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by Wes Bredenhof
Revised text of a lecture given at Providence Reformed Collegiate, in London, ON in April 2011.
By many accounts Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion. Several things account for this huge growth. One of them is that Islam is missionary in nature. By that I mean to say that many Muslims make serious efforts to bring others to their beliefs. Many Muslims have a vision for an Islamic world and they’re doing their best to make this vision become reality. This also means that it is easy to get Muslims to engage in conversations about spiritual matters.
Another factor is something that makes Islam attractive to many. It’s the fact that Islam is not just a religion. It’s not just something for the spiritual aspect of your life. In principle, Islam is an all-encompassing worldview. Serious Muslims do not compartmentalize their lives into the religious and the secular. Islam takes in everything. Now of course there will be inconsistencies among Muslims, just as there are among Christians. Just as you’ll find Sunday Christians or Christmas and Easter Christians, I’m sure you’ll also find Friday Muslims or Ramadan Muslims or Hajj Muslims. Yet, in principle, Islam does not allow for that and that is what makes it attractive to so many.
Related to that, Islam is a religion of strict law. In Islam human beings are not in need of redemption. They have the capacity to obey and thereby to earn divine favour. Islam is a religion of works, not of grace. If you read the Qur’an or especially the hadiths (authoritative reports of what Muhammad taught), you’ll soon be struck by how much of them consists of commands. In Islam, religion is not first about what someone else has done for you, but about what you must do for someone else. And you can do it, says Islam. This appeals to our human hearts hard-wired for law (Rom. 2:15). Left to ourselves, our natural inclination is to think we can climb our way up to heaven.
In what follows, I want to consider how to bring the gospel to Muslims. Specifically, I want to explore how we can engage in the defense and promotion of the Christian faith (apologetics) with our Muslim friends and neighbours. We’re going to approach this from the perspective of worldviews. Does the Muslim worldview present an adequate and coherent account of the world? How does it compare to the Christian worldview?
I should hasten to add that this is not a comprehensive approach in the sense that I will deal with every problem within Islam. Islam is complex and there are many ways to critique it. I have tried here to focus on some of the more important elements and illustrate how Islam fails as a worldview. I also recognize the great diversity among Muslims and have tried to focus on worldview elements that all Muslims would hold in common.
The Islamic Worldview1
As I set out to describe the central elements of the Islamic worldview, two important things need to be clear from the start. First, there is the historical development of Islam. Muhammad delivered the Qur’an and developed Islam after encountering Judaism and heretical forms of Christianity. Islam has sometimes been described as a Christian heresy. This is not altogether accurate. We could debate about what a “Christian heresy” is, but it seems clear enough that Islam is not even remotely Christian, although it is certainly heretical – i.e. it contradicts key teachings of the Christian faith such as the Trinity. It is more accurate to describe Islam as a religious worldview with some historical roots in heretical forms of Christianity.
Second, Muslims do not worship the true God revealed in the Bible. Though there are some superficial things in common, the Allah of Islam is not the Yahweh of the Bible. For one thing, as just mentioned, Islam finds the doctrine of the Trinity not only nonsensical and irrational, but also offensive and blasphemous. Christians hold that the Trinity is an essential teaching – in fact, the Athanasian Creed insists that you cannot be saved without believing it. Now I should clarify that Christians shouldn’t have a problem with calling God, “Allah.” After all, even our English word “God” has not always referred to Yahweh, the Triune God who reveals himself in Scripture. As the Christian faith moved into Europe, that word “God” became how we refer to him. The word “Allah” is simply the Arabic word for “God.” A few parts of the Bible were originally written in Aramaic, a language related to both Hebrew and Arabic. In the Aramaic parts of the Bible, God is called ’elah, a word very close to Allah in Arabic. Today Arabic translations of the Bible use the word “Allah” for God, as do Indonesian translations (Indonesian is heavily influenced by Arabic). The problem is not with the word “Allah”; the problem is with what it refers to. If Allah is describing Muhammad’s god, that’s a problem. Muhammad’s god is not Abraham’s God, nor Paul’s God. But if “Allah” is being used by Arabic Christians to refer to the God of the Bible, there’s nothing wrong with that. My point is: don’t buy into the myth that Christians and Muslims worship the same deity. We don’t.
We should begin with the question of authority. What does Islam regard as the source or sources of divine truth? Right away most people think of the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book. The Qur’an is indeed a source of divine truth for Muslims. Muhammad was a prophet of Allah and he recited the Qur’an. Allah promised that the Qur’an would be guarded against corruption (Surah 15.9).2 The Qur’an is much different from the Bible. The entire book is written as poetry and consists of 114 books or Surahs and it progresses from the largest Surahs to the smallest. Also, Islam does not consider every part of the Qur’an to hold equal authority. There is a doctrine called abrogation. Abrogation says that later parts of the Qur’an are more authoritative than earlier parts.
Besides the Qur’an, most Muslims also hold to the authority of the hadiths. The hadiths are considered to be reliable reports of what Muhammad said, did, or approved of. The hadiths consist of thousands of items. What this means is that the Islamic worldview is not just defined by the Qur’an -- the hadiths are equally important. I might also mention that there’s disagreement among Muslims about the hadiths – Sunni Muslims hold to one set and Shi’ite Muslims to a different one.
According to Islam, the Bible is also authoritative (at least the Old Testament and “the Gospel”). However, this must be carefully qualified. Muslims believe that the Bible as it exists today has been corrupted by Jews and Christians. Therefore, the Bible is unreliable. Muslims are discouraged from reading the Bible.
Let’s go to another key question: what does Islam teach about Allah? As mentioned a few moments ago, Islam is monotheistic – it holds to belief in one god. This one god is unique and incomparable. He alone is to be worshipped. The Qur’an says that belief in a Trinity is blasphemy (5.73). Jesus was not God, but merely a prophet (5.75). In Islam, Allah is highly exalted; his foremost attribute is his transcendence. Islam’s monotheism, rejection of the Trinity, and focus on God’s transcendence are key elements in the Islamic worldview.
What about humanity? What does Islam teach about who we are? Islam denies that man needs a Saviour. If only a man will be taught, and if he will only learn, then he can please Allah. Man’s problem is not sin so much as ignorance. In Islam, people commit sins, but they are not sinful. There is no such thing as original sin in Islam -- the idea that people are conceived and born in sin. People come into this world essentially good. They end up sinning because they do not know the will of Allah. They need to be taught. If we put it in Christian terms, we would say that Islam is on the Pelagian track. Pelagius was the British monk who opposed Augustine. Pelagius also taught that man is essentially good.
Islam acknowledges there will be a day of judgment. People will have to answer for what they have done. The way to Paradise is to believe Allah and his prophet Muhammad and to do good deeds, especially to follow the five pillars of Islam: prayer, fasting during Ramadan, pilgrimage (Hajj), almsgiving, and saying the shahada (the testimony of faith, “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.”). When someone becomes a Muslim, Allah forgives all previous evil deeds. After becoming a Muslim, Allah rewards good deeds and punishes bad ones. In other words, Islam is a religion of works, a law religion. Yes, they say Allah is merciful, but he is merciful to those who submit to him (“Islam” means “submission”). He shows mercy to the deserving.
That brings us to consider ethics in the Islamic worldview. As might be expected, Muslims derive their ethics primarily from the Qur’an and the hadiths. The Islamic worldview is not relativistic when it comes to ethics. In other words, Muslims say they believe in moral absolutes. Morality comes from the will of Allah, but not from his person or essential being. Good and evil are whatever Allah says they are. Moreover, the prophet Muhammad is the perfect ethical example. Whatever Muhammad said or did stands as an authoritative guide for the behaviour of most Muslims.
Besides personal ethics, Islam also holds to a system of political ethics, called Shari’ah law. Shari’ah is derived from the Qur’an and especially the hadiths, but also from community traditions (‘Ijma) and legal reasoning (Qiyas). However, we should note that Shari’ah is a controversial area in Islam. Muslims frequently disagree with one another on many details of what Shari’ah involves. So, for instance, some Muslims (especially in Africa) insist on female genital mutilation. Many others disagree that this is required by Islam. Another example would be the consumption of alcohol. Some Muslims insist that Shari’ah law forbids the consumption of all alcoholic beverages. Others allow this to varying degrees.
