Islam and the State
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“A Common Word between Us and You”
• Document on theological grounds for
reconciliation between Muslims and Christians
• Addressed to the leading figures in the Christian
churches, beginning with His Holiness Pope
Benedict XVI
• Signed by leading Muslim scholars Eid al-Fitr alMubarak 1428 A.H. / October 13th 2007 C.E.,
• www.acommonword.com
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Need for peace between Muslims and
Christians
• “Muslims and Christians together make up
well over half of the world’s population.
Without peace and justice between these two
religious communities, there can be no
meaningful peace in the world. The future of
the world depends on peace between
Muslims and Christians.
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Basis for mutual understanding
• “The basis for this peace and understanding
already exists. It is part of the very foundational
principles of both faiths: love of the One God,
and love of the neighbour. These principles are
found over and over again in the sacred texts of
Islam and Christianity. The Unity of God, the
necessity of love for Him, and the necessity of
love of the neighbour is thus the common ground
between Islam and Christianity. The following are
only a few examples:
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The two central commandments in
Islam
• “Of God’s Unity, God says in the Holy Qur’an: Say: He is
God, the One! / God, the Self-Sufficient Besought of all!
(Al-Ikhlas, 112:1-2).
• Of the necessity of love for God, God says in the Holy
Qur’an: So invoke the Name of thy Lord and devote
thyself to Him with a complete devotion (AlMuzzammil, 73:8).
• Of the necessity of love for the neighbour, the Prophet
Muhammad said: “None of you has faith until you
love for your neighbour what you love for yourself.”
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Jesus on the two central
commandments
• “In the New Testament, Jesus Christ said: ‘Hear, O
Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. / And
you shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and
with all your strength. This is the first
commandment. / And the second, like it, is this:
You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is
no other commandment greater than these.’
(Mark 12:29-31)
• Jesus cites Deuteronomy 6:4
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Basis for coming together
• “Thus in obedience to the Holy Qur’an, we as
Muslims invite Christians to come together
with us on the basis of what is common to us,
which is also what is most essential to our
faith and practice: the Two Commandments of
love.”
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Muhammad's Revelation
• 610 CE: Muhammad fasts and prays on a mountain
• “You are the messenger of God.”
– Painful experience
– Fears he is losing his mind
• Christian friend of his wife, Khadija: it’s an angel of
God, Gabriel.
• Illiterate man expresses powerful poetry of God’s
messages
• => God’s Word finally to Arabs
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Five Pillars: Solutions to Arabia’s
Backwardness
• Unity of Arab peoples in one State
• Expressed in religion through unifying belief in one
God, and unifying religious practices
–
–
–
–
1) One God, and Muhammad as the Prophet of God
2) Prayers: 5 times a day, facing Mecca
3) Hajj: trip to Mecca once in lifetime
4) Fasting (and celebration): month of Ramadan
• And practically
– 5) Help the needy (Zakat)
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Two main ideas: Salat and Zakat
• “Zakat and salat have often been used together in
the Qur’an, being the basic elements of the Qur’anic
Order. Since salat … stands for devotion [to “God the
Creator”]… zakat stands for striving for the welfare
and betterment, or growth and development, of
mankind…. The Qur’an has not prescribed any fixed
amount, limit, or percentage of wealth for zakat.”
(Ahmed Ali, The Qur’an, 290.)
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External ritual is secondary
• No piety in (merely) turning to the East or
West
• True piety: belief in One God and practical
love of all human beings in need
– Turning to the East or the West is a ritual
expression of the unity of all believers
• Recall relation of ritual (li) and inner
spirit/love (jen)
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Openness of Islam
• “He has laid down for you the (same) way of life
which he had commended to Noah, and which we
have enjoined on you, and which we bequeathed to
Abraham, Moses and Jesus, so they should maintain
the order and not be divided among themselves.”
(Qur’an 42: 13)
• All receivers of divine revelation are the same.
– Moses
– Jesus
– Krishna? Buddha? “Dhimmi status” (Spodek 370)
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Cause of the division of religions
• “Observe this faith, and be not divided into
sects therein. Intolerable to those who
worship idols jointly with God is that faith to
which thou does call them.” (Qur’an 42:13)
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Limits to openness
•
•
Closed to idol worshippers: makers of “sects”
=Those who separate themselves from One
God and universal humanity
–
–
•
by adding some belief that is special to them
like the animism of the Arab tribes
Hence: main criticism is the “self-criticism”
of the historical context in Arabia
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Jews and Christians Backslide
• “The Jews say, ‘Ezra is a son of God,” and the
Christians say, “The Messiah [Christ] is a son of God.’
Such the sayings in their mouths! They resemble the
saying of the infidels [i.e., polytheists and animists]
of old! God do battle with them! How they are
misguided! They take their teachers, and their
monks, and the Messiah, son of Mary, for lords
beside God, though bidden to worship one God only.
There is no God but He! Far from His glory be what
they associate with Him!” (9:30-1)
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Is Christianity a “Sect”?
• Nicene Creed (325 CE) For salvation it is necessary to
believe (i.e., belief in doctrine, not practical trust)
that
– Jesus is equal to God the Father in the doctrine of Trinity
(God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit)
– Response by Arians, followers of Arius, a priest from
Alexandria in Egypt: how is this different from polytheism?
– Response of Council of Nicea: Arian heresy
• So for Christians it is not enough to love God and
neighbor
– One must also believe …
• Additional requirements: “other gods beside God”?
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Full First Pillar
• “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is
his Prophet.”
– =one of His prophets, the most recent one
– the prophet chosen by God for the Arab peoples
• Muhammad is not only a religious leader, but
also political leader
• => Religious unity as basis of a single State
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Compare with Jesus
• “. . . pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to
God what belongs to God.” (Matthew, 22:22.)
• Time of powerful Roman State
– Emphasizes spiritual kinship community
– Long-term strategy of the mustard seed, beginning with
small communities: “Where two or three are gathered in
my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
• The focus is not on otherworldly happiness after
death
– Jesus teaches presence within each person of the Kingdom
of God here and now
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Time of Muhammad: no State
• Stateless, feuding nomadic tribes
• Different strategy: Kingdom of God on Earth
now as political reality
• Compare historical context
– Jesus: “pax Romana” – turn the left cheek
– Muhammad: endemic tribal wars
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Islamic Law--Sharia
• Situation at time of Jesus
– Roman law – universal citizenship of Stoics
– Jewish law: commandments, codes of dress, behavior
– Message of Jesus: find inner spirit of law: universal
spiritual kinship of the sons and daughters of God
• Situation at time of Muhammad
– Different traditions for different tribes
– Constant feuding
– No over-all recognized system of law, Sharia
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Sources of Sharia
• 1) the Koran
• 2) the Hadith, a body of sayings and doings of
Muhammad;
• 3) the consensus of the early Islamic
community;
• 4) Ijtihad: reasoning by analogy to new
conditions
• => different forms of Sharia
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Arabic empire
• Muhammad unifies warring Arabic tribes: peace
through oneness of God
• Triumphal return to Mecca in 630
– Hijra (exile to Medina) 622 CE
•
•
•
•
Death of Muhammad in 632
Outbreak of tribal civil wars in Arabia
Sassanian/Persian armies clash with Arab factions
Arabs unite against Sassanians > their state
collapses
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First Muslim Conquest:
History Repeats Itself
• 1) Recall Gilgamesh and Enkidu (Herder)
• 2) Recall Assyrian brutalities and wars >
Persian Cyrus (herders), Zoroastrian
monotheism
• 3) Sassanian empire, after long wars with
Byzantium, quickly collapses
– Arabs are herders: belief in one God (Allah)
• > Moderate Arabic rule—with Islamic
monotheism
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Putting an end to holy wars
• On the early Sumerian city-states: “The
warfare was especially destructive because
the kings and soldiers believed that they were
upholding the honor of their gods.” (Spodek
60)
• Goal of Muhammad: putting an end to “holy
wars” among polytheistic Arabian tribes
• Hence, one God for all people
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Just War Doctrine
• “If you are oppressed, oppress those who
oppress you to the same degree. (Qur’an 2: 194)
– Confucius: treat those who harm you with justice!
