Exploring Life, The Universe and Everything

When two worlds meet: William Shakespeare and Islam

Posted in Spiritual Truth by Paul Williams on February 5, 2010

The Attributes of God

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence ‘gainst the merchant there.

The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene i, lines 180-203

Some Amazing Quotes

Posted in Islam, Spiritual Truth by Paul Williams on January 22, 2010

Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali (d. AH 505, Tus)

“Knowledge without action is insanity, and action without knowledge is vanity. Know that knowledge today will not distance you from sin, nor bring you into obedience, nor distance you from the fire of Hell tomorrow. If you do not act today and do not derive lessons from your past days, you will say on the Last Day: ‘Return us to our previous life, and we will do good deeds,’ and it will be said to you: ‘O Fool, it is from there that you have come.’”

Imam al-Bukhari (d. AH 256, Khartang)

“I used to earn five hundred silver coins a month and I spent them all seeking sacred knowledge. (This is because) what is with Allah endures.”

Al-Bukhari was an orphan; by the time of his death he had memorized hundreds of thousands of hadith and traveled throughout the Islamic world in his efforts to verify chains of hadith transmission. He is said to have prayed two rak’as for guidance before writing any hadith

Imam Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (d. AH 709, Cairo)

“Nothing you seek relying on your Lord will ever be difficult, and nothing you seek relying on yourself will ever be easy.”

Imam Ahmad Zarruq (d. AH 899, Takrin)

“Watch your eye, should it ever reveal to you the faults of others, say to it: ‘O my eye, other people have eyes too.’”

Row over ‘Biblical’ rifle sights for UK troops

Posted in Christianity, The News by Paul Williams on January 20, 2010

By Beverley Rouse, Press Association
Wednesday, 20 January 2010

British soldiers fighting in Afghanistan will be issued with rifle sights bearing Biblical references, it emerged today.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it was not aware of the significance of the markings on the advanced combat optical gunsights (ACOGs) when it placed an order for 400 from US firm Trijicon.

There are fears that the inscriptions could lead to allegations that the battle for Afghanistan is a “religious war”.

Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Willie Rennie said: “It’s pretty shoddy that the MoD missed this.

“It may be used by some of our enemies as evidence to convince its followers that we are engaged in a religious war between Christianity and Islam.”

The MoD ordered the rifle sights from Trijicon as part of a £1.5 million “urgent operational requirement” which included more than 400 Sharpshooter rifles from another manufacturer.

The first batch of Sharpshooters, the first new infantry combat rifle issued in 20 years, will be sent to frontline troops later this year, it was announced on Monday.

It is the rifle sights which have sparked controversy on both sides of the Atlantic after Trijicon’s director of sales and marketing, Tom Munson, revealed the raised lettering referred to Bible passages.

The ACOGs ordered by the MoD are said to be etched with the characters JN8:12, a reference to chapter eight, verse 12 in the book of John.

This passage, in the King James version, reads: “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

An MoD spokesman said: “We were not aware at the time of purchase that these markings had any broader significance.

“Our priority is to buy the best performing equipment available on the market.

“In this case, Trijicon were selected as they offered the best performing optical sights.”

A Trijicon spokesman said: “For two generations our Michigan-based, family-owned business has been working to provide America’s military men and women with high-quality, innovative sighting systems for the weapons they use.

“Our effort is simple and straightforward: to help our servicemen and women win the war on terror and come home safe to their families.

“As part of our faith and our belief in service to our country, Trijicon has put scripture references on our products for more than two decades.

“As long as we have men and women in danger, we will continue to do everything we can to provide them with both state-of-the-art technology and the never-ending support and prayers of a grateful nation.”

ACOG is standard issue to US special operations forces and Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said he has received complaints about the Bible references from serving and retired members of the military.

US Marine Corps spokeswoman Captain Geraldine Carey said: “We are aware of the issue and are concerned with how this may be perceived.”

Capt Carey said Marine Corps acquisition officials plan to meet Trijicon to discuss future purchases.

Trijicon’s founder Glyn Bindon was killed in a plane crash in 2003. His son Stephen is the firm’s current president.

Independent

The Trinity: a Muslim Perspective

Posted in Christianity, Islam by Paul Williams on January 3, 2010

A number of difficulties will beset any presentation of Muslim understandings of the Trinity. Not the least of these is the fact that these Muslim understandings have been almost as diverse and as numerous as those obtaining among Christian scholars themselves. It is true that medieval Islam knew much more about Christian doctrine than the doctors of the Church did about Islam, for the obvious reason that Muslim societies contained literate minorities with whom one could debate, something which was normally not the case in Christendom. Muslim-Christian dialogue, a novelty in the West, has a long history in the Middle East, going back at least as far as the polite debates between St John of Damascus and the Muslim scholars of seventh-century Syria. And yet reading our theologians one usually concludes that most of them never quite ‘got’ the point about the Trinity. Their analysis can usually be faulted on grounds not of unsophistication, but of insufficient familiarity with the complexities of Scholastic or Eastern trinitarian thinking. Often they merely tilt at windmills.

There were, I think, two reasons for this. Firstly, the doctrine of Trinity was the most notorious point at issue between Christianity and Islam, and hence was freighted with fierce passions. For the pre-modern Muslim mind, Christian invaders, crusaders, inquisitors and the rest were primarily obsessed with forcing the doctrine of Trinity on their hapless Muslim enemies. It is recalled even today among Muslims in Russia that when Ivan the Terrible captured Kazan, capital of the Volga Muslims, he told its people that they could escape the sword by ‘praising with us the Most Blessed Trinity for generation unto generation.’ Even today in Bosnia, Serb irregulars use the three-fingered Trinity salute as a gesture of defiance against their Muslim enemies. And so on. Much Muslim theologising about the Trinity has hence been set in a bitterly polemical context of fear and often outright hatred: the Trinity as the very symbol of the unknown but violent other lurking on the barbarous northern shores of the Mediterranean, scene of every kind of demonic wickedness and cruelty.

To this distortion one has to add, I think, some problems posed by the doctrine of the Trinity itself. Islam, while it has produced great thinkers, has nonetheless put fewer of its epistemological eggs in the theological basket than has Christianity. Reading Muslim presentations of the Trinity one cannot help but detect a sense of impatience. One of the virtues of the Semitic type of consciousness is the conviction that ultimate reality must be ultimately simple, and that the Nicene talk of a deity with three persons, one of whom has two natures, but who are all somehow reducible to authentic unity, quite apart from being rationally dubious, seems intuitively wrong. God, the final ground of all being, surely does not need to be so complicated.

These two obstacles to a correct understanding of the Trinity do to some extent persist even today. But a new obstacle has in the past century or so presented itself inasmuch as the old Western Christian consensus on what the Trinity meant, which was always a fragile consensus, no longer seems to obtain among many serious Christian scholars. Surveying the astonishing bulk and vigour of Christian theological output, Muslims can find it difficult to know precisely how most Christians understand the Trinity. It is also our experience that Christians are usually keener to debate other topics; and we tend to conclude that this is because they themselves are uncomfortable with aspects of their Trinitarian theology.

What I will try to do, then, is to set out my own understanding, as a Muslim, of the Trinitarian doctrine. I would start by making the obvious point that I recognise that a lot is at stake here for historic Christian orthodoxy. The fundamental doctrine of Trinity makes no sense unless the doctrines of incarnation and atonement are also accepted. St Anselm, in his Cur Deus Homo, showed that the concept of atonement demanded that Christ had to be God, since only an infinite sacrifice could atone for the limitless evil of humanity, which was, in Augustine’s words, a massa damnata – a damned mass because of Adam’s original sin. Jesus of Nazareth was hence God incarnate walking on earth, distinct from God the Father dwelling in heaven and hearing our prayers. It thus became necessary to think of God as at least two in one, who were at least for a while existing in heaven and on earth, as distinct entities. In early Christianity, the Logos which was the Christ-spirit believed to be active as a divine presence in human life, in time became hypostatized as a third person, and so the Trinity was born. No doubt this process was shaped by the triadic beliefs which hovered in the Near Eastern air of the time, many of which included the belief in a divine atonement figure.

Now, looking at the evidence for this process, I have to confess I am not a Biblical scholar, armed with the dazzling array of philological qualifications deployed by so many others. But it does seem to me that a consensus has been emerging among serious historians, pre-eminent among whom are figures such as Professor Geza Vermes of Oxford, that Jesus of Nazareth himself never believed, or taught, that he was the second person of a divine trinity. We know that he was intensely conscious of God as a divine and loving Father, and that he dedicated his ministry to proclaiming the imminence of God’s kingdom, and to explaining how human creatures could transform themselves in preparation for that momentous time. He believed himself to be the Messiah, and the ’son of man’ foretold by the prophets. We know from the study of first-century Judaism, recently made accessible by the Qumran discoveries, that neither of these terms would have been understood as implying divinity: they merely denoted purified servants of God.

The term ’son of God’, frequently invoked in patristic and medieval thinking to prop up the doctrine of Jesus’s divinity, was in fact similarly unpersuasive: in the Old Testament and in wider Near Eastern usage it can be applied to kings, pharoahs, miracle workers and others. Yet when St Paul carried his version of the Christian message beyond Jewish boundaries into the wider gentile world, this image of Christ’s sonship was interpreted not metaphorically, but metaphysically. The resultant tale of controversies, anathemas and political interventions is complex; but what is clear is that the Hellenized Christ, who in one nature was of one substance with God, and in another nature was of one substance with humanity, bore no significant resemblance to the ascetic prophet who had walked the roads of Galilee some three centuries before.

From the Muslim viewpoint, this desemiticising of Jesus was a catastrophe. Three centuries after Nicea, the Quran stated:

‘The Messiah, son of Mary, was no other than a messenger, messengers the like of whom had passed away before him . . . O people of the Book – stress not in your religion other than the truth, and follow not the vain desires of a people who went astray before you.’ (Surat al-Ma’ida, 75)

And again:

‘O people of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion, nor utter anything concerning God save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of God, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in God and His messengers, and do not say ‘Three’. Desist, it will be better for you. God is only One God. . . . The Messiah would never have scorned to be a slave of God.’ (Surat al-Nisa, 171-2)

The Qur’anic term for ‘exaggeration’ used here, ghuluww, became a standard term in Muslim heresiography for any tendency, Muslim or otherwise, which attributed divinity to a revered and charismatic figure. We are told that during the life of the Prophet’s son-in-law Ali, a few of his devoted followers from Iraq, where Hellenistic and pagan cultures formed the background of many converts, described him as God, or the vehicle of a Divine incarnation – hulul. The claim of course irritated Ali profoundly, and he banished those who made it from his sight; but even today marginal Islamic sectaries like the Kizilbash of Turkey, or the Alawites of the Syrian mountains, maintain an esoteric cosmology which asserts that God became incarnate in Ali, and then in the succession of Imams who descended from him.

Mainstream Islam, however, despite its rapid spread over non-Semitic populations, never succumbed to this temptation. The best-known of all devotional poems about the Blessed Prophet Muhammad: the famous Mantle Ode of al-Busairi, defines the frontier of acceptable veneration:

‘Renounce what the Christians claim concerning their prophet,
Then praise him as you will, and with all your heart.
For although he was of human nature,
He was the best of humanity without exception.’

A few years previously, the twelfth-century theologian Al-Ghazali had summed up the dangers of ghuluww when he wrote that the Christians had been so dazzled by the divine light reflected in the mirror like heart of Jesus, that they mistook the mirror for the light itself, and worshipped it. But what was happening to Jesus was not categorically distinct from what happened, and may continue to happen, to any purified human soul that has attained the rank of sainthood. The presence of divine light in Jesus’ heart does not logically entail a doctrine of Jesus’ primordial existence as a hypostasis in a divine trinity.

There are other implications of Trinitarian doctrine which concern Muslims. Perhaps one should briefly mention our worries about the doctrine of Atonement, which implies that God is only capable of really forgiving us when Jesus has borne our just punishment by dying on the cross. John Hick has remarked that ‘a forgiveness that has to be bought by full payment of the moral debt is not in fact forgiveness at all.’ More coherent, surely, is the teaching of Jesus himself in the parable of the prodigal son, who is fully forgiven by his father despite the absence of a blood sacrifice to appease his sense of justice. The Lord’s Prayer, that superb petition for forgiveness, nowhere implies the need for atonement or redemption.

Jesus’ own doctrine of God’s forgiveness as recorded in the Gospels is in fact entirely intelligible in terms of Old Testament and Islamic conceptions. ‘God can forgive all sins’, says the Quran. And in a well-known hadith of the Prophet we are told:

On the Day of Judgement, a herald angel shall cry out [God's word] from beneath the Throne, saying: ‘O nation of Muhammad! All that was due to me from you I forgive you now, and only the rights which you owed one another remain. Thus forgive one another, and enter Heaven through My Mercy.’

And in a famous incident:

It is related that a boy was standing under the sun on a hot summer’s day. He was seen by a woman concealed among the people, who made her way forwards vigorously until she took up the child and clutched him to her breast. Then she turned her back to the valley to keep the heat away from him, saying, ‘My son! My son!’ At this the people wept, and were distracted from everything that they were doing. Then the Messenger of God, upon whom be peace, came up. They told him of what had happened, when he was delighted to see their their compassion. Then he gave them glad news, saying: ‘Marvel you at this woman’s compassion for her son?’ and they said that they did. And he declared, ‘Truly, the Exalted God shall be even more compassionate towards you than is this woman towards her son.’ At this, the Muslims went their ways in the greatest rapture and joy.

This same hadith presents an interesting feature of Muslim assumptions about the divine forgiveness: its apparently ‘maternal’ aspect. The term for the Compassionate and Loving God used in these reports, al-Rahman, was said by the Prophet himself to derive from rahim, meaning a womb. Some recent Muslim reflection has seen in this, more or less rightly I think, a reminder that God has attributes which may metaphorically be associated with a ‘feminine, maternal’ character, as well as the more ‘masculine’ predicates such as strength and implacable justice. This point is just beginning to be picked up by our theologians. There is not time to explore the matter fully, but there is a definite and interesting convergence between the Christology of feminist theologians such as Rosemary Reuther, and that of Muslims.

In a recent work, the Jordanian theologian Hasan al-Saqqaf reaffirms the orthodox belief that God transcends gender, and cannot be spoken of as male or female, although His attributes manifest either male or female properties, with neither appearing to be preponderant. This gender-neutral understanding of the Godhead has figured largely in Karen Armstrong’s various appreciations of Islam, and is beginning to be realised by other feminist thinkers as well. For instance, Maura O’Neill in a recent book observes that ‘Muslims do not use a masculine God as either a conscious or unconscious tool in the construction of gender roles.’

One of Reuther’s own main objections to the Trinity, apart from its historically and Biblically sketchy foundations, is its emphatic attribution of masculine gender to God. She may or may not be exaggerating when she blames this attribution for the indignities suffered by Christian women down the ages. But she is surely being reasonable when she suggests that the male-dominated Trinity is marginalising to women, as it suggests that it was man who was made in the image of God, with woman as a revised and less theomorphic model of himself.

Partly under her influence, American Protestant liturgy has increasingly tried to de-masculinise the Trinity. Inclusive language lectionaries now refer to God as ‘Father and Mother’. The word for Christ’s relationship to God is now not ’son’ but ‘child’. And so on, often to the point of absurdity or straightforward doctrinal mutilation.

Here in Britain, the feminist bull was grasped by the horns when the BCC Study Commission on Trinitarian Doctrine Today issued its report in 1989. The Commission’s response here was as follows:

‘The word Father is to be construed apophatically, that is, by means of a determined ‘thinking away’ of the inappropriate – and in this context that means masculine – connotations of the term. What will remain will be an orientation to personhood, to being in relation involving origination in a personal sense, not maleness.’

Now, one has to say that this is unsatisfactory. The concept of fatherhood, stripped of everything which has male associations, is not fatherhood at all. It is not even parenthood, since parenthood has only two modalities. The Commissioners are simply engaging in the latest exegetical manoeuvres required by the impossible Trinitarian doctrine, which are, as John Biddle, the father of Unitarianism put it, ‘fitter for conjurers than for Christians.’

The final point that occurs to me is that the Trinity, mapped out in awesome detail in the several volumes devoted to it by Aquinas, attempts to presume too much about the inner nature of God. I mentioned earlier that Islam has historically been more sceptical of philosophical theology as a path to God than has Christianity, and in fact the divine unity has been affirmed by Muslims on the basis of two supra-rational sources: the revelation of the Quran, and the unitive experience of the mystics and the saints. That God is ultimately One, and indivisible, is the conclusion of all higher mysticism, and Islam, as a religion of the divine unity par excellence, has linked faith with mystical experience very closely. An eighteenth century Bosnian mystic, Hasan Kaimi, expressed this in a poem which even today is chanted and loved by the people of Sarajevo:

O seeker of truth, it is your heart’s eye you must open.
Know the Divine Unity today, through the path of love for Him.
If you object: ‘I am waiting for my mind to grasp His nature’,
Know the Divine Unity today, through the path of love for Him.
Should you wish to behold the visage of God,
Surrender to Him, and invoke His names,
When your soul is clear a light of true joy shall shine.
Know the Divine Unity today, through the path of love for Him.

Abdal-Hakim Murad 1996

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Christian extremists pray for Obama’s death

Posted in Christianity, Violent extremism by Paul Williams on January 2, 2010

Can God become Satan? Asks MDI Speaker Sami

Posted in Christianity, Islam, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI), Spiritual Truth, Video by Paul Williams on January 1, 2010

New: The Muslim Debate Initiative Blog

Posted in Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI) by Paul Williams on December 30, 2009

Muslim Debate Initiative Blog

Here you can get live updates, thoughts, comments and the latest in-depth goings on in the world of Muslims debate and discussion. The blog will be updated soon with the latest news and info, plus behind-the-scenes news behind the most controversial discourses happening around the world.

So watch this space, or subscribe to the RSS Feeds, to keep your finger on the pulse!

The MDI Team

KKK

Posted in Cool Stuff, Far right racism, Video, Violent extremism by Paul Williams on December 29, 2009

Interesting video on how good character can demolish hatred. Watch out for the lesson at the end of the video

Christianity and Slavery

Posted in Christianity by Paul Williams on December 28, 2009

To accept the Bible as the Word of God is to accept a highly authoritarian structure for the church and society and the required “slave-mind” which such authority implies. To discard that structure is to “pick and choose” among the teachings of the Bible and thus have no authority at all.

By Jay Williams
Walcott D. Bartlett Professor of Religious Studies
Hamilton College
November 2009

One of the most disturbing aspects of religious life in nineteenth-century America is the attitude churches and many churchmen took concerning slavery. Not only did most denominations, in an attempt to preserve church unity, accede to the demands of the Southern slave owners by softening or removing any references to the subject from denominational statements; several theological seminaries refused to allow abolitionist speakers on their campuses and prohibited their students from taking part in abolitionist activities.

Although every denomination and sect contained some abolitionists, the most outspoken religious leaders of Abolitionism were Quakers, Unitarians and representatives of other so-called “fringe” groups. Moreover, some of the prominent theologians of the time, for example Charles Hodge of Princeton, actually offered extensive theological justification for the institution of slavery. How is it that believers in the God of love who taught the Golden Rule could fail to see the tremendous evils involved in the owning and selling of people? How could so many Christians, north and south, fail to take action to end such a horrible and demeaning practice?

Hodge, in an article entitled “The Bible Argument on Slavery,”1 says in summing up his argument:

As it appears to us too clear to admit of either denial or doubt, that the Scriptures do sanction slaveholding; that under the old dispensation it was expressly permitted by divine command, and under the New Testament is nowhere forbidden or denounced, but on the contrary, acknowledged to be consistent with the Christian character and profession (that is, consistent with justice, mercy, holiness, love to God and love to man), to declare it to be a heinous crime, is a direct impeachment of the word of God. We, therefore, felt it incumbent upon us to prove, that the sacred Scriptures are not in conflict with the first principles of morals; what they sanction is not the blackest and basest of all offenses in the sight of God.2

Was he correct? When one reads the Bible from which he drew his inspiration the answer is not long in coming, for it is obvious that the Bible, from beginning to end, accepts and justifies slavery as an institution. Colossians 3:22-24 provides a basic proof text:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, the Lord. Whatever your task, put yourself into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve3 the Lord Christ.4

Clearly, in this passage, the author goes far beyond yielding reluctantly to the ethos of the Greco-Roman world in which slavery was a given fact. Slavery is not grudgingly but enthusiastically accepted, Slaves (douloi) are urged to accept their master’s will as the will of Christ himself! To love Jesus is to obey the earthly master (kurios) implicitly. It is true that the text goes on to urge the masters to treat their slaves justly and fairly, but there is no mention of manumission, a practice that was also common in the Greco-Roman world. Nor does the author make any distinction between obeying a Christian master and obeying a pagan one. For the author of Colossians, the ideal life is not one of freedom but one of obedience. The whole point of the slave’s life is to obey.

What is most shocking about this is that everyone, including the author, must have known that female slaves were frequently used by their masters for both sexual pleasure and breeding purposes. Female slaves were regularly forced to produce more slaves for the master’s household as well as to fulfill the desires of both the master and the mistress.5 The doule had no recourse, no defense. Thus while Christianity held up high standards of chastity and purity for the free person, it urged the female slave to accept sexual degradation as “from the Lord.” Indeed, there is elsewhere the implication that the more the abasement, the greater the reward will be in the world to come (See, for instance, Matt. 5:11).

Lest one think that the passage from Colossians is unique in the demands placed on the slave, one should note that the little book of Philemon is entirely devoted to the issue of slavery. In it, Paul sends Onesimus, a runaway slave, back to his Master. Paul pleads for understanding but there is no mention at all of manumission or of the evils of the institution. This attitude is underlined in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians where he writes:

Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called. Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever. For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ . . . In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters there remain with God. I Cor. 7:20-22,24

Ephesians 6: 5-6 also makes many of the same points that Colossians does:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves to Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

Neither Colossians nor Ephesians sets any limits to this obedience. The author(s) could have urged slaves to be obedient as long as that obedience does not involve any immorality or other form of unfaithfulness to God, but he does not. There are no qualifications placed upon the obedience to the master, for the master (the kurios) is Christ to the slave.

I Peter 2:18-21 goes even farther:

Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.

This emphasis upon obedience is paralleled in Romans 13:1-3 where Paul addresses all Christians and not just slaves:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.

The attitude prescribed for slaves in other epistles, then, is urged upon all Christians in regard to civil authority. The governing powers are there only by the will of God; therefore, they must be obeyed both implicitly and explicitly. Unlike some of the Hebrew prophets who call down God’s judgment upon sinful rulers, and the Book of Revelation that pictures the Roman Empire as the whore of Babylon, Paul clearly believes that governing authorities are beyond human criticism. It is difficult to imagine how anyone living under the Caesars could have thought this. Jews, in particular, had long sought for political freedom from Rome and had revolted several times. Paul, however, is a radical anti-revolutionary. Everything happens according to God’s will; the Christian must accept that will and obey. One can very well understand why such a faith appealed to Constantine and his successors and why he, in fact if not in name. established Christianity as the religion of his empire. There is nothing an Emperor likes better than unrestrained obedience to his will.

This attitude of complete obedience characterizes the whole Christian economy. Again, I quote from Colossians:

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and never treat them harshly. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart. Col. 3:18-21

So, therefore, everyone’s life must be characterized by obedience. Slaves obey their masters; children obey their parents; wives obey their husbands; husbands obey the political authorities; the lower political authorities obey the higher ones; the highest authority, the Emperor, must obey God. Since God wills all things, all such obedience is obedience to him. In that sense, everyone is a slave to both God and the system he creates.

This use of the metaphor of slavery was by no means new. The Hebrew Scriptures, following the lead of Near Eastern religions in general, are full of the phrase “slaves (often translated as servants) of the Lord.” The Patriarchs, Moses, David, and many others are described this way. Israel knew herself as God’s ebed. Nevertheless, the New Testament transforms this emphasis, basing the whole idea upon the central events in the life of Jesus as they are related in the Gospels. Most significant is John’s retelling of the story of the Last Supper in which he describes Jesus washing the disciples feet.

And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciple’s feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. John 13:2-5 (RSV)

Foot washing was a task reserved for the douloi, even for the non-Jewish slaves. It was considered a very demeaning task that a free person would not willingly perform. Dressed with only a towel tied around his waist, and hence quite naked, Jesus performs the duties of a slave and, hence, reveals himself as a doulos. When Peter objects, Jesus tells him that unless he allows him to do this, Peter has no part in him. In other words, as the ideal human being, Jesus is a slave and therefore must serve others.

He further reveals his obedience to both God and human authority later that night. He knows that Judas is to betray him; he has plenty of time to make his escape, but he does not do so. He allows himself to be captured, submits to the religious and civil authorities, and does nothing to defend himself during his trial. He is like a lamb led to slaughter. He goes willingly, without protest, to die a demeaning death, naked, upon a cross.
The book of Philippians interprets Jesus’ action:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (kurios), to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11.

In a way, this short passage sums up the whole of Christian theology. What is this “mind” which Christians are to have in them? Presumably, to follow Jesus believers must be characterized by the mind of a slave. They must learn to be obedient, even “unto death” because the “human likeness” is found in servitude. The ideal Christian life is that of a slave who obeys without question. Just as Jesus does not claim equality with God so humans should not claim to be equal to their “betters.”

Perhaps that is the reason why Jesus teaches his disciples to give away their money (Matt, 19:16-24), to forsake, even hate, their kinsfolk, and to follow only him. (Luke 14:25ff). Although many slaves in the Greco-Roman world did own property, the implication is that true slaves have no family, no property, no money. They have only their obedience. Christians are called to be like that, attentive entirely to the will of Jesus, their lord (kurios).

This, of course, is the central paradox that the ideal slave, Jesus, has now become Master. Indeed, it would appear that the way to inherit the kingdom is to have his slave-mind. Then from a position of absolute weakness one can rise to a position of absolute power, for a master is, above all things, powerful. So the poor, the meek, the sorrowful are the blessed, (Matt. 5:3-5) for in the next world all values will be reversed. The hungry will receive good things while the rich will be sent away empty. (Luke 1:53) One can see therefore why this tradition was popular not only with rulers but with the oppressed lower classes and slaves. Indeed, the message is that the worst off you are today: the better off you will be tomorrow. One should rejoice in being poor, in being a slave, even in being abused because that assures a place of joy when the kingdom comes,

In a temporal sense, such obedience is relatively easy to understand. Slaves, like children, are to obey in all things. Wives must obey their husbands but can also be mistresses of their children and their slaves. They are both slaves and masters. The same is true of husbands who must obey the temporal lords but in turn can lord it over their wives and children and slaves. So, free people who have come of age are all images of Christ in that they are both douloi and kurioi. Even the Emperor who is the great Kurios of the age is also meant to be the doulos of God. Since children eventually grow into adulthood, only the actual slaves are only slaves, for they are lords of nothing. In the next world, however, the kingdom will be theirs. Perhaps that is why Paul urges them to stay as they are.

In the spiritual realm, the situation is trickier, for while the Emperor is a human being, exists in this world, and offers edicts to be obeyed, God himself is not in the world and does not usually speak to humans directly. How does one obey God when God does not show himself? The answer, of course, is that God has revealed himself in Jesus and it is to Jesus that one owes obedience. The problem, however, is that Jesus is apparently no more readily available today than God is. Therefore, one needs testimony about him from the earliest disciples to know what he commands. That criterion, however, soon began to become blurred as more and more gospels and epistles appeared that claimed to be by disciples but that did not agree with one another. The result was that the church had to put together a canon of works that it regarded as genuine and authoritative. This, obviously, became the New Testament of the Bible.

Even the Bible, however, was not sufficient, for neither the Old Testament nor the New is entirely self-consistent or clear about important matters. This lack of clarity soon became evident in the many theological squabbles that consumed the early church. So the church wrote creeds to make evident what the Scriptures “really” teach. These, in turn, demanded and demand interpretation by living authorities within the church: Priests, Bishops, Archbishops, and Popes.

Although Paul depended almost exclusively upon his own private visions of Jesus for his message, the church soon came to realize that obedience to “inner voices” or “feelings in the heart,” or “mystical visions” could be quite dangerous for the authoritarian structure that the church very soon became. Thus obedience came to entail obedience to the spiritual lords of the Church. Christians are to heed the teachings of ecclesiastical authorities in the same way that they are to heed the civil laws promulgated by the civil magistrate. In both realms they are to act as a slave acts, with perfect, if uncritical, obedience

A strong hint of this attitude is to be found in the first letter of Paul to Timothy. While describing the marks of a bishop the author says this:

He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way—for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s church? 1 Tim. 3:4-5

In other words, a bishop must know how to make people submit to him. Church members, like his children, must learn from him complete obedience.

Matthew 16:18-19 is a passage essential for this whole structure:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Thus it is the head of the Church as God’s earthly authority who not only ultimately interprets Scripture but has the power to bind and to loose both on earth and in heaven. Obedience to the church hierarchy is equivalent to obedience to Christ. It is the church that serves as a mediator of Christ to the obedient. Christ is known through the preaching of the Word and the partaking of the sacraments, that is, through activities controlled by the church hierarchy, for only the ordained clergy can preach and administer baptism and the eucharist. To be in Christ is to be in the Church and to be in the Church is to be obedient to the teachings and the demands of that Church. Thus one cannot separate the teachings of the Church from the institution of the Church; they are inseparable.

Parenthetically, this development is quite ironic for Jesus himself was very critical of ecclesiastical authorities, attacking repeatedly the scribes and Pharisees. Moreover, he says in Matthew 23:8-10.

But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father— the one in heaven. Neither be called instructors , for you have one instructor, the Messiah.

Still, Jesus reverts to the image of slavery when he adds,

The greatest among you will be your slave; all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. Matt. 23:11-12.

From the beginning, Christians like Paul identified themselves as douloi Christou Iesou, “slaves of Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:1). Christians are regularly so understood throughout the New Testament. Translators of the New Testament, however, perhaps aware that readers might find the word “slave” offensive, have regularly rendered doulos as servant, even though the primary, most accurate translation is “slave.” For instance, in the King James Version, the word slave, in the singular, does not occur in the New Testament even though doulos is used frequently in the Greek text.6 In the Revised Standard Version “slave” occurs thirty-two times, but even so, key passages still utilize “servant.” Softening the language, however, does not change the reality. Christianity is a form of slavery, not just to God in Christ, but to the civil and ecclesiastical institutions that it is believed God ordains.

There are, of course, some critical problems with the system of slave obedience outlined above. Indeed, it is strange that a tradition that has placed so much emphasis upon the sinful nature of humans would ever have considered any human a lord who legitimately requires obeisance. Clearly, there is tremendous danger that sinful temporal and spiritual lords will take advantage of Christian obedience and literally get away with murder—or at least child abuse. Blind obedience hardly provides a proper check to lordly misdoing in either the secular or the sacred realm. It is true that the threat of divine punishment may sometimes offer a modest deterrent to those in charge, but usually sinful inclinations have a way of overcoming the force of such future threats.

Another problem is that the lords temporal and the lords spiritual, who are supposed to complement each other, may not always agree. One thinks of the struggle between Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII in the 11th Century over the investiture of the clergy. Political and military power is great, but so is the papal power of excommunication, especially in a society imbued with the virtue of obedience. In any event, there have been times when the question of “Obedience to whom?” has become central and that question has the power to undermine the whole system.

Another problem with this system is that the Bible is a vast document containing many points of view and so it is relatively easy to point out disparities between what the church teaches and what the Bible, in certain places, says. That is the reason why, during much of Christian history, lay people were not encouraged to read the Bible at all but were strongly encouraged to leave such study to clerics. For the most part this strategy worked, but eventually monks like Martin Luther and then a whole host of others began reading the Bible and discovering vast discrepancies between what Scripture says and what the Church taught. These discoveries, of course, led to the Protestant Reformation.

In general the Protestant Reformers tried to preserve the old order of authority and obedience, though now with an attempt to “get the authority right.” Protestants regarded the Bible as the keystone in the arch of theology, as the Word of God, but they kept the various classical creeds as symbols of orthodox interpretation and added to them new Confessions that provided a Protestant reading of the ancient texts. It is not surprising, then, that the old external set of obediences as provided by Scripture was adhered to. For instance, the Scots Confession includes the following:

Therefore we confess and avow that those who resist the supreme powers, so long as they are acting in their own spheres, are resisting God’s ordinance and cannot be held guiltless.7

So likewise, the Second Helvetic Confession says:

Therefore let them (the subjects) honor and reverence the magistrate as the minister of God; let them love him, favor him, pray for him as their father; and let them obey all his just and fair commands.8

It is noteworthy that now the obedience required is qualified somewhat for by implication unjust and unfair commands may not merit obedience. Gradually, one can see a shifting in attitude. Still, it was under the Protestants that the doctrine of the divine right of kings became popular. Indeed, freedom from Rome entailed a growing nationalistic spirit and with it the exaltation of the secular authority. Moreover, the secular hierarchy remained more-or-less intact. In England, the King still ruled, serving even as the head of the Church. Lords and ladies, the elite “betters,” dominated society, but every free male of age came to be called Mister (e.g. master). This nomenclature is paralleled by the German Herr, the French Monsieur (my lord), and the Spanish Señor (lord). Women were considered subordinate to men, though they were also mistresses (Miss, Mrs.) in so far as they ruled the children (who should be seen but not heard) and the servants and slaves.

The spiritual hierarchy was truncated, for the Pope no longer ruled, but among Anglicans and many Lutherans bishops retained much of their authority. Calvinists did away with the office of bishop but presbyteries were “but bishops writ large” and the preacher was regarded as having divine authority, actually communicating God’s Word directly to the Christian community.

The Second Helvetic Confession says this about preaching:

Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and received by the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be invented nor is to be expected from heaven; and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister who preaches; for even if he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God remains still true and good. 9

What this means is that once a minister is ordained and thus represents the Church, what he says from the pulpit is the direct communication from God even if he is desperately evil! His authority rests in the ordination; the believer must accept what he says simply because he has said it. Intellectual slavery to the ecclesia certainly did not die with the Protestant Reformation.

Among Protestants, “faith” tended to replace “obedience” as the normative word, but, in fact, faith, as it was understood, entailed primarily intellectual obedience. In general, the “burgher mentality” of Protestantism would not have taken kindly to the notion of becoming “slaves,” but the churches still demanded careful acquiescence to the teachings of the church. In fact, because the Protestant Reformation was based upon a theological protest, the intellectual obedience demanded was quite exacting.

Eventually, as a new vision of humanity, born out of the Enlightenment, dawned, the whole structure of obedience began to collapse. The Bible by itself proved to be of dubious authority for its many voices spawned a variety of sects that the national established churches tried valiantly to suppress but could not. Biblical criticism gradually began to undercut the authority of Scripture as more and more questions were raised about authenticity of authorship and text, original meaning, and canonical formation. Moreover, the discovery of the New World meant that a growing number of settlers experienced life without the venerable, well-established hierarchies of the Old World. A new sort of democracy without the authorities of king, lord, and archbishop began to develop. The structures of obedience were in jeopardy as churches began to become more democratic.

The struggle against slavery was all a part of that crumbling, for, in a sense, the old slave order was an important ingredient in Christian culture. Lordship logically demands the obedience of the slave. The ideal form of human life, said the old tradition, is to be a slave. To be fully obedient, as only a slave can be, is the key to the kingdom. Protestantism did not overtly teach this any more and certainly did not idealize to the life of servitude, but there was a strong sense that old values were crumbling and somehow the old social order, as revised by Protestants, had to be preserved.10

Democratic egalitarianism, with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, however, was too much for the old order and slavery finally collapsed, though the oppression of the freed blacks and other ethnic minorities continued unabated. Curiously, it took several more decades for the repression of women to be even partially overcome. It is shocking to imagine that women could not vote in America until 1920.i In any event, the whole culture of Lord and Slave, of radical, servile obedience now appears curiously bizarre, like some barbaric practice from a far off savage land. It is sobering to remember, however, that it was not just some minor and dispensable feature of the old faith but quite central to the whole Christian message as it is found in the Bible and as it was developed in the early church.

This, in fact, is the main point to be made. Authoritarianism with its hierarchy of lords spiritual and temporal is not some later medieval addition to Christianity but is clearly articulated in the New Testament itself. To accept the Bible as the Word of God is to accept a highly authoritarian structure for the church and society and the required “slave-mind” which such authority implies. To discard that structure is to “pick and choose” among the teachings of the Bible and thus have no authority at all.

The Roman Catholic Church saw the dangers to the faith that the new democratic spirit entailed and therefore issued in 1864 the Syllabus of Errors that condemns all forms of modernism and liberalism. In 1870 there followed the proclamation of papal infallibility. Many Protestant Churches, however, believed that one could combine Biblical authority and the new spirit of democracy. Thus many features of the Biblical hierarchy were demolished. In particular, the equality of men and women was acknowledged and the ordination of women eventually approved.

The question remains as to whether Christianity can (or should) genuinely survive without the authoritarian structure prescribed by the Bible. The real problem for belief in Christianity today is not the miracles; there are many examples from modern times of people who have experienced dramatic cures or who have heard voices or seen visions. There have been attested examples of people who have seemingly died and then come back to life again. Given what scientists are discovering about the nature of the universe, nothing seems particularly surprising any more.

The real question is whether the old metaphor of Lord and Slave works or should work any more. Certainly it does not seem at all appropriate to think of a President or a CEO or a husband as kurios, as a representative of God on earth. Nor is it seem appropriate to think of a citizen or a wife or the neighborhood handyman as doulos. One of the major roles of the bishop is as pastor, a word that comes from the Greek word for shepherd. Therefore bishops carry a crook to symbolize their pastoral role in the church. Is it, however, really appropriate any longer to think of Christians as just tractable and obedient sheep whose task in life is to obey the shepherd? Are we really to believe that the bishop or the pastor is so much wiser and spiritual than the rest of his “flock”? Since we are, by and large, trying to rid ourselves of earthly kurioi, is it even appropriate to think of God as Lord?

Christianity has long promised freedom from the dark lords of the world through an act of radical commitment and obedience to God as known in Jesus Christ. That promise still attracts millions today. Indeed, the power of Christianity seems to lie in its claims to absolute authority. That is doubtless why the churches that exert that authority (one thinks not only of Roman Catholicism but the various forms of Protestant fundamentalism) are the ones that seem to be prospering. Those churches that have tried to combine a democratic form of government and Biblical authority are the ones that are declining most rapidly. There is some truth to the old adage that one cannot put new wine in old wineskins. Either one retains the old authoritarian structure or adopts the new democratic vision in which equality and a commitment to truth wherever it may be found predominate. It is difficult to see how one can have both.

My question is this: Is it not better to think of spiritual commitment as a commitment to a search for truth and enlightenment rather than to some exacting Lord who in times past laid down a variety of contradictory rules and regulations that are sometimes quite impossible to obey? Is not it wiser to emphasize rather than deplore the intelligence and independence of the human spirit? I do not mean to imply by this that humans, through reason and experience, can arrive at sure and certain spiritual truths. The riddle of life is not so easy to answer. In the face of the human enigma, however, should anyone, to circumvent the difficulty, seek to develop the mind of a slave?

The Christian response, I am sure, would be that, by definition, God is the Lord of the Universe and thus it is absolutely appropriate to obey him in all things. To fail to do so is to be severed from the very source of existence. My question in response is: must one obey the church and civil authorities to obey God? And if not, how is it possible to know what it is God wills? The usual answer is that the truth is in the Bible, but clearly that book takes so many different positions on key issues that it is surely not an undebatable authority. Moreover, why is it so obvious that one should listen to the Bible rather than the Gita, the Dao De Jing, or the Koran? Was not Frederick Nieztsche correct when he argued that Christianity represents a slave mentality that modern humans must throw off in their search for a higher form of spiritual life?

It is true that the obedience of a slave may undercut individual egotism, that, to be sure, can be a source of all sorts of anti-social behavior, but what is suppressed in the individual returns greatly magnified in the corporate egotism manifest in both church and state. Nazism probably never would have arisen had the German people not been taught that civil authorities are ordained by God and, therefore, should be obeyed. The sexual abuse of children in Christian churches also probably would not have occurred so often had priests not been thought to have such absolute authority over their “flocks.” To grant ultimate authority to anything human, and that includes both the Bible and the church hierarchy, seems to me to be a form of idolatry. Such idolatry has led to inquisitions and pogroms, wars and humiliations, sexism, racial suppression, and indeed to many of the woes that haunt humanity.

These, I believe, are serious questions that contemporary Christians (and indeed Jews and Muslims as well) must face head-on. In this post-modern, egalitarian, multi-cultural world in which Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, and Jews live side-by-side with other believers and non-believers and in which all humans are accepted, or at least should be accepted, as having equal rights and value, is it possible any longer to maintain the views of authority and lordship that have dominated Christianity as well as the other Abrahamic religions up to the present?

End Notes:

1 This work is largely an attack upon the famous anti-slavery essay written by William Ellery Channing.

2 E.N. Elliott, Cotton is King and Pro-Slavery Arguments with an Essay on Slavery in the light of International Law by the Editor (Pritchard, Abbott & Loomis: 1860), p. 870.

3 Or “are slaves of”

4 Except when otherwise noted, all quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.

5 I owe this insight to Professor Bernadette Brooten. See Thomas Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (Baltinmre, Md.:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981) pp.45ff, 179., 225ff. See also William L. Westermann, The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1955) pp.118-120.

6 The word “slaves” is used once in Revelation 18:13.

7 The Book of Confessions, Part I of the Constitution of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Office of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America: 1967), 3.24.

8 Ibid. 5.256.

9 Ibid. 5.004

10 It is interesting that Hodge, a primary spokesman for American Protestantism, not only did not attack the suppression of women but also accepted the notion that a wife is her husband’s property. Elliott, op.cit. p.866, He wrote, apparently without regret “In this country we believe that the general good requires us to deprive the whole female sex of the right of self-government. They have no voice in the formulation of laws which dispose of their persons and property. When married we despoil them almost entirely of a legal existence, and deny them some of the most essential rights of property.” Ibid. p. 863.

54 comments

Islamic Education at its Best: The Zaytuna College Summer Arabic Intensive – New Video!

Posted in Islam, Video by Paul Williams on December 26, 2009

Awesome pics…

Posted in Cool Stuff, Islam by Paul Williams on December 24, 2009

Some awesome pics from the MDI Facebook site

Just half of Britons now call themselves Christian after a ‘sharp decline’ in faith over past 25 years

Posted in The News by Paul Williams on December 23, 2009

Only half of Britons now consider themselves Christian after a “sharp decline” in religious belief over the past quarter of a century, according to a new academic study.

By Martin Beckford
Published: 12:01AM GMT 16 Dec 2009

Researchers describe a large proportion of the country as the “fuzzy faithful” who have a vague belief in God but do not necessarily belong to a particular denomination or attend services.

However, most people still say religion helps bring happiness and comfort, and regret its declining influence on modern society.

Professor David Voas, who has analysed the latest data, said: “More and more people are ceasing to identify with a religion at all.

“Indeed, the key distinction in Britain now is between religious involvement and indifference. We are thus concerned about differences in religiosity – the degree of religious commitment – at least as much as diversity of religious identity.”

His analysis, to be published in January by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), looks at the results of 4,486 interviews conducted in the respected 2008 British Social Attitudes survey.

It shows that just 50 per cent of respondents now call themselves Christian, down from 66 per cent in 1983. NatCen said it confirmed “the sharp decline in religious faith in Britain.”

At the same time, the proportion of Britons who say they have “no religion” has increased from 31 per cent to 43 per cent. Non-Christians, including Muslims and Jews, now represent 7 per cent of the population, up from 2 per cent, 25 years ago.

The steepest fall was among those who say they worship in the established religion, the Church of England, down from 40 per cent of those who call themselves Christians to 23 per cent.

Official Church attendance figures show that average Sunday attendance was 978,000 in 2007, compared with 1.2m in 1983.

Prof Voas said: “The declining Christian share is largely attributable to a drift away from the Church of England.”

The proportion of Roman Catholics declined only slightly from 10 per cent to 9 per cent.

Further questions showed that 37 per cent of Britons either do not believe in God or are unable to say if a supreme being exists, while 35 per cent have a definite belief in God or belief with occasional doubts.

Only 7 per cent described themselves as very religious, and 62 per cent said they never attended services in a place of worship.

Even 49 per cent of those who said they were Anglicans claimed never go to church, while just 8 per cent go every Sunday.

The study suggests that the decline in faith is largely attributable to children no longer being brought up in a particular religion.

“The results suggest that institutional religion in Britain now has a half-life of one generation, to borrow the terminology of radioactive decay.

“Two non-religious parents successfully transmit their lack of religion. Two religious parents have roughly a 50/50 chance of passing on the faith. One religious parent does only half as well as two together.”

Separate research suggests that immigration has led to a rise in adherence to Pentecostal Christianity and other world religions in Britain, leading to a “polarisation of belief” with the secular indigenous population.

Prof Voas believes that the population can be categorised as religious, non-religious or “fuzzy faithful” – the 36 per cent who “identify with a religion, believe in God or attend services, but not all three”.

Despite the survey showing falling belief in God, 65 per cent of those questioned still thought that religion helps people to find inner piece while 79 per cent thought it provided solace.

In addition, 44 per cent said it was a shame that the influence of religion on British life was declining, while 18 per cent claimed both that faith is becoming more influential and that this is a bad thing.

The findings are in sharp contrast to those recorded in the USA, where 76 per cent say they are Christian and 26 per cent describe themselves as very religious.

It comes just days after the Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior cleric in the Church of England, claimed that the Government treats worshippers as “oddities” and religion as a “problem”.

Dr Rowan Williams said: “The effect is to de-normalise faith, to intensify the perception that faith is not part of our bloodstream. And, you know, in great swathes of the country that’s how it is.”

Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, said: “Last week at a gathering of faith leaders at Downing Street, the Prime Minister said that Christian values were ‘at the heart of national life’. This research shows that this is simply not true.

“This report shows more clearly than ever that Britain is a post-religious society and policy should reflect that.”

But the Rev Lynda Barley, the Church of England’s head of Research and Statistics, said: “Statistical comparisons over a long period have the drawback of ignoring recent trends.

“The Church of England has been carefully monitoring Christian affiliation and churchgoing following the 2001 government census result that 7 in 10 people regard themselves as Christian. Independent surveys continue to show that 7 in 10 people are Christian and approaching half are Anglican in contrast to the British Social Attitudes Survey findings which focus on religious membership.

“Local church counts of worshippers throughout October for the last nine years record 1.7 million individual Church of England worshippers each month in each year. At the same time, it has been ordaining some 500 new clergy each year.”

Telegraph.co.uk

By LENA HASSAN, SPECIAL TO QMI AGENCY

Moderate Muslims not newsworthy

Posted in Islam by Paul Williams on December 23, 2009

Whether you call it Islamophobia or just plain reporting, Muslims are in the news and except for 20-second sound-bites from a local Eid celebration, it’s not good.

There’s the persistent and popular debate on the hijab and Muslim women in general. There are wars waged or threatened in Muslim countries such as Iraq and Iran and, most importantly, there are stories reporting atrocities committed by nominal Muslims.

When this last happens, Muslims, like everyone else, cry for the victims, feel anger toward the ones who committed the act and pray for justice to be served.

The voice of opposition to extremism is a roar within the Muslim community yet it’s oddly translated to a whisper by the media.

Because of this lack of reporting, many ask, “Where are the moderate Muslims and why aren’t they denouncing these crimes?” The answer to this frequently asked question is, we’re right here.

We’re standing beside you at the bus stop, we’re administering your flu shot, we’re assisting you at the mall, we’re giving you medical advice, we’re eating at the table across from you in the restaurant; we’re everywhere and we’re living moderately.

So why must Muslims take on the task of town crier when a crime is committed in the name of Islam? To do so would be to give legitimacy to the act and the person committing it when the fact is, when someone kills in the name of Islam or Allah, Muslims, in line with the general public, think, “I don’t know that person and I don’t know that religion,” because we don’t.

We don’t follow a religion that says it’s OK to kill or commit suicide. We don’t follow a religion that tells us to hate Christians and Jews. We don’t follow a religion that is evil. We are not evil and should not be told to apologize for something we didn’t do.

There are those who are looking for religious leaders to speak out, not individual Muslims. They have spoken out and continue to do so, though you have to search high and low to find this information.

Case in point

If you’re not reading the Taipei Times regularly you may have missed an article reporting on imams denouncing bombing attacks.

If you’re not watching New York’s 24-hour newscast, you may not know that a coalition of more than 200 imams has formed to confront the dangers of extremism.

And if you’re not visiting CAIR-CAN (Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations) online, you may have missed the statement by 120 Canadian imams on extremism, in which they state, “. . . Any one who claims to be a Muslim and participates in any way in the taking of an innocent life is betraying the very spirit and letter of Islam. We categorically and unequivocally reject such acts. We will confront and challenge the extremist mindset that produces this perversion of our faith . . .” These imams also agreed to help CSIS and the RCMP in a collective fight against terrorism.

So where are the moderate Muslims, you ask? I’m here to challenge that question and to have us all come together and collectively ask, “Where is the moderate coverage?”

Lena Hassan is a writer from London, Canada.

Monday 21st December 2009 MDI Press Release

Official Response to, Head of the Christian People’s Alliance Party, Alan Craig’s article: ‘Off with their heads’

Posted in Debates, Islam, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI) by Paul Williams on December 21, 2009

In the Name of God, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful.

By Dr Tabasum Hussain

On the 9th November 2009, Alan Craig on his public blog site, wrote:

“I’ve joined a Christian debating team called Codgers and recently found myself enjoying the new experience of leading on a couple of Muslim/Christian debates…the second was ‘Jihad on trial’ with Sami Zataari of the Muslim Debate Initiative. They’ve been well-attended and amicable affairs with friendly relations across the faiths. The Muslim organisers are pleasant guys (yes, only guys, no girls of course – this is Islam) who seem genuinely interested in grappling with the issues.”

In his latest article, ‘Off with their heads?’ Alan Craig takes a shot at the Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI) and Islam in general when he states that there are no Muslim women on the MDI team. Reading a recent blog comment below the article someone stated that perhaps Alan should be given the benefit of the doubt in having missed the fact that I, Dr. Tabasum Hussain, am a female member of the MDI team!

It would seem there is little room for generosity in giving someone benefit of the doubt when it comes to individuals resembling Britain’s version of the American Christian Far-right, who make sweeping assumptions about Muslim organisations and Islam excluding women without really having a clue about what Islam actually says or the membership of the organisations he demeans. Mr. Craig took it upon himself to write an article and make a baseless statement about MDI without doing his research (or perhaps conveniently ignoring certain facts to make an invalid point against Islam). As a politician Mr. Craig should be expected at the very least to do his research by simply navigating the MDI website (for which he has a link in his article) and read the member profiles to discover that Dr.Tabasum Hussain is a female member. Perhaps Mr. Craig assumed that the ‘Dr’ title means ‘it’s just another guy’, and did not bother to read that it is a woman’s profile. If so, then he would be both a victim as well as a propagator of the very same gender biases and misogynistic world views that he publicly denounces – or did he conveniently side-step my existence as a part of deliberate strategy to attack Islam and Muslims?

Does Mr. Craig have any excuse for his ignorance of the existence of myself (a Female speaker in MDI)? Well since joining the Christian Evangelical organisation ‘The Codgers’, Alan Craig recently had to mediate a misunderstanding between MDI and The Codgers, as regards to a promised debate between myself and a member of their group. This debate which was meant to take place before Summer 09 (and constitute the 3rd MDI debate to date!), but this had been delayed by The Codgers who cited an unexpected lack of availability in the schedules of their speakers. I had asked Codgers to send one of their members to debate on an MDI platform, and was hoping to have one debate in the UK shortly before I relocated to Canada, but unfortunately this didn’t happen.

After I had left to Canada, the current acting Director of MDI, Abdullah al Andalusi was outraged at the Codgers apparent stalling of scheduling a debate with myself (which had to that point been going on for 5 months!). Abdullah then intervened and expressed his deep disappointment with the Codgers, and warned of a cessation of any debates with any of the members of the Codgers until they had confirmed a time and date to debate myself. Alan Craig, being a member of the Codgers, resolved to mediate between the Codgers and MDI. This led to representatives of MDI meeting up with The Codgers over coffee, to resolve the ‘misunderstanding’.

The question is, how and why did Alan make such comments that there was ‘no women’ in MDI, when he knew perfectly well there was, and even had offered to mediate a dispute that arose MDI was outraged due to the Codgers seemly unenthusiastic approach to debating a Muslim female member of the MDI team?

Furthermore, before Alan Craig’s claims he meant there are no women in the decision making team of MDI. MDI was and remains a group of semi-autonomous Muslim activists and speakers that work as a team. Working as a ‘team’ does not necessarily mean that organising all the debates is left to ‘one person’. Regardless of my absence from the UK, I have been trying to organise a debate with a female member of ‘The Codgers’ Christian debating team (as Mr. Craig is well aware of), so that the debate can coincide with one of my return visits to London at a month’s notice. Alan Craig was well aware of this. Abdullah only intervened when he saw no progress from the Codgers side. Now that there is a resolution in place, we shall see if the The Codgers keep to their word on that one.

Lastly, the MDI team is definitely recruiting both women and men that choose to step forward — I am just the first woman to step forward. The MDI does not take any old conscripts to bolster their credentials; women (like the men) choose to join. Please take the time to navigate our website and read the MDI team member profiles. What may come as another shock is that the Muslim men of the MDI team did not object to a woman becoming a team member. However, Mr. Craig may claim that women are not at the forefront, so please note that I am the only one with the ‘Dr’ title amongst all the Muslim men on the MDI website so far (and hence the most qualified member of MDI at the time of writing!). Furthermore, North America’s largest Islamic organisation is headed by Dr. Ingrid Mattson, a woman as well as a convert from Christianity (that’s what the North Americans call a double whammy!). If anything I find it patronising and/or insulting when women are often simply put under the limelight for reasons pertaining to political correctness or strategy. I do not care much for playing the role of “Mrs. Jack Van Impe” nor do I necessarily feel that a woman’s input and activism is only commendable when she is in the front lines of fire.

At the end of the day the MDI team have become somewhat accustomed to Mr. Craig’s ignorant and often hateful comments about Islam in general, and in his failing to get his facts straight on this whole issue he himself does a great job of highlighting the lack of credibility in anything else he may blurt out against Islam, Prophet Muhammad (saaw), Women, and Muslim organisations. Overall, this is an embarrassing reflection of how some of our Christian debating friends need to get their facts straight, or else cease making comments and stick to preaching the New Testament, with all it’s ‘Liberal’ teachings on women.

Unfortunately, Alan Craig has not learned from his lesson (and yes, he still has not retracted his fallacious statement after we pointed it out to him) and continues to attack us and Islam in regards to our alleged gender bias:

Alan Craig -15/12/09 on his official blog, he wrote:

“Last Thursday I was panellist at a well-promoted ‘Big Debate’ at Conway Hall in Bloomsbury. It was organised by the Muslim Debate Initiative on the subject ‘Islamification of Britain: Myth or Reality?’… 400 people listened for nearly 3 hours while the six-man panel (no women of course, this is Islam) debated the hot issue.”

MDI did attempt to contact Melanie Philips and invited her to attend as a debate panellist, but she did not take up our offer. According to Alan Craig’s statement, it would seem he does not consider Melanie to be a woman!

Finally, if Mr. Craig feels that this is an exaggerated response, generalizing based on a single incident, or assuming the worst about the other’s intentions, then he should take this moment in time to reconsider his modus operandi towards his Muslim `friends’.

Dr. Tabasum Hussain (Muslim female MDI speaker)

————————————————

The MDI Press Release does not mention that we recently welcomed another woman to our MDI Team in London, Nazli Ali. You can read her profile here

1 comment

BBC Arabic Coverage of MDI Event

Posted in Debates, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI), The News, Video by Paul Williams on December 20, 2009

BBC Arabic

Secularism marches on…

Posted in Islam, The News by Paul Williams on December 16, 2009

Not content with banning the hijab in schools/universities/the health service etc, France now goes one step further:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party, the UMP, says it will push for a law banning the burqa, the full-face Islamic veil, according to its parliamentary leader Jean-François Copé.

“The issue is not how many women wear the burqa,” Copé wrote in an article in the right-wing newspaper Le Figaro. “There are principles at stake: extremists are putting the republic to the test by promoting a practice that they know is contrary to the basic principles of our country.”

As an Anglican priest wrote to me today,

‘Typical French obsession with narrow feminism, combined with hostility to any faith which makes any difference to public life.

Awful, pseudo-Napoleon super-Sarko is the one who would deserve a public humiliation, much more than poor Berlusconi…’

Islamophobia Watch

More Lies from ‘Stop Islamisation of Europe’ (SIOE)

Posted in Far right racism, Islam, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI), Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), The News, The Real English Defence League by Paul Williams on December 14, 2009

SIOE leader Stephen Gash is reported to have said yesterday (Sunday 13th December): “I don’t wish to be disruptive, especially around Christmas, but I say the only recourse available to us is the streets. Nobody will allow us to talk on TV.”

Stephen Gash was invited to the recent Muslim Debate Initiative’s ‘The Islamification of Britain: reality or myth?’ a subject close to his heart. The BBC, Channel 4, CNN London and other TV Channels filmed the event which was a great success. We at MDI invited Mr Gash to be a speaker. But he declined to attend this media saturated event where he would have had the opportunity to present his views in an open and uncensored forum.

Given these incontrovertable facts, why does Mr Gash still whine that he is not permitted to speak at events covered by major TV networks? Why does he lie so blatantly?

Also, it is reported that the ‘English Defence League’ and ‘SIOE’ both rejected an open invitation to dialogue from Harrow mosque yesterday, thereby demonstrating that they are only interested in aggressive street confrontations. This is not the English way of doing things.

Asian Image reports:

Harrow mosque shunned by Islamaphobics over request for dialogue

ANTI-ISLAM campaigners refused requests for a dialogue from Harrow Central Mosque at a rally today.

Ajmal Masroor, a spokesman for the religious institution, crossed police lines to talk to affiliates of the English Defence League (EDL) and Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) at an anti-mosque rally, in Station Road.

He invited representatives of the two groups to come into the mosque and discuss their objections to Muslim religion, but the protesters rejected the offer.

SIOE leader Stephen Gash said: “What’s the point of me discussing with an Imam at the mosque. What we want is the debate with John Denham and the Home Office.”

Mr Masroor said: “An invitation was made to the groups but they’ve refused. We spoke to SIOE, extended the arm and invited them to the mosque and they refused.

“Stephen Gash said it was not worth his time to come and talk to us. As a community of people we have demonstrated we are united, we are not going to be hijacked by right wing fascist and racist groups.

“You are not going to be able to hijack are harmony and peaceful existence.”

Mahmood Awan, trustee of the mosque, said: “It’s a shame that they are not prepared to have a dialogue. We could have tried to build bridges but they don’t seem to want to do that.

“All they want is to come here and disrupt our community.”

Anti-fascists confronted the English Defence League and Stop Islamisation of Europe in a peaceful protest in the car park of Harrow Civic Centre, in Station Road.

Members of the two organisations chanted slogans at each other from behind metal crowd control barriers and lines of police officers.

Mr Gash said: “I don’t wish to be disruptive, especially around Christmas, but I say the only recourse available to us is the streets. Nobody will allow us to talk on TV.”

Paul Brown, of central London, an affiliate of EDL, said: “We are here to protest against the relentless march of Islam in Britain and across the world. It’s been going on for centuries.

“People have been planning this. This is what Islam is all about. They go into areas and take over and crush everyone.”

Tony McNulty, MP for Harrow East, said: “They don’t know what they are talking about. It’s a protest fuelled by ignorance.

“It’s a matter of profound despair to them that Harrow is such a united, multi-faith community.”

http://www.asianimage.co.uk
© Copyright 2001-2009 Newsquest Media Group

36 comments

UK Muslims Europe’s Most Patriotic: Study

Posted in Islam, The News by Paul Williams on December 14, 2009

IslamOnline.net & Newspapers

Though being looked at with suspicion, Muslims in the United Kingdom are the most patriotic in Europe, a new study by a leading international institute has found.

On average 78 percent of Muslims identified themselves as British, according to a study conducted by the Open Society Institute and cited by Sunday Times on December 13.

The study, funded by George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist, was conducted over two and a half years, involving 2,200 in-depth interviews and 60 focus groups in 11 cities across Europe with large Muslim communities.

The cities were chosen to be representative of varying levels of integration and cohesion across the continent.

The results show that on average 78 percent of Muslims identified themselves as British, 49 percent considered themselves French and just 23 percent who feel German.

The survey found that levels of patriotism are much higher among second-generation Muslims.

In Leicester, 72 percent of Muslims born abroad said they felt British compared to 94 percent among UK-born Muslims.

Message

Nazia Hussain, director of the research project, believes the study shows a discrepancy between how British Muslims see themselves and how the society looks at them.

“There is a disturbing message that emerges from these findings,” Hussain told the Times.

“Even though Muslims overwhelmingly feel British, they’re not seen as British by wider society,” she added.

A 2007 survey by the Financial Times showed that Britons are the most suspicious about Muslims.

“That said … there has been a policy of trying to accommodate difference here and it appears to be paying off,” said Hussain.

Britain’s Muslims, estimated at some 2 million, have taken the full brunt of anti-terror laws since the 7/7 terrorist attacks on London underground system.

Last June, a BBC survey found that the majority of British Muslims are against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda movements and would defend their country against any possible attack.

An earlier ICM/Guardian poll showed that 91 percent of British Muslims were loyal to Britain and 80 percent still wanted to live in and accept Western society.

Islamonline

British journalist overpowered by the sound of the adhan

Posted in Islam, Video by Paul Williams on December 13, 2009

The beauty of the Islamic call to prayer:

Journalist review of MDI Debate

Posted in Articles by me, Debates, Islam, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI), The News, The Real English Defence League, Video, my talks by Paul Williams on December 13, 2009

Independent journalist Umar Farooq at Umar Online has written an extensive review of the debate, with lots of photos and exclusive video clips (I really need to get a hair cut):

“>Umar Online

MDI Event: The Islamification of Britain: reality or myth?

Posted in Debates, Far right racism, Islam, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI), The News, The Real English Defence League, Video, my talks by Paul Williams on December 12, 2009

There has been a great deal of media coverage of our Muslim Debate Initiative event, which I chaired. The BBC, CNN London, Channel 4 news and others recorded the debate. Some channels will be broadcasting the 3 hour debate in full. In the meantime here’s how Press TV covered it:

The BIG Debate

Posted in Debates, Far right racism, Islam, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI), my talks by Paul Williams on December 3, 2009

‘The Islamification of Britain: reality or myth?’ A debate on the future of Britain

Date: Thursday 10th December 2009
Time: 06.15 pm – 09.15 pm
Venue: The Grand Hall, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, London, WC1R 4RL
Nearest tube: Holborn (3 mins walk from Station)

The Muslim public debate forum, the Muslim Debate Initiative – MDI has announced that the Muslim community have publically invited members of the Far-right to an open public dialogue/debate on the 10th December 2009, at a prestigious central London venue to debate their contentions on Islam, the Muslim community in England/Europe, and the impact of immigration. The event is aimed at creating engagement between communities by use of open, civilised and frank discussion and debate. The event promises to be a passionate, yet respectful, live debate on some of the most controversial issues dominating the media and the public mind.

The invited panel, consisting of representatives from Ultra-Liberal, Liberal, Christian Democrat, Muslim, and Far-right backgrounds, will engage in discussion and debate over the controversial topic of ‘Islamification’ which has become the flag bearing issue for the campaigns by the BNP, EDL and SOIE (Stop the Islamification of Europe) groups.

The Speakers who have confirmed their attendance so far:

Jeffrey Marshall - Senior official and central London organiser for the British National Party (BNP). Jeffery was a campaign organiser for the BNP MEP elections.

Reverend Frank Gelli - Father Frank Gelli is an Anglican priest, a cultural critic and controversialist. He served as a chaplain at the British Embassy in Turkey and as a curate in parishes in London

Alan Craig - London Councillor for Newham and Leader of the ‘Christian People’s Alliance Party’ (CPAP). Alan has previously debated against the BNP and argued that they have falsely used Christian themes to gain votes. He has also campaigned against the building of the ‘olympics mega-mosque’, citing its potentially detrimental effect to community cohesion.

Andrew Copson - Director of Education and Public Affairs at the British Humanist Association (BHA). Andrew has organised campaigns calling for a secular state, for an end to religious privilege and discrimination based on religion or belief. He has written on these issues for The Guardian and New Statesman as well as various journals and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

Abdullah al Andalusi - Public speaker on Muslim political affairs, experience Muslim community worker and co-founder of Muslim Debate Initiative; an inter-community discussion forum. Abdullah has appeared on various tv channels discussing political analysis, Islamic and topical issues.

A representative from the Stop the Islamification of Europe (SIOE) or English Defence League (EDL)

Venue arrangements:

Security will be present at the event.

The ground floor of the Main hall holds 250+ people, 100+ seating on the upper galleries. Come early to guarantee a good seat.

Entry fee: Attendee discretionary amount (pay at entry)

For more information please contact: E-mail: info@thedebateinitiative.com

For lots of glossy photos of the speakers and the venue visit our MDI site:

The MDI Team

Defend Harrow from the Racist Bigots

Posted in Far right racism, The Real English Defence League, Violent extremism by Paul Williams on December 2, 2009

“Stop the Islamisation of Europe” and the “English Defence League” a group of racist football hooligans with links to the fascist BNP are threatening to invade Harrow on Sunday December 13th to demonstrate against the Harrow Central Mosque. We cannot stand by and let these racists attack any section of our community. An injury to one is an injury to all.

Islamophobia – bigotry against Muslims – is as unacceptable as any other form of racism. Its aim is to divide us by making scapegoats of one community as the Nazis did with the Jews in the 1930s. Today they threaten the mosque, tomorrow it could be a synagogue, temple or church. Today they threaten Muslims, tomorrow it could be Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, blacks, gays, travellers or any other minority.

Fascists have been beaten before by people standing united against them: at Cable Street in the 1930s, Lewisham in the 1970s and in Derbyshire this Summer where black and white, young and old, Hindu, Christian, Muslim and Jew, gay and straight all came together to oppose the BNP’s fascist rally. In September we made it clear that these thugs are not welcome in Harrow. Now we must make Harrow a No-Go Zone for Nazis.

Join the demonstration on Sunday December 13th

We are black, white, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Jew

Assemble 12 noon Sunday December 13th on the wide pavement outside Harrow Civic Centre opposite the Central Mosque

RESPECT

13 comments

SIOE Islamophobia

Posted in Far right racism, Islam, The News by Paul Williams on December 1, 2009

Proving that there’s no depth to which they won’t sink in their campaign of hate against British Muslims, the Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) group has sent emails to British Jews encouraging them to attend the demonstration in front of Harrow mosque on December 13th.

The Jewish Chronicle, which also received the SIOE email, reports that the Community Security Trust (CST) has warned British Jews against joining the anti-Muslim demo.

SIOE has circulated an email telling Jews to bring Israeli flags to fly on the day, saying it aims to attract 1,000 Jews to the demonstration.

The SIOE website states:

“If you do not attend this demonstration then you are prepared to see Israel wiped off the map.

“Vile antisemitism is being preached in mosques across the world and almost certainly the one in your neighbourhood.”

The SIOE website also features an image of a mosque with a skull in an army helmet and a minaret dripping with blood (above).

The CST has cautioned Jews against taking any part in the SIOE’s contemptible campaign. The CST blog notes:

“This image tells us everything we need to know about SIOE and Islamophobia.

“If a Jew cannot understand why the image is racist, or hateful, or bigoted then they should try imagining it as a synagogue: with blood dripping from a Star of David; with blood dripping down the rabbi’s pulpit; and with blood dripping from the mouth of a skull that wears an Israeli army helmet.”

“The fact that Muslims are the current target simply means that it is Muslims who should be the recipients of anti-racist solidarity.

“It generates votes for the BNP and, at the furthest ends of this political spectrum, it even provides the fuel for terrorism. British Jews should have no part of it.”

The CST’s commendable advice is strongly welcomed for its denying the SIOE an opportunity to drive a wedge between faith communities in Britain and engage in cheap politicking. As we’ve noted before, in the battle against far right racist groups, Muslims and Jews should be natural allies.

From ENGAGE

Review of The Apotheosis of Jesus of Nazareth written by Paul Williams

Posted in Articles by me, Christianity, Islam, Reviews by Paul Williams on December 1, 2009

Ehteshaam Gulam has kindly reviewed my article The Apotheosis of Jesus of Nazareth

You can read it here Review of The Apotheosis of Jesus of Nazareth

17 comments

Islam and the West

Posted in Christianity, Islam, Video by Paul Williams on November 30, 2009

A lecture by Abdal Hakim Murad (Tim Winter) which should have some relevance to recent comments on this blog. The points he raises in this video should cause all of us (particularly the critics of Islam) to reflect.

(My thanks are due to zaytoon88 who brought this video to my attention)

Enjoy:

The Case For Nuking Mecca

English Defence League discusses ‘The Case for Nuking of Mecca’

Posted in Articles by me, Islam, The Real English Defence League, Violent extremism by Paul Williams on November 28, 2009

This demonic avatar belongs to an Israeli man who goes under the name of ‘King Kalydosos’. In an article on the pro EDL 4 Freedoms Worldwide website he discusses ‘The Case for Nuking Mecca’. This “member of the English Defence League” (who lives in Israel!) thinks it is a rather good idea.

He concludes his article:

‘Today we are told by Muslims that the true meaning of jihad is internal struggle. Unfortunately, the actions of too many Muslims shows that they believe jihad means armed struggle against the infidels. Destroying Mecca may have the long-term affect of convincing radical Muslims that Allah really doesn’t want sharia law around the world. That all that stuff about killing the infidels in the Quran–that’s all metaphor.’

‘After all, if Muslims can be convinced that the whole hajj thing is just metaphor, then what else might they consider as metaphorical? Perhaps jihad. Perhaps sharia. Perhaps the global Caliphate.’

‘These are just some thoughts. I don’t actually think we should ‘nuke’ Mecca. An atom bomb would do the job.‘

‘In an age like this, total war and the bombing of Mecca would only make sense if done on a massive (nuclear) scale during the hadj (sic) when one could expect a big body count. Get the most bang for the buck.’

The city of Mecca has a population of 1.7 million men, women and children, plus an additional 4 million people who visit during Hajj. So with the occasional population of nearly 6 million the Jewish ‘King Kalydosos’ would happily murder the same number of people that Hitler killed during the Holocaust!

Five other EDL supporters commented on his post, but not one condemned it. One of them (our old friend OldWarDog who wrote in an email to me yesterday “I’m a peaceful guy believe it or not”) wrote ‘I wouldn’t like to nuke Mecca but I’d certainly love to watch it burn’.

You can read in full the disgusting and evil article here:

13 comments

EDL Supporter Says of Muslims: “kill-em-all”

Posted in Articles by me, The Real English Defence League, Violent extremism by Paul Williams on November 26, 2009

On the EDL supporters 4 Freedoms Worldwide website ‘Old War Dog‘ has a series of anti-Islamic photos.

One of them is entitled: kill-em-all

‘Old War Dog’ states,

‘I see the EDL as a small part of the overall counter-jihad movement… That’s why I support EDL.’

From Wikipedia,

‘The English Defence League (EDL) is an English far-right single-issue organisation formed in 2009. Its stated aim is to oppose the spread of Islamism, Sharia law and Islamic extremism in England, although the EDL’s political direction is being debated within the group.’

‘It presents itself as being multi-ethnic and multi-faith, and states that it opposes only “jihadists”, not all Muslims. Nevertheless, EDL members were reported to have chanted “We hate Muslims” at pro-Palestinian demonstrators in London on 13 September 2009.’

Clearly some of EDL’s supporters are violent extremists who wish to kill Muslims.

UPDATE:

Old War Dog just sent me an email, he says

‘I never thought of it like that. I’ve deleted that picture since you point it out though. I seen the heads of the radicals and terrorists which were spiked as a cry for justice, not as an incitement to violence? Don’t know if you’d noticed the heads on the spikes were all known terrorists and extremeists.’

I’ve checked the website and the offending photo has gone. Good. But the picture is clearly an incitement to kill Muslims. Also, the central figure in white is shown from the back and is unidentifiable, so even accepting his logic, the central Muslim figure is not a ‘known terrorist and extremist’. I note also the Christian cross in the sky at the top of the pic, which infers the killing is a form of Christian jihad.

BUT!

Here are some more photos from Old War Dog, a man who claims to reject terrorism and extremism (!). I let you, the reader, decide if he is a complete hypocrite or not:

This photo is entitled Humpty Dumpty:

19 comments

Advanced guide to understanding Christianity

Posted in Articles by me, Christianity, Islam, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI), my talks by Paul Williams on November 25, 2009

COMING SOON:

An Advanced guide to understanding Christianity

MDI have announced a new course for Muslims wishing to undertake a scholarly and rigorously academic approach to understanding Christianity, for dialogue, debate and discourse.

It is intended to be a 6 week course. Each class lasts for 1 hour 30 minutes at a central London venue. Starting at GCSE level and rising to A level in the last 2 weeks.

Subjects covered include:

a general introduction to the Bible, the biblical canon, textual history, why there are different Bibles

the historical Jesus, who he was, and what his first followers believed about him

James, Peter and John and the Jerusalem Church

the theology of Paul

can we trust the New Testament?

historical theology (Christology, creeds and councils)

how can biblical scholarship help Muslim Dawah today?

I will be teaching this class on behalf of MDI. The programme will begin in the new year. Venue, dates and further information to follow…

1 comment

MDI Event 10th December 2009

Posted in Debates, Islam, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI) by Paul Williams on November 25, 2009

I will be chairing and moderating this event, inshallah.

Contentions by Abdal-Hakim Murad

Posted in Islam, Spiritual Truth by Paul Williams on November 23, 2009

All Islam offers is God.

We need an Erasmus, not a Luther.

Atheism: the belief that water originates in the well.

Laziness is its own chastisement.

A god is any site of independent volition.

America is Rome. Europe is Athens. Islam is Jerusalem.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is not to be changed by it.

To switch on a television is to acknowledge one’s own lack of refinement.

You are your intentions.

The Crucifixion and the Conquest of Mecca: which is higher: to forgive from a position of powerlessness, or of power?

The Vicarious Atonement proves that torture can be a good thing.

Islamic democracy: sovereignty belongs to God.

He is dead who does not feel the Qur’an move in his hands.

Rumi

Posted in Spiritual Truth by Paul Williams on November 21, 2009

Wisdom from Rumi (Selected by Kabir Helminski)

Let’s ask God to help us to self-control:
for one who lacks it, lacks His Grace.

The undisciplined person doesn’t wrong himself alone—
but sets fire to the whole world.
Discipline enabled Heaven to be filled with light;
discipline enabled the angels to be immaculate and holy.

The peacock’s plumage is his enemy.
The world is the mountain,
and each action, the shout that echoes back.

This discipline and rough treatment are a furnace
to extract the silver from the dross

Anger and lust make a man squint;
When self-interest appears, virtue hides:

Fortunate is he who does not carry envy as a companion.

If ten lamps are present in one place,
each differs in form from another;
yet you can’t distinguish whose radiance is whose
when you focus on the light.

The idol of your self is the mother of all idols.
To regard the self as easy to subdue is a mistake.

If you wish mercy, show mercy to the weak.

The stoppered jar, though in rough water,
floated because of its empty heart.
When the wind of poverty is in anyone,
she floats in peace on the waters of this world.
As long as desires are fresh, faith is not;
for it is these desires that lock that gate.

The tongue of mutual understanding is quite special:
to be one of heart is better than to have a common tongue.

If you dig a pit for others to fall into,
you will fall into it yourself.

Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader,
are your own nature reflected in them.

With will, fire becomes sweet water.

The lion who breaks the enemy’s ranks
is a minor hero
compared to the lion who overcomes himself.

O son, only those whose spiritual eye has been opened
know how compulsive we are.

Whoever gives reverence receives reverence.
The intellectual quest,
though fine as pearl or coral,
is not the spiritual search.

The intelligent desire self-control;
children want candy.

Since in order to speak, one must first listen,
learn to speak by listening.

When, with just a taste, envy and deceit arise,
and ignorance and forgetfulness are born,
know you have tasted the unlawful.

Know that a word suddenly shot from the tongue
is like an arrow shot from the bow.
O tongue, you are an endless treasure.
O tongue, you are also an endless disease.

I am burning.
If any one lacks tinder,
let him set his rubbish ablaze with my fire.
Although your desire tastes sweet,
doesn’t the Beloved desire you
to be desireless?

The world’s flattery and hypocrisy is a sweet morsel:
eat less of it, for it is full of fire.

Forgetfulness of God, beloved,
is the support of this world;
spiritual intelligence its ruin.
For Intelligence belongs to that other world,
and when it prevails, this material world is overthrown.

Were there no men of vision,
all who are blind would be dead.

All these griefs within our hearts
arise from the smoke and dust
of our existence and vain desires.

Whoever lives sweetly dies painfully:
whoever serves his body doesn’t nourish his soul.

Your thinking is like a camel driver,
and you are the camel:
it drives you in every direction under its bitter control.

If you are wholly perplexed and in straits,
have patience, for patience is the key to joy.

Fast from thoughts, fast:
thoughts are like the lion and the wild ass;
men’s hearts are the thickets they haunt.

If you are irritated by every rub,
how will your mirror be polished?
Anyone in whom the troublemaking self has died,
sun and cloud obey.
If you wish to shine like day,
burn up the night of self-existence.
Dissolve in the Being who is everything.

There is no worse sickness for the soul,
O you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.
The heart and eyes must bleed a lot
before self-complacency falls away.
Can the water of a polluted stream
clear out the dung?
Can human knowledge sweep away
the ignorance of the sensual self?
How does a sword fashion its own hilt?
Go, entrust the cure of this wound to a surgeon,

Many are the unbelievers who long for submission,
but their stumbling block
is reputation and pride and continual desires.
I’m the devoted slave
of anyone who doesn’t claim
to have attained dining with God
at every way station.

Everyone is a child
except the one who’s intoxicated with God.
God has said, Knowledge that isn’t from Him is a burden.
like a woman’s makeup, it doesn’t last.

Be cleansed of the (false) self’s features, and see your pure Self:
Know the mirror of the heart is infinite.
Either the understanding falls silent, or it leads you astray,
because the heart is God,
or indeed the heart is He.

Everything, except love of the Most Beautiful,
is really agony. It’s agony
to move towards death and not drink the water of life.
Fiery lust is not diminished by indulging it,
but inevitably by leaving it ungratified.

Anger is a king over kings,
but anger once bridled may serve.

Servetus to Take off the Veil

Posted in Christianity, Silly by Paul Williams on November 18, 2009

19th November, UPDATE:

Servetus the evangelical is none other than:

‘Kermit Millard Zarley, Jr. (born September 29, 1941) an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour. He is also an author of several books.’

So says Wikepedia about him. What a joke.

A while ago I did a post about an anonymous evangelical Christian author who went by the pseudonym “Servetus the Evangelist” who had published a new biblical study on the Trinity entitled: The Restitution of Jesus Christ. The original plan was that the author, a well known evangelical, would reveal his identity on the 500th anniversary of Michael Servetus’s birth, but in the meantime, as a kind of playful contest, would release weekly clues as to his identity and invite readers to make guesses.

However recently “Servetus” has announced a change of mind. He promises to reveal his identity this Thursday November 19th. The following announcement has appeared on his Website:

ANNOUNCEMENT!!! October 18, 2009
I have decided to end this contest and reveal my identity as the author of The Restitution of Jesus Christ on November 19, 2009, almost two years earlier than planned. I will tell on this webpage who I am. And I will tell about the interesting development that has caused me to change these plans. It is something totally unexpected and that I could not have foreseen. Yet I am very excited about it.

I hope all the fuss about his identity proves to be worth it!

Apostates and Islam

Posted in Death, Islam by Paul Williams on November 13, 2009

Recently, a certain Christian politician launched a discreditable attack on my previous post on apostasy. I have sought authoritative guidance on this matter from scholars in the Islamic world whose work is available in English. I reproduce below an excerpt from a work entitled The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam by Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi who is the head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), and the president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS).

His authoritative judgement needs no endorsement from me, but I am happy to acknowledge it as the teaching of Islam.

Capital Punishment

Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala says, “…Do not take the life which Allah has made sacred except in (the course of) justice….”(6:151)

Allah has mentioned three crimes for which the death penalty is justified:

1) Unjust murder. Murder which has been proved demands retaliation by taking the life of the murderer—a life for a life, a like return for an evil committed, as the initiator of the killing is the initiator of the wrongdoing. As the Qur’an states, “In the law of qisas (retaliation) there is life for you, O people of understanding….”(2:179)

2) Publicly committing zina with a person who is not one’s spouse if at least four upright people have actually witnessed intercourse taking place and testified before the court that they saw it. The death penalty applies to either of the two who is married. Confession, repeated four times before the court by the adulterer or adulteress, is equivalent to the testimony of four witnesses.

3) Apostasy from Islam after willingly accepting it and subsequently declaring an open revolt against it in such a manner which threatens the solidarity of the Muslim community is a crime punishable by death. No one is compelled to accept Islam, but at the same time no one is permitted to play tricks with it, as some Jews did during the Prophet’s time:

A party of the People of the Book say, ‘Believe in what has been revealed to the Believers’ at the beginning of the day and reject it at the end of it, in order that they may turn back (from Islam). (3:72)

The Prophet (peace be on him) limited capital punishment to these three crimes only, saying,

The shedding of the blood of a Muslim is not lawful except for one of three reasons: a life for a life, a married person who commits zina, and one who turns aside from his religion and abandons the community. (Reported by al-Bukhari and Muslim)

In any of these instances, the death penalty can be implemented only by the proper authority after due process of law prescribed by the Shari’ah; individuals cannot take the law into their own hands, becoming judges and executioners, since this would result in absolute chaos and disorder. However, the judge may turn the murderer over to the victim’s next-of-kin to be executed in his presence so that their hearts may be eased and the desire for revenge extinguished. This is in obedience to the saying of Allah Ta’ala, “…And whoever is killed wrongfully, We have given authority to the heir; but let him not go to excess in killing (by way of retaliation), for indeed he will be helped” (17:33).

© Paul Williams 2009

18 comments

Examining C.S. Lewis’ Trilemma

Posted in Christianity by Paul Williams on November 13, 2009

Here’s a new article by Muslim writer Bassam Zawadi who created the excellent Call to Monotheism website.

It presents a refutation of CS Lewis’ often quoted argument that Jesus claimed to be God.

Enjoy!

C.S. Lewis is a man who needs no introduction. He was indeed one of the most influential Christian figures of the 20th century. His works fascinatingly appeal to a wide audience of readers who come from different religious backgrounds (including myself). However, despite enjoying reading his works one cannot resist but to strongly disagree with some of its content. I am speaking specifically about C.S. Lewis’s famous “Jesus was either a lunatic, liar or Lord” argument.

This popular argument is heavily cited by Christian laity today against people of other faiths – particularly Muslims who hold Jesus to be so dear to them – mainly due to its revival by popular Christian apologists like Josh McDowell (see Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999), page 157).

It’s disappointing to see that Christians do not offer other alternatives besides the above three. This could simply be due to 1) their inability to think and comprehend or 2) stubbornness that they are right and close mindedness to entertain other views or 3) just sheer ignorance of the reality of scholarship out there.

However, it is refreshing to see that respected Christian scholars – including the conservative ones – could see the fallaciousness of this supposed trilemma as I will show below.

Lewis’s famous argument is stated as follows:

I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse.. I have to accept the view that He was and is God. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: MacMillan, 1943), pages 55-56)

Conservative New Testament scholar Craig L. Blomberg takes issue with this view and states in the introduction of his famous book The Historical Reliability of the Gospels:

The problem with this argument is that it assumes what is regularly denied, namely, that the gospels give entirely accurate accounts of the actions and claims of Jesus … This option represents the most common current explanation of the more spectacular deeds and extravagant claims of Jesus in the gospels. (Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, (Intervarsity Press, 1987), page xx)

Liberal New Testament scholar and former Bishop J.A.T. Robinson protests against Lewis’ argument:

We are often asked to accept Christ as divine because he claimed to be so–and the familiar argument is pressed: ‘A man who goes around claiming to be God must either be God–or else he is a madman or a charlatan’ … And, of course, it is not easy to read the Gospel story and to dismiss Jesus as either mad or bad. Therefore, the conclusion runs, he must be God. I am not happy about this argument. None of the disciples in the Gospels acknowledged Jesus because he claimed to be God, and the Apostles never went out saying, “This man claimed to be God, therefore you must believe in him.” (John A.T. Robinson, Honest to God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), pages 71-72)

Liberal theologian, Professor John Hick states:

In this, one of the earliest christologies, the human Jesus was raised to a unique and highly exalted role (though not to deity) shortly after his death.

All this rules out the once popular form of apologetic which argues that someone claiming to be God must be either mad, or bad, or God (e.g. Lewis 1955, 51-2). With the recognition that Jesus did not think of himself in this way christological discussion has moved from the once supposedly firm rock of Jesus’ own claim to the much less certain ground of the church’s subsequent attempts to formulate the meaning of his life. (John Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age, 2nd ed. (Louisville: WJK, 2005), pages 28-29)

Conservative New Testament scholar Craig Evans said:

When it comes to evaluating Jesus, popular Christian apologists often appeal to the triad of options proposed by C.S. Lewis half a century ago: Jesus was either a liar, lunatic or Lord. The appeal makes for good alliteration, maybe even good rhetoric, but it is faulty logic. Without further qualification, those who adhere to this line of argument commit the fallacy of excluded middle. That is, they overlook other viable alternatives. At least two other alternatives are possible; both relate to how Scripture is understood and both come into play in the books that Fabricating Jesus criticizes.

A fourth alternative is that Jesus is neither liar, lunatic nor Lord (in the traditional, orthodox sense); he is something else. He may be Israel’s messiah, the Lord’s servant and perhaps the greatest prophet who ever lived. He could even be called God’s son, but not in the trinitarian sense, in which Jesus is seen as fully God and fully human. As far as we know, this more or less agrees with Ebionite Christianity, a form of Jewish Christianity that emerged in the second century and eventually disappeared sometime in the fifth century. The Ebionites possessed one or more edited versions of the Gospel of Mathew, which tended to enhance the status of the law and minimize the divine nature of Jesus. They believe that in the sense King David could be called God’s son (as in Ps 2:7) Jesus also could be called son of God. But Ebionites did not hold to what theologians call “high Christology” – that is, the view that Jesus is divine. The Ebionite understanding of Jesus is pretty close to the view of two of the scholars considered later in this chapter.

A fifth alternative is that we really don’t know who Jesus was, what he really said and did, what he thought of himself, or what his companions thought of him, because the New Testament Gospels and other sources we have are not reliable. The New Testament Gospels may well present Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and as God’s Son, but for all we know, that is nothing more than the theology of Christians who lived in the second half of the first century, Christians who had never met Jesus and had never heard him teach. (Craig Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels, (Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 2006), pages 20-21)

So as we could see, there are at least two other possible alternatives: 1) Jesus’ words are not to be understood as him claiming to be God, therefore making the position of Muslim apologists and Unitarian Christians who argue that Jesus did not claim to be divine to be a possibility and 2) Even if the New Testament does clearly show that Jesus claimed to be God, it’s possible that these words are falsely attributed to Jesus.

In conclusion, Christians who keep posing this argument need to start being a little bit more open minded and realize that there are other alternatives that they must engage with. To keep shoving this logically fallacious trilemma down the throats of people will do nothing but push them further away from them and create barriers to having a serious intellectual dialogue surrounding the topic of the historical Jesus.

Feel free to contact me at b_zawadi@hotmail.com

6 comments

In Praise of Christian Honesty

Posted in Christianity, Reviews by Paul Williams on November 10, 2009

It’s a fact that not all Christians are right-wing fundamentalists (yes really!). The excellent Christian Forum ‘The Ship of Fools’ has a new feature called ‘The ten worst verses of the Bible’. Actually there are many other horrible and vile verses which for some reason don’t get a mention, but I’ll add my favourite nasty verse at the end. Just remember folks: this is God’s Word you’re reading!

The ten worst verses of the Bible

Lord, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. Ship of Fools can finally and authoritatively reveal the worst verse in the Bible, according to our readers.

The verse is ascribed to – who’d have thought it – St Paul, and if you’ll turn with me in your Bibles you’ll find it in 1 Timothy:

“I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” (1 Timothy 2:12)

It’s a verse that’s particularly difficult to discuss. When we revealed the results of the Chapter and Worse poll at the recent Greenbelt festival, Hannah Kowszun, the only woman in our panel of three had, of course, to contribute in sign language.

St Paul did well to make the top place with his rules for church life in first-century Ephesus, beating genocide, infanticide, executions, dismemberment, human sacrifice (and donkeys) to get there. All the verses that placed from fifth to second place resorted to violence to do so.

In second place, the Lord via the prophet Samuel instructs King Saul in ethnic cleansing:

“This is what the Lord Almighty says… ‘Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” (1 Samuel 15:3)

It seems like a rather disappointing elucidation of what the Lord did and didn’t mean by, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

At number 3 is the only entry from the Hebrew Torah:

“Do not allow a sorceress to live.” (Exodus 22:18)

This is not the only biblical death penalty, but it appears sorceresses elicit greater sympathy than blasphemers, rebellious sons, unfaithful fiancées and brides who fail to prove their virginity.

Number 4 is particularly jarring because it comes at the end of a favourite psalm, which moves from pining for home to anger against the Babylonians who have taken them into exile. It’s the line that Boney M didn’t quite manage to fit in to their disco calypso hit, Rivers of Babylon:

“Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” (Psalm 137:9)

Hebrew hymnwriters were rather franker about their feelings than their modern counterparts, weren’t they?

Number 5 brings us to the most unpopular book in the Top Ten, Judges, a history of Israel before its first king:

“So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.” (Judges 19:25)

The man in question is so outraged by the treatment of his woman, he cuts her into 12 pieces and sends them around the 12 tribes of Israel in protest. The biblical writer makes no comment.

From all that violence, we return to Paul for some homophobia. The 6th worse verse in the Bible is:

“In the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.” (Romans 1:27)

It’s the one you could imagine Rowan Williams trying to sneak out of the Bible when no one’s looking.

Then at 7 it’s back to Judges for a bit of human sacrifice:

“And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, ‘If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt-offering.’” (Judges 11:30-1)

As Hannah Kowszun said at Greenbelt, perhaps he was hoping it would be the missus. But it was his daughter, so he was morally obliged to burn her for God.

In at number 8, a golden oldie, for prog rock fans, it’s Genesis. God is speaking to Abraham:

“Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” (Genesis 22:2)

More human sacrifice. Admittedly, this time it turns out that God doesn’t actually mean it, but does that really let him off the hook?

We’re back to St Paul for a third time with number 9:

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:22)

And scraping in at the last moment to the number 10 slot, it’s the man who gets a much better press for saying most of the same things, St Peter:

“Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel.” (1 Peter 2:18)

All in all, the results are a mixture of the historically horrific and milder restrictions that are still being applied in our own times. It may be a surprise that biblical sexism caps biblical genocide, but maybe it’s because it’s more of a live issue. No one is using the Book of Samuel to justify genocide today, but the words of Paul are still used to silence women.

It’s an unedifying list, but we think the Bible can survive bringing these shadowy verses into the spotlight. It’s not the all-or-nothing book that fundamentalists (atheist and Christian) say that we must either accept wholesale or burn. We need a view of the Bible that is nuanced enough to treasure its comforts and challenges, its classic stories and groundbreaking ethical wisdom, while facing the plain fact that some of it is unacceptable.

Here’s my nomination for number 11:

Hosea 13:16

The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
their pregnant women ripped open.”

62 comments

Christian Terrorism

Posted in Articles by me, Christianity by Paul Williams on November 7, 2009

The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605

As I write these words multiple explosions are occurring in London. But don’t be alarmed. The English people are celebrating, with fireworks, their deliverance from one of the most memorable events in English history: the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Commons and the King in 1605.

Christian terrorism did not begin in 1605 of course. Acts of terror had been perpetuated by the Christians against other Christians since the days of the early Fathers (not to mention terrorism against Jews and Muslims). But the English have celebrated their deliverance from this particular act of Christian terror annually for the past 400 years to the chant of ‘Remember, remember the Fifth of November’.

The conspirators were all devout Catholics, determined to overthrow King James I of England and VI of Scotland

I have read, and recommend, Antonia Fraser’s fascinating book The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605, (published by Weidenfield & Nicolson, London, 2002). She is a Roman Catholic herself, and it is instructive to read the dedicatory page:

FOR

Edward who would have defended them

Lucy who would have hidden them

Paloma who would have succoured them in exile

So Christian terrorism still has its defenders today, though no one seems to bat an eyelid from the safe distance of 400 years.

For an excellent discussion of what constitutes terrorism and how to define the term see Definition of terrorism

© Paul Williams 2009

The headquarters of Christianity may well have been Baghdad not Rome…

Posted in Christianity by Paul Williams on November 3, 2009

‘The First Christianity’

This Thursday, 21:00 on BBC Four

BBC Synopsis:

‘When he was a small boy, Diarmaid MacCulloch’s parents used to drive him round historic churches. Little did they know that they had created a monster, with the history of the Christian Church becoming his life’s work.’

‘In the first of a six-part series sweeping across four continents, Professor MacCulloch goes in search of Christianity’s forgotten origins. He overturns the familiar story that it all began when the apostle Paul took Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome. Instead, he shows that the true origins of Christianity lie further east, and that at one point it was poised to triumph in Asia, maybe even in China.’

‘The headquarters of Christianity may well have been Baghdad not Rome, and if that had happened then western Christianity would have been very different.’

more info here: BBC

and here: BBC Press Office

Our New Event: ‘The Islamification of Britain: Reality or Myth?’

Posted in Christianity, Debates, Islam, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI), my talks by Paul Williams on October 31, 2009

The Muslim public debate forum, the Muslim Debate Initiative has announced that the Muslim community have publically invited members of the Far-right to an open public dialogue/debate on the 10th December 2009, at a prestigious central London venue to discuss their contentions on Islam, the Muslim community in England/Europe, and the impact of immigration, in the hope that prejudice and misconceptions can be tackled through engagement.

The title of the event will be: ‘The Islamification of Britain: Reality or Myth?’ and will be held in central London, at Conway Hall, Holborn. Additionally, the panel will also be joined by members of the Christian People’s Alliance Party and the Liberal Democrats, who both current serve as London councillors, and will be attending to add their perspectives to the discussion.

The invited panel, consisting of representatives from Liberal, Christian Democrat, Muslim and the Far-Right backgrounds, will engage in discussion and debate over the controversial topic ‘Islamification’ which has become the flag bearing issue for the campaigns by the BNP, EDL and SOIE (Stop the Islamification of Europe) groups.

The Speakers who have confirmed their attendance, will be:

Alan Craig - London Councillor for Newham and Leader of the Christian People’s Alliance Party. Alan has campaigned vigorously against the building of the Olympics ‘mega mosque’.

Fiyaz Mughal - London Councillor for Haringey and member of the Liberal Democrats party. Fiyaz is adviser to party leader, Nick Clegg, on Interfaith and Preventing Radicalisation and Extremism.

Abdullah al Andalusi - Public speaker on Muslim political affairs, experience Muslim community worker and co-founder of Muslim Debate Initiative; an inter-community discussion forum.

Stephan Gash - Head of the Stop Islamification of Europe (SIOE) group, and organiser of the September Harrow Mosque demonstration. He has called for a repeat demonstration in December.

Quotes:

“I am happy to be given a platform to express my views, despite the fact that others would not give me such a platform”

Stephen Gash (SIOE) – The Harrow Mosque ‘anti-mosque’ demonstration Organiser.

“This event will be the first of it’s kind, in terms of members of the Muslim community directly inviting right-wing anti-sharia campaigners to the discussion table. Such intercommunity engagement and public discussion is virtually unprecedented in modern times. Furthermore, the event itself, whatever the result, will demonstrate that Muslims are not against censorship, but rather we welcome open discussion and debate, as long as we get to voice a defence of our beliefs and way of life in an fair, equal and open platform, even if we have to create that platform ourselves.

Lastly, we feel that only by direct engagement can we defeat the prejudice and hatred that is rising in Europe against Islam. The event planned for 10 December 2009, is done in the hope that Muslims, general non-Muslims and those of the far-right, can attend and listen and come to an understanding of the real human reality of Britain today, not the false scare mongering and social dissension caused by the skewed perspectives of some individuals. The situation today in Britain, is one we as Muslims cannot afford to ignore, hoping it will go away if we do no engage it directly”

Abdullah al Andalusi, Speaker on Muslim current affairs and co-founder with me of M.D.I

Inshallah, I will be chairing/moderating this debate. Event Details: 6:15pm, 10th December 2009, Conway Hall, Holborn, London. Go to the MDI site for more details

The ‘Jihad on Trial’ Debate: A Burning Issue Arising

Posted in Debates, Islam, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI) by Paul Williams on October 29, 2009

I chaired the recent Muslim Debate Intiative debate between Muslim speaker Sami Zaatari and London Councillor & the head of the Christian Alliance Party, Alan Craig on the topic ‘Jihad on Trial – Is Jihad justifiable?’

During the Q&A time a questioner raised a point stating that Ibn Ishaq narrated that the Prophet (peace be upon him) ordered the burning of a mosque and it was duly burnt together with its people inside it. To cut the long story short, a Muslim member of the audience, Adnan, offered him ten thousand pounds (£10,000) if he could produce this reference from Ibn Ishaq where the burning of people is mentioned. When the gentleman left, he handed in the reference to me to look at, and I passed it on to Adnan and he found the following:

“He [the Prophet] called two of his followers and said, “Go to this mosque, whose people are unrighteous; destroy it; burn it.” So they departed in haste and took a blazing date-branch to the mosque. Although there were people in it, they burned and destroyed it.” [Ibn Ishaq: The Life Of Mohammad, ed Micheal Edwards, London Folio Society, 1964, p. 159.].

Adnan emailed me today:

‘It seems like that I owe this gentleman ten thousand pounds (and 5 thousand to Abdullah for the MDI funds, as he too wanted to take me up on that). Nevertheless, when I checked the Arabic text, I found it to be as following:

سيرة ابن هشام – (ج 2 / ص 529)

[ أَمْرُ الرّسُولِ اثْنَيْنِ بِهَدْمِهِ ]

فَلَمّا نَزَلَ بِذِي أَوَانَ ، أَتَاهُ خَبَرُ الْمَسْجِدِ فَدَعَا رَسُولُ ؟ اللّهِ صَلّى اللّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلّمَ مَالِكَ بْنَ الدّخْشُمِ ، أَخَا بَنِي سَالِمِ بْنِ عَوْفٍ وَمَعْنِ بْنِ عَدِيّ أَوْ أَخَاهُ عَاصِمُ بْنُ عَدِيّ ، أَخَا بَنِي الْعَجْلَانِ فَقَالَ انْطَلِقَا إلَى هَذَا الْمَسْجِدِ الظّالِمِ أَهْلُهُ فَاهْدِمَاهُ وَحَرّقَاهُ . فَخَرَجَا سَرِيعَيْنِ حَتّى أَتَيَا بَنِي سَالِمِ بْنِ عَوْفٍ وَهُمْ رَهْطُ مَالِكِ بْنِ الدّخْشُمِ ، فَقَالَ مَالِكٌ لِمَعْنِ أَنْظِرْنِي حَتّى أَخْرُجَ إلَيْك بِنَارٍ مِنْ أَهْلِي . فَدَخَلَ إلَى أَهْلِهِ فَأَخَذَ سَعَفًا مِنْ النّخْلِ فَأَشْعَلَ فِيهِ نَارًا ، ثُمّ خَرَجَا يَشْتَدّانِ حَتّى دَخَلَاهُ وَفِيهِ أَهْلُهُ فَحَرّقَاهُ وَهَدّمَاهُ وَتَفَرّقُوا عَنْهُ وَنَزَلَ فِيهِمْ مِنْ الْقُرْآنِ مَا نَزَلَ { وَالّذِينَ اتّخَذُوا مَسْجِدًا ضِرَارًا وَكُفْرًا وَتَفْرِيقًا بَيْنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ } . . . إلَى آخِرِ الْقِصّةِ .

‘The passage in Arabic sums everything up. It is stated very very clearly that “wa tafarraqu ‘an hu” which means that they, the people, went away from the mosque (please note that in the passage the identification for the two companions, who were sent to accomplish the task, is dual (muthanna), while in this case (wa tafarraqu) the identification is in plural sense (jam’a), which simply means that the people who were present dispersed away from the mosque. The questioner (from the debate) was certainly right when he said that there is such a passage in the translation of Ibn Ishaq, however, what he didn’t know was the fact that the translation he read grossly misrepresented what the primary text says. This is confirmed by the translation of the same passage in the translation of Alfred Guillaume (which is what I thought the man was quoting from):

“…And he summoned Malik b. al-Dukhshum, brother of B. Salim b. ‘Auf, and Ma’n b. ‘Adiy (or his brother ‘Asim) brother of B. al-’Ajlan, and told them to go to the mosque of those evil men and destroy and burn it. They [dual] went quickly to B. Salim b. ‘Auf who were Malik’s clan, and Malik said to M’an, ‘Wait for me until I can bring fire from my people.’ So he went in and took a palm-branch and lighted it, and then the two of them [dual] ran into the mosque where its people were and burned and destroyed it and the people ran away from it.‘ [The Life Of Muhammad: A Translation Of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, tr Alfred Guillaume, Oxford, 2007, p. 609.]

Adnan concludes his email with an important lesson for us all:

‘This teaches us a good lesson and that is to take every thing translated by the Orientalists with a big pinch of salt (especially when it carries serious consequences in a dialogue or a debate). Some of the Orientalists have done very good work but there are others who deliberately misrepresented the text of Islam. Even the Guillaume translation was heavily criticised by Tibawi. In fact the translation of the above passage has its own problems. For instance he (Guillaume) translates the word “haddamahu” to mean “they [dual] destroyed it” while it does not mean that rather the word means “they [dual] demolished it”. There are many problems with this translation which were spotted by A. L. Tibawi in his “Arabic and Islamic Themes: Historical, Educational and Literary Studies, 1976, p. 25-52.” ‘

So, Abdullah no funds for MDI this time

Wassalam.

Open Letter to Islamophobe Dutch MP Geert Wilders

Posted in Christianity, Cool Stuff, Fr Frank's Rants, Islam by Paul Williams on October 29, 2009

FATHER FRANK’S RANTS

Rant Number 369 29 October 2009

Open Letter to Islamophobe Dutch MP Geert Wilders

Dear Mr Wilders,

They say you can only take a horse to the water, you can’t make it drink. But human beings are not horses. Unlike animals, they can be reasoned with. I offer these few remarks in the faint hope you are amenable to reason.

It is about your recent speech to the Alliance of Patriots in New York. In which you paint an apocalyptic picture of ‘the Islamization of Europe’. You describe some European cities with Muslim neighbourhoods in lurid terms. It is a world ‘where women walk around in figureless tents…Their husbands, or slave holders, if you prefer, walk three steps ahead’. Mr Wilders, I live bang near one of those areas in West London. I often visit Whitechapel and Edgware Road – parts of our colourful Londonistan – I have never seen a Muslim woman walking behind her husband. Rather, the mothers stroll about in a proud, dignified manner, alongside the men. Nothing in their behaviour suggests a subordinate role, let alone slavery. And there are tons of lively, even feisty Muslim girls wearing all sorts of gear. True, they may not, as a rule, behave like permissive, liberated females, baring the flesh, hugging and kissing partners in public, no. I would even guess most of them don’t sleep with boys before marriage. But since when are chastity, modesty and self-restraint so bad? The traditional, Christian mores of the Western civilisation which you claim to uphold used to prize such things, no?

’25 per cent of the population of Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now’. Lies, damned lies and statistics, someone said. But if you want native Europeans to stay numerically supreme, how about encouraging them to have more children? To urge them not to use contraceptives, the pills? To give up abortion? To bolster family values? Stop bashing Islam. Embrace the Christian religion in its conservative, sound traditions and all will be kosher.

‘Thousands of mosques across Europe. With larger congregations than churches’, you notice. Well, whose fault is that? Do perhaps Muslims stand at church doors, stopping the eager faithful from worshipping the Lord? Methinks you should rather address yourself to Christians. ‘Look at Muslims’ you should say. ‘Look at how many regularly pray. How keen they are on the observances of their religion. You should do the same.’ Exactly. The flourishing of mosques across Europe should serve as a stimulus to Christians. A window of opportunity. As an urgent reminder to get back to their vital, life-giving roots – the worship of the One True God. Why blame pious Muslims for the faults of lukewarm or nominal Christians, eh?

In Amsterdam ‘gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims’. Awful, if true. Funnily enough, I recall the words of Pym Fortuyn, the gay right-wing politician murdered by a fanatic. ‘I have nothing against Moroccans – I have slept with so many of them.’ From Andre Gide to William Burroughs, the Arab world has been one of artistic gays’ favourite fun destinations. Tangiers’ nickname was ‘Sodom on Sea’. Homophobia can’t be all that endemic amongst Arabs, I should imagine.

‘The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.’ How bizarre. First, a godson of mine has been to Auschwitz, on a school trip. Part of a programme to learn about wartime horrors. School curricula in Britain do in fact include projects about WWII and persecutions of Jews and other people. London’s Imperial War Museum has a holocaust section, which I viewed just the other day. What’s more, TV channels force-feed viewers with a daily, obsessive dose of films and programmes about the war and Germany’s crimes. If anybody should complain about this state of affairs, it should be Germans. It fuels Germanophobia, the lurking, masochistic English vice. Do today’s Germans deserve such constant pilloring? After all, isn’t Germany amongst the strongest supporters of your beloved state of Israel?

The Prophet Muhammad. Had he been ‘a man of peace…like Ghandi and Mother Teresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was…’ I won’t quote the rest, as it would be distasteful. Muhammad certainly did not found a religion like the Quakers, no. And he is definitely different from figures like Buddha and Jesus. However, why you did not compare him to a prophet and lawgiver like Moses? Muhammad had the Jewish tribes of Banu Qurayza slaughtered, you write. Well, Exodus 32:25 has Moses ordering the Levites to slay those who had worshipped the Golden Calf, about 3000 men. ‘Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the Lord’ Moses told the slayers. Hardly like Gandhi, would you agree?

You are silent about Moses, I suspect, because in your speech you wrapped yourself in the mantle of defender of Israel. Mr Wilders, this Anglican priest is opposed to the destruction of the state of Israel. Because I am a Christian, Jews are rather important to me. I support both a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. A modest-sized Jewish Vatican in the Holy Land is the realistic solution. Bernard Wasserstein’s thoughtful book, ‘Israel & Palestine’, points the way. Wasserstein shows how your fantasy of Israel as a heroic outpost of the West against the incoming Jihad is nonsense. Indeed, Israeli society today needs immigrants as much as Europe does. And they won’t be Jewish immigrants. Despite your astonishing garbage about rising anti-Semitism in France (headed by a Jewish President!), Jews worldwide are happy where they are – they not migrating to Israel – or should I say ‘Isra-hell’, as my Israeli friend Ronen once wrote?

Ok, you don’t like Muslims. Yet they are not going to go away. Your case is analogous to that of the man whose garden was infested by ladybirds. They were everywhere. He didn’t like them. He tried several methods to get rid of them. Sprays, insecticides, this and that. Nothing worked. The ladybirds kept being around. Indeed, they multiplied. The guy was getting obsessed with them, growing paranoid, bitter, haunted. Eventually, he sent an e-mail to a wise old friend, an experienced gardener: ‘What should I do about the damned ladybirds?’

The reply came: ‘I suggest you learn to love them’.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

5 comments

Thoughts on Evangelical Christianity

Posted in Christianity, Islam, Spiritual Truth by Paul Williams on October 24, 2009

In this talk (link below), Sheikh Abdal Hakim offers some thoughts on the increasingly assertive evangelical trend in Christianity, and how Muslims can constructively repsond to it. He emphasises firstly the importance of the Qur’anic principle of responding with what is better, and not being dragged into the abusive slanging matches so often sadly seen on Internet discussion fora and elsewhere. He then outlines some of the important points of discussion that can be had with committed Christians who want to engage in respectful dialogue. These points include: the importance in all religious traditions of God’s love for the poor and outcast, and the problems of being identified with worldly, especially military, power; the importance of respecting that the Divine Love makes redemption available throughout history, not only during a defined period; and the need to deconstruct the stereotype often imposed upon Muslims (as on Jews in the past) as being legalistic. As the sheikh points out, the Muslim theology which considers God, while the source of Justice, as absolutely free in His Love and Mercy to forgive who He chooses seems a lot less legalistic than a theology that considers mankind’s sinfulness a debt that He must collect.

Cambridge Khutbas

Muslim reaction to Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time

Posted in Islam, The News by Paul Williams on October 24, 2009

East London Mosque

Sam Jones guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 October 2009 22.00 BST

The mood among worshippers gathering outside at the East London mosque today was one of indifference and irritation rather than fear and loathing.

“They can have their voice heard and that’s fine,” said Jalal Ahmed, a local maths teacher. “We’re here to contribute, we are British and we love this country. They have their say and I have my say. As long as we don’t have a big fight over it that’s fine.”

Rhuksana Begum, a 22-year-old politics graduate, agreed. “I don’t particularly like Nick Griffin,” she said. “[But] he’s highlighted the misconceptions about Islam. In a democracy you have to allow it and it gave him a good chance to show how wrong he is.”

A man from East Ham, who did not wish to be named, was angrier with the justice secretary than the BNP leader. “Nick Griffin’s just like that, that’s his party and I’d heard all his views before. But Jack Straw was trying to promote cohesion when he created all the chaos over the veil,” he said.

Salim, 39, a car dealer from Newham, said that while he had agreed with Griffin “about the war in Iraq and about the gays”, the BNP leader had embarrassed himself. “People know he’s a hypocrite. He can’t run away any more.”

That cautious optimism was echoed by Aminul Haq, 33, a carer from Bethnal Green. “Compared with other Europeans and westerners, Britons have a very good idea of the rest of the world and so they aren’t bothered by Griffin and they’re not racist. Some disgruntled people might follow him, but the majority of British people won’t.”

What the Christian Church did when it had political power over people

Posted in Articles by me, Christianity, Death by Paul Williams on October 21, 2009

I originally wrote this post in October 2008, and due to a conversation I had yesterday with Alan Craig – Head of Christian Peoples Alliance Party about apostacy, I decided to put it on my front page again. He has promised to write a reply and post it on his blog.

Muslims today are often accused of advocating an intolerant faith; a faith that compels belief and punishes converts to other religions. Whatever truth there may be in such allegations it is salutary to remind ourselves that contemporary Christianity, as seen in the Roman Catholic Church for example, is a far cry from how the Church behaved towards ‘disbelievers’ when it had total power over the people.

I was perusing works of Catholic theology in my library recently when I came across a work entitled ‘Summa Theologiae’ by St Thomas Aquinas, (A Concise Translation by T. McDermott).

According to Wikipedia, ‘Aquinas is held in the Catholic Church to be the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood (Code of Canon Law, Can. 252, §3). The works for which he is best-known are the Summa Theologiae and the Summa Contra Gentiles. One of the 33 Doctors of the Church, he is considered by many Catholics to be the Catholic Church’s greatest theologian and philosopher. Consequently, many institutions of learning have been named after him.’

St Thomas Aquinas, basing his teaching on the New Testament, has some interesting things to say about how the church treats ‘disbelievers, heretics and apostates’:

Disbelief

In Luke we are told: ‘Go out into the country roads and lanes and compel people to come in, that my house may be full’. So some people are to be compelled to believe and enter the church. But only people who had once accepted the faith: pagans and Jews can’t be forced to believe since believing is a matter of will. The faithful if they have the power, may use it to stop such disbelievers hindering the faith by blasphemy or propaganda or openly persecuting it. This is the reason Christians frequently wage war on disbelievers: not to force them to believe but to stop them hindering the faith.

However, disbelievers who once accepted and professed the faith – heretics and apostates – can be compelled, even physically, to fulfill their promises and hold to do what they once professed. For even though making a vow is a voluntary matter, keeping it is an obligation. So adopting the faith is voluntary, but sticking to it once adopted is obligatory.

Heresy

About heretics there are two things to say. Their sin deserves banishment not only from the church by excommunication but also from the world by death. But the church seeks with mercy to turn back those who go astray, and condemns them not immediately but only after a first or second warning. If, however, a heretic remains stubborn, the church, despairing of his conversion, takes care of the salvation of others, separates the heretic from the church with a sentence of excommunication and delivers him to the secular courts to be removed from the world by death.

from Summa Theologiae by St Thomas Aquinas (A Concise Translation by T. McDermott) pp339-340

4 comments

Jihad on Trial – Is Jihad justifiable?

Posted in Debates, Islam by Paul Williams on October 20, 2009

In the current political climate, with the war going on in Afghanistan, political instability in the middle East, and multiple insurgencies against occupation and oppression on-going throughout the Muslim world, what is the correct response to this for Muslims who affirm belief in the Quran?

Does Islam command a blindly violent approach, or does it command passivity? Are there only two options? Is the Quranic concept of Jihad the reason for the suffering and predicament of the Muslim world, as some Western critics have claimed, or is it Western materialist foreign policy? Is there another explanation altogether?

Muslim Debate Intiative proudly presents a debate between International Muslim speaker Sami Zaatari, and London Councillor & the Head of the Christian Alliance Party, Alan Craig – on the topic

‘Jihad on Trial – Is Jihad justifiable?’.

(Inshallah, I’ll be moderating this explosive debate (not literally explosive I hope )

Admission cost: Discretionary donation
Seating: 100+

For directions and further information about this and other debates go to our website:

MDI

Just another day at the Office

Posted in Articles by me, Death by Paul Williams on October 20, 2009

Today a stranger came into my office and told me he is dying of cancer. I work as a funeral arranger in London and I am no stranger to grieving families visiting me to arrange the funerals of loved ones. He wanted information about being buried in a cemetery, and to chat.

But meeting this man today was different. He told me that originally he came from a middle eastern country. He had never been seriously ill in his life before but was told by doctors that he had just 6 months to live.

He is also a Catholic. Yes, he believes in God, he told me, but did not believe in life after death. I gently asked him why? Because when you are dead that is it. Scientists had shown that there is no life after death, he claimed.

In any other context I would have advanced the Quranic argument that if God made us then he can resurrect us after our deaths. But professionally I am not permitted to say these things.

But he seemed cheerful enough. When he first heard the doctor’s news about the cancer he became depressed, he said, but then he asked himself what he wanted to do with the remaining months of his life and decided to enjoy each day as it comes. It’s a beautiful world, he said.

After he left I felt saddened and yet inspired by my encounter with him. And privileged. A complete stranger walked into my life today and disclosed the most personal things about his life.

Just another day at the office…

Government anti-terrorism strategy ’spies’ on innocent: Data on politics, sexual activity and religion gathered by government

Posted in Islam, The News by Paul Williams on October 17, 2009

by Vikram Dodd

guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 October 2009

The government programme aimed at preventing Muslims from being lured into violent extremism is being used to gather intelligence about innocent people who are not suspected of involvement in terrorism, the Guardian has learned.

The information the authorities are trying to find out includes political and religious views, information on mental health, sexual activity and associates, and other sensitive information, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Other documents reveal that the intelligence and information can be stored until the people concerned reach the age of 100.

Tonight Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, branded it the biggest spying programme in Britain in modern times and an affront to civil liberties.

The intelligence is being gathered as part of the strategy Preventing Violent Extremism – Prevent for short. It was launched three years ago to stop people being lured to al-Qaida ideology and committing acts of terrorism.

The government and police have repeatedly denied that the £140m programme is a cover for spying on Muslims in Britain. But sources directly involved in running Prevent schemes say it involves gathering intelligence about the thoughts and beliefs of Muslims who are not involved in criminal activity.

Instances around the country include:

• In the Midlands, funding for a mental health project to help Muslims was linked to information about individuals being passed to the authorities.

• In a college in northern England, a student who attended a meeting about Gaza was reported by one lecturer as a potential extremist. He was found not to be.

• A nine-year-old schoolboy in east London, who was referred to the authorities after allegedly showing signs of extremism – the youngest case known in Britain. He was “deprogrammed” according to a source with knowledge of the case.

• Within the last month, one new youth project in London alleged it was being pressured by the Metropolitan police to provide names and details of Muslim youngsters, as a condition of funding. None of the young Muslims have any known terrorist history.

• In one London borough, those working with youngsters were told to add information to databases they hold to highlight which youths were Muslim. They were also asked to provide information, to be shared with the police, about which streets and areas Muslim youngsters could be found on.

• In Birmingham the programme manager for Prevent is in fact a senior counter- terrorism police officer. Paul Marriott has been seconded to work in the equalities division of Britain’s biggest council.

• In Blackburn, at least 80 people were reported to the authorities for showing signs of extremism. They were referred to the Channel project, part of Prevent.

• A youth project manager alleges his refusal to provide intelligence led to the police spreading false rumours and trying to smear him and his organisation.

• One manager of a project in London said : “I think part of the point of the [Prevent] programme is to spy and intelligence gather. I won’t do that.” In another London borough wardens on council estates were told to inform on people not whom they suspected of crimes, but whom they suspected could be susceptible to radicalisation. One source, who has been involved in Whitehall discussions on counter-terrorism, said: “There is no doubt Prevent is in part about gathering intelligence on people’s thoughts and beliefs. No doubt.” He added that the authorities feared “they’d be lynched” if they admitted Prevent included spying.

Ed Husain, of the Quilliam Foundation, who has advised both Labour and the Conservatives on extremism, said: “It is gathering intelligence on people not committing terrorist offences.” Husain, whose group receives £700,000 in Prevent funding, believes it is morally right to give law enforcement agