were first revealed. If the Muslim answers positively,
which is likely, then you can ask if God was incapable of keeping His word
from being corrupted. If the Muslim answers negatively, which is almost certain,
then you can ask why God would allow His word to become corrupted.
Although Muslims question the veracity of the Bible, they will quote from
it to try to prove their points or to show that it contradicts itself. Often,
the verses will be quoted without regard to context. Therefore, you need
to be prepared to keep asking your Muslim counterpart to respect the text
and consider the context provided by the surrounding verses. Then, patiently
explain the correct interpretation.
Surprisingly, although Muslims question the reliability of the Gospels,
they accept a considerably large amount of the words of Jesus, primarily
words according to which they contend that Jesus did not claim to be God.
When you speak of Jesus and the parables He told, the Muslim will listen.
To the extent that you can use Jesus’ own words to show that He claimed to
be God, the better chance you have of successfully countering the claim
to the contrary.
In addition to denying that Jesus ever claimed to be God, Muslims object
to the deity of Christ because they believe that Allah would not deem it
fitting to enter His own creation. Again, a useful way to address this criticism
is to ask if God is incapable of entering His own creation. After the Muslim
answers negatively, then you can ask why God would do it.
Some of the Islamic criticism of the deity of Christ overlaps with the
criticism of the Trinity. They charge that Christians believe in three gods—God,
Jesus, and Mary—and that God cannot have a Son. The former accusation incorrectly
identifies the persons of the Trinity, and the latter accusation is a misrepresentation
of the nature of the Trinity because it imposes a human understanding of having
a son. It is essential here to clearly state that Christians do not consider
Mary divine. It might also be helpful to compare Jesus to the Qur’an. Muslims
believe that the Qur’an is eternal but came into the world when Mohammed recited
it at Gabriel’s direction. Christians consider Jesus and the Holy Spirit
in a similar fashion, and the Muslim should be able to understand the analogy.
More generally, you need to explain that the opposite of monotheism is
not Trinitarianism but rather polytheism, and you both agree that polytheism
is wrong. Then you need to explain that Trinitarianism is a form of monotheism
because we believe that God is one in essence but three in persons. Each
person of the Trinity is fully God in essence. You might also ask the Muslim,
since we agree that God must be one in essence, why do Muslims think He must
be one in person, too. The answer might reveal that the Muslim simply assumes
a Unitarian viewpoint without any justification. That doesn’t prove that
Unitarianism is wrong per se, but
it does show that it is part of a philosophical bias.
Muslim criticisms of salvation by the cross rest on several supports. The
belief that humans are inherently good (or, at least, born morally neutral)
eliminates Original Sin, thereby eliminating the need for atonement. Also,
most Muslims don’t believe that Jesus died on the cross or rose from the
dead, and some of them don’t believe that Jesus was even crucified. Finally,
they deny that God would allow His servant to die such a humiliating death.
In Islam, prophets are always victorious over their enemies. The last objection
assumes that the crucifixion was involuntary and forced upon Jesus, so it
would be good to use Jesus’ words to show that He controlled His own fate.
It might also be profitable to ask the Muslim why Jesus would do that. The
objection also assumes that the crucifixion was the end of the line for Jesus.
You could ask the Muslim what would have to happen after the crucifixion in
order for Jesus to be victorious. The answer is, of course, the resurrection.
You might be able to challenge the assumption that humans are not inherently
depraved by citing some examples to the contrary, but you would probably
be better off again shifting the burden of proof to the Muslim and asking
why Muslims need Allah’s mercy if sin is not inherent to the human race.
After all, if good and evil are learned behaviors, Muslim parents ought to
be able to teach their children to avoid those things that would put them
in need of mercy.
If you encounter the criticisms that Jesus did not actually die on the
cross or that He did not rise from the dead or that He was not even the
person on the cross, you could start citing evidence for the reliability
of the New Testament or the abundant documentation from outside the Bible
for Jesus’ crucifixion. However, before you do that, I would recommend you
ask what evidence would be sufficient to convince the Muslim to believe
that Jesus was in fact crucified. If the answer is that no amount of evidence
could be enough, then you know that the objection is not intellectual but
willful, and there won’t be much point in your spending time talking about
ancient manuscripts.
When I was in the Middle East, I spoke with a physics student at a university.
He was questioning details about Jesus’ life and death on the basis that
we can’t know what happened in the distant past, so I asked him when his university
was founded. He told me an approximate year, and I said, “I don’t believe
you. Prove it to me.” He went on for several minutes about how the library
was full of documents from the time that contained records of the founding,
students who had attended the university, professors who taught at the university—in
other words, reliable testimony from people who were there when it happened.
I proceeded to explain that the New Testament served a similar function in
documenting what happened to Jesus, and I gave some reasons for believing
the New Testament to be accurate. However, he still contended that the New
Testament was not reliable. All I could do was remark that if the New Testament
is unreliable, then so is every written work from the past. If I had first
asked him what evidence he would need to get him to accept the reliability
of the New Testament, I might have found that he would never allow himself
to be convinced. Since he was a university physics student, I suspect that
he would have been more open-minded than that, but I don’t know for sure.
You might anticipate that a conversation with a Muslim will eventually
get around to the topic of the Crusades. Historically, that has not been
the case because Muslims view the Crusades as elements of a much longer and
broader competitive struggle between Islam and Christianity. I suspect that
in the wake of the terrorism of the last two decades, many Muslims will not
be inclined to bring up the topic of violence in the name of religion, either.
They might raise the issue of immorality in the culture at large, but you
can easily point out that you do not disagree.