– Jesus: turn the left cheek to them—demand respect,
but not by force of arms, or you will be destroyed
• “And when they [the Jews] were facing Goliath
and his hordes they prayed … By the will of God
they defeated them, and David killed Goliath… If
God did not make men deter one another this
earth would indeed be depraved.” (Qur’an 2:2501)
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Islam and war
• “Western people often assume that Islam is a
violent, militaristic faith which imposed itself
on its subject peoples at sword-point…. The
Quran does not sanctify warfare. It develops
the notion of a just war of self-defense to
protect decent values, but condemns killing
and aggression.
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Respect the People of the Book
• “Furthermore, once the Arabs had left the
peninsula, they found that nearly everybody
belonged to the ahl al-kitab, the People of the
Book, who had received authentic scriptures
from God. They were not, therefore forced to
convert to Islam; indeed, until the middle of
the eighth century, conversion was not
encouraged.
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Religious tolerance
• “The Muslims assumed that Islam was a
religion for the descendants of Ismail, as
Judaism was the faith of the sons of Isaac. …
Once the Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians in
their new empire had become dhimmis
(protected subjects), they could not be raided
or attacked in any way. It had always been a
point of honour among Arabs to treat their
clients well, to come to their aid, or to avenge
an injury done to them.” (Karen Armstrong,
Islam, 29-31.)
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Position of Jews and Christians in Islamic
world
• “Travelers throughout the Muslim world
noted that Jews and Christians often held
some of the highest positions in public and
private life, and were self-governing in their
religious life.” (Spodek, 370-1)
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Dar al-Islam
• “A principal goal of conquest, however,
remained the creation of a dar al-Islam, ‘an
abode of Islam,’ a land with a government
under which Islam could be practiced freely.
This did not mean that the people of the land
were forced to become Muslims, only that
Muslims among them must have the freedom
to practice their religion and sustain their
culture.” (Spodek 371)
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Dar al-Harb
• “Later, when many Muslims lived under nonMuslim governments, the ulama declared that
any government that permitted freedom of
religion to Muslims could be a dar al-Islam.
The alternative was a dar al-Harb, an ‘abode
of war,’ which had to be opposed because it
restricted the practice of Islam.” (Spodek 371)
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Two forms of Jihad
• 1) “Holy War”
– 1) to preserve the “dar al-Islam”
– 2) in self defense only: “God loves not the
aggressor.” (Koran 2:187)
• 2) “Sacred struggle” (Spodek 343)
– Personal struggle to live a spiritual life
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Ulama
• Religiously trained scholars
• Includes qadis (judges), assistants, Qur’an reciters,
prayer leaders, and preachers.
• “Islam has no formal hierarchical, bureaucratic
institution of ulama—indeed it has no official Church.
Informal networks of respected ulama have provided
cohesion, stability, and flexibility within Islam,
regardless of the changing forms of government.”
(Spodek 362)
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Extent of Islamic Expansion
• See maps p. 355, 359, 361
• In 1453 Byzantine Empire falls to Muslim Turks
• By 1500: Islamic states in Arabia, Persia, India,
Indonesia, Turkey, Greece and Balkans, Egypt,
North Africa, Sahara, East Africa, Spain
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Major regions of “Old World” in 1500
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Chinese empire
Mughal Empire in India (Islamic)
Savafid Empire in Persia (Islamic)
Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor (Islamic)
Songhai Empire in Africa (Islamic)
European collection of small squabbling states
Prediction of future at this time??
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