There are a few aspects of the Islamic worldview that we haven’t considered, but one more that is important is the Islamic view of history. In the Islamic worldview, as in the Christian, history is linear. It has a beginning (creation) and an end (the last judgment). Muslims also believe in what is called historical determinism. This means Allah has determined everything that will happen in history. There are no chance happenings. Everything is in the control of Allah.
Critique of the Islamic Worldview
What I want to do now is do a brief internal critique of the Islamic worldview. What I mean by that is that I want to examine this worldview to consider whether it makes sense of the world in which we live. Does Islam offer true truth? We are checking for three things: arbitrariness, inconsistency, and whether Islam provides the preconditions required for the world to make sense.3 In biblical terms, we are applying what Scripture says in Proverbs 26:5, “Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.” This is going to be brief. Islam is complex and a detailed internal critique would require a lot more space than what I have here.
Let’s begin with the sources of authority in Islam, particularly the Qur’an. First, we need to deal with the Muslim claim that the Qur’an has been guarded from corruption. Muslim books will often contrast this with the Bible. As you may know, there are thousands of biblical manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek and not all of them agree with one another in some of the details. So, for instance, some Greek New Testament manuscripts have a longer ending of Mark than others. Muslims see that and conclude that the Greek New Testament has been corrupted by Christians. We have twisted the Word of God so as to make Jesus to be the divine Son of God. The Qur’an is different, they say. They often claim that nothing has been changed in the Qur’an since the time it was assembled.
However, these claims cannot be substantiated.4 Like with the Bible, there are ancient manuscripts of the Qur’an and there are variations between these manuscripts. Some of the most important manuscripts are locked away and scholars are not even permitted to examine them. Moreover, even some Muslim commentators acknowledge that parts of the Qur’an are missing. Some Muslim scholars accuse other Muslim scholars of denying parts of the Qur’an. The truth of the matter is that it is arbitrary to claim the Qur’an has been preserved perfectly intact since around the time of Muhammad. It is not only arbitrary, it’s patently false. Unfortunately, the average Muslim is not aware of this and will not likely be convinced of it on the say-so of a Christian. Christians need to point to the Muslim sources themselves which speak of the problems found in the original Arabic manuscripts of the Qur’an.
Things get even more complicated when we discuss inconsistencies or contradictions within the Qur’an. Informed Muslims are quick to point out the same sorts of problems within the Bible. From an outsider’s perspective, there are teachings in the Bible that seem contradictory. Just as one example, Moses says not to eat pork. Jesus says you can eat pork. An apparent contradiction. Of course, we appeal to the fact that the Old Testament ceremonial laws of clean and unclean were pointed ahead to Christ and after his coming they no longer apply. But Muslims do something similar with the Qur’an and their doctrine of abrogation. At least it appears that way at first glance.
Remember: abrogation is the idea that later teachings of the Qur’an supersede earlier teachings. It is sometimes called progressive revelation. Yet even this teaching is hotly debated among Muslim scholars. Some Muslims believe that abrogation applies to matters of law, matters of fact, or both. Others argue there is no abrogation in the Qur’an, but where the Qur’an speaks of this, it is referring to the Bible. For those who hold to abrogation in the Qu’ran, there are significant differences about the number of verses abrogated. Some say there are more than two hundred, others limit it to five. Islam does not present a united front on these issues.
There are internal inconsistencies and difficulties within the Qur’an. One of the most famous deals with how Muslims are to regard Christians and Jews. In some places (e.g. 2.62), we read words that sound peaceful – Muslims are to consider Christians and Jews their friends. In others (e.g. 5.51, 9.123), the Qur’an sings a different tune – Muslims are to consider Christians and Jews their enemies. Muslims take different approaches to this. Some argue from the difference between the Meccan and the Medinan surahs. The Meccan surahs were supposedly revealed at Mecca and tend towards preaching peace and tolerance, leaving judgment for God in the hereafter. The Medinan surahs were revealed at Medina, after Muhammad and his followers had fled there and taken up the sword. These surahs tend to be more militaristic and adversarial towards Jews and Christians. For some Muslims, the later surahs abrogate the earlier ones. Whatever the case may be, Muslims need to account for these (and other) inconsistencies within the Qur’an – we need to challenge them on this.
The situation is the same, or even worse, with the hadiths.5 There are contradictions and inconsistencies between the hadiths and the Qur’an. In fact, there are Muslims who recognize this fact and who consequently insist on the authority of the Qur’an alone (although they do also allow a teaching role for tradition on things like prayer).6 Some Muslims argue that the hadiths are entirely conjecture and that they engage in an anti-Islamic deification of Muhammad. Muhammad’s only function was to deliver the Qur’an. Yet there are millions more Muslims who do regard the hadiths as canonical. For them, we need to ask hard questions like: why is the punishment for adultery one hundred lashes in the Qu’ran but stoning in the hadith? Why hold the hadith as canonical and authoritative when the Qur’an states that Muhammad was an ordinary man (18.110 and 41.6) and could have erred (28.56)? Why do the most authoritative books of hadith (Muslim and Ibn Hanbal) report that Muhammad commanded that no one should take anything authoritative from him besides the Qur’an?
As mentioned, the Bible is also regarded as a source of authority for Muslims. However, it is functionally irrelevant or disregarded because Islam is convinced the Bible has been corrupted by Jews and Christians. Here the challenge needs to be issued: where is the evidence for this alleged corruption? Yes, there are variations in the biblical manuscripts. Yet the overall picture is one of remarkable textual integrity – the statistic often mentioned is that 99% of the biblical text is not in question. So when Muslims claim that the gospels found in the New Testament do not give an accurate or authentic record of what Jesus said, they need to be challenged to prove it. What evidence is there outside of the Qur’an to justify the claim, for instance, that Jesus was not crucified? Where are the manuscripts of the gospels that leave out the crucifixion or that conform to the Qur’an’s claims? These claims are arbitrary and unable to be justified.
Now we come to Muslim theology, what Islam claims about Allah. Islam is correct, of course, to insist on monotheism. The problems emerge with its rejection of the Trinity. There is a problem in philosophy known as the problem of the one and the many. Put briefly, what is more important the one or the many, universals or particulars, unity or diversity?7 Unbelieving (and sometimes even Christian) worldviews opt for one or the other. Because of its anti-Trinitarian monotheistic orientation, Islam opts for the dominance of the one. Islam has difficulty accounting for a world in which there is both diversity and unity. In fact, Islam by its very nature cannot tolerate diversity. This is because of its conception of Allah. Incidentally, this is why democracy is uncomfortable to serious Muslims. Democracy is not Islamic. Having a system of rule that accounts for the will of the many (the ruled) and the will of the one (the ruler) is radically out of sync with Islam. Of course, there are Muslims who do promote democracy and long for democratic rule, but as they do this they are either being inconsistent with their Islamic principles or using democracy as a means to achieve their own visions of tyrannical Islamic rule. Muslims must be challenged to account for the one and the many on the basis of their own beliefs, from within their own worldview.
When it comes to Muslim anthropology, what Islam teaches about man, we face the idea that mankind is basically good. There are two problems here within the Islamic worldview. The first is the more obvious. It’s the fact that reality says something far different. Human beings do inflict terrible evil on one another. Muslims might respond by saying that this is because these people do not know the will of Allah. But then how does one explain Muslims who know the will of Allah and yet still do evil things? The only way out of that is to say that a Muslim who does an evil thing at that exact point does not know the will of Allah. That brings me to the second problem and it is the fact that the Islamic Allah is not holy enough. He sets the bar low enough that human beings are able to attain conformity to Allah’s will. They claim that Allah is highly exalted. Yet they reduce the distance between Allah and humanity by allowing for the possibility of what we would call works righteousness. There is an inconsistency here that must be accounted for, that must be challenged. Why does Islam not take the Creator-creature distinction seriously? Why does Islam fail to take sin and its effects seriously? Is Allah’s mercy really merciful when it only comes to the deserving? And is anyone deserving?
That brings us to the last point of my critique and that has to do with ethics. Again, we have to turn to consider Allah, for he is the source of Islamic ethics. According to Islam, ethics derives, not from Allah’s being, but from his will or word. Goodness is defined by what Allah wants it to be, not by Allah’s own being. Now, as I mentioned, Islam is not relativistic when it comes to ethics. However, strictly speaking this isn’t completely true. Allah can change his mind. Unlike in Christianity, Allah is not immutable. In other words, his will can change. Since Islamic ethics depends on his will, there is no certainty whether what is good today will still be good tomorrow. There can be no certainty that what is evil today will still be evil tomorrow. There is a difficulty here within the Islamic worldview and we can and should draw attention to it. How can Muslims account for absolute morality from within their own worldview?
Commending Christianity to Muslims
Having briefly critiqued the Islamic worldview, we also want to offer a positive alternative with the Christian worldview. This falls in line with what Scripture says in Proverbs 26:4, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself.” We aim to present Muslims with the truth of the Christian faith and our prayer is that God will use our presentation to bring them to true faith in Jesus Christ.
There is just one important take-away lesson here: challenge Muslims to read the Bible for themselves. As mentioned earlier, Muslims are discouraged from reading the Bible. In principle, they say it has authority (though arguing it has been corrupted), but in practice, they virtually ignore it. Very few Muslims have ever read the Bible in a meaningful way. When engaged with Muslims in serious spiritual conversation, ask them if they’ve ever read the Bible and if they haven’t, ask them to. If they are looking for a place to begin, you could suggest John or Mark. You want them to reconsider Jesus. Not to merely consider him as a prophet, but as the Redeemer. You want them to hear his challenges to human sinful nature and the way he surgically exposed our greatest need, the need for redemption from sin and its consequences. Our Lord Jesus speaks in his Word and it’s his voice that Muslims need to hear.
You may also need to reassure your Muslim friend about the textual integrity of the Bible. The Hebrew text of the Old Testament has been remarkably preserved. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran have proven this.8 Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls contain Old Testament writings and when compared with later OT manuscripts, the conformity is astonishing. With the New Testament as well, there is no textual evidence for widespread corruption.
We will also need to explain the doctrine of the Trinity as best we can. Guided by the Qur’an (4.171 and 5.73), Muslims commonly misunderstand this doctrine to be saying that there are three gods. In other words, according to the Qur’an, Christians are basically polytheists. We need to be clear that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches that God is one. There is one God. We are monotheists. The same doctrine says that God eternally consists of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but yet not three Gods. Three persons, one God. If the Muslim asks you to rationally explain that, you will have to say that it is impossible to explain it. God is incomprehensible. There is mystery in God. If we were to understand everything about him, he would no longer be God.
Closely connected with that, you’ll have to clarify the doctrine of Christ. Muslims believe that Christians think that Jesus is the product of a sexual relationship between God and Mary and they find that deeply offensive. We have to explain that this is not what we believe. Rather, our Lord Jesus took on human flesh within the womb of the virgin Mary by the working of the Holy Spirit. There was no sexual relationship. They will still find the idea of Jesus being the Son of God offensive. God cannot have a son, they will say. But we could again appeal to the Old Testament Scriptures. Psalm 2 is the classic example: “You are my Son, today I have become your Father.” Where is the proof that this Psalm has been corrupted by either Jews or Christians?
With regard to ethics, like Muslims, we have a divine source. We believe the Bible defines how human beings are to conduct their lives. We believe God’s will extends not only to our external actions, but also to the attitudes and inclinations of our hearts. The Holy God has the highest standards, standards which are impossible for sinful human beings to meet. We can quote the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Perfection is God’s ethical demand and our inability to meet that demand drives us to the Saviour.
As we rest and trust in him, we come to love and thankfulness. We want to obey God because it’s our heart-felt desire to please him. Our guide for doing that is found in his law. His law has its source in God’s being. As the Psalmist says (119:68), God does good and God is good. Goodness is defined not merely by what God says, but who God is. Further, the Bible tells us that God is unchangeable, immutable. Therefore what God says is good will always be good. He will not waver. God is not fickle or arbitrary. Thus, there is an absolute standard for morality and ethics according to the Christian worldview.
Conclusion
There is far more that could be said on this topic. Let me leave you with some thoughts from a Reformed missionary to Muslims, Bassam Madany.9 First, to be an effective witness to Muslims, he says you need to study Islam. What I’ve presented here is just a basic introduction to some of the issues. If God brings Muslims across your path, and you have the opportunities to witness to them, you’ll need to learn much more, both through discussions with your Muslim friends and through your own research and reading. Not only do you need to be well-grounded in what Islam says, you obviously also have to know what you yourself believe and why you believe. You have to be well-grounded in Scripture.
Second, Madany suggests focussing on the weakest point in Islam: the doctrine of man. Islam does not take sin seriously. It’s not realistic about the pervasive depravity brought on by Adam’s fall. Islam has an optimistic view of man, a view that doesn’t fit with reality or with Scripture. Are we really to believe that Jews and Christians corrupted the Bible to make man appear more corrupt than he really is?
Finally, our goal is to bring Muslims to Christ. As important as it is, the doctrine of the Trinity is only a step along the way to the acceptance of the gospel. The same is true for the biblical doctrine of man and of sin. Our hope is that we can see our Muslim friends find true hope and peace in Christ the Saviour. To that end, all our efforts need to be bathed in prayer. We need to pray for opportunities to speak of Christ not only to Muslims, but to all people. We need to pray for the ability to speak the truth in love. We need to pray for those to whom we speak, that the Holy Spirit would use our weak and feeble words to regenerate dead and cold hearts. Finally, and most importantly, we ought to pray that God would magnify his glory through our efforts, frail though they may be.
Endnotes
1) This is a summary of information gleaned from several sources including: A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam, I. A. Ibrahim (Houston: Darusallam, 1997); The No-Nonsense Guide to Islam, Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies (Toronto: New Internationalist, 2004); Ishmael My Brother: A Christian Introduction to Islam, Anne Cooper and Elsie A. Maxwell eds. (Grand Rapids: Monarch Books, 2003). A helpful (Sunni) Muslim website on Islam: www.islam-guide.com; a Christian website on Islam: www.answering-islam.org. Also helpful on the Islamic worldview from a Christian perspective: www.allaboutworldview.org/islamic-worldview.htm .
2) For this article I have used the edition of the Qur’an of ‘Abdullah Yusuf ‘Ali, The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an (Eleventh Edition) (Beltville, Maryland: Amana Publications, 2004). Other editions of the Qur’an may have a different verse (ayah) numbering.
3) This approach is adapted from The Ultimate Proof of Creation: Resolving the Origins Debate, Jason Lisle (Green Forest: Master Books, 2009).
4) What follows here is drawn from two unpublished papers by Chad Van Dixhoorn, “Comments on Commentators: Abrogations, Allegations and Alterations in Islam,” and “Truth Unchanged, Texts Unchanging? The Text of the Bible and the Text of the Qur’an: A Brief History.”
5) What follows here is drawn from an unpublished paper by Bill VanDoodewaard, “Hadith and Authenticity: A Survey of Perspectives.”
6) Qur’an, Hadith, and Islam, Rashad Khalifa (Fremont: Universal Unity, 2001).
7) For a more detailed summary of this problem and how the Christian theistic worldview addresses it, see By What Standard: An Analysis of the Philosophy of Cornelius Van Til, Rousas John Rushdoony (Vallecito: Ross House Books, 1995), 34-35, 42; Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis, Greg L. Bahnsen (Phillipsburg: P & R, 1998), 238-240.
8) See The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, translated and with commentary by Martin Abegg, Jr., Peter Flint, & Eugene Ulrich (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999).
9) These thoughts come from his book, The Bible and Islam: Sharing God’s Word with a Muslim. Available online as an e-book from levant.info
Dr. Wes Bredenhof is a pastor in the Canadian Reformed Churches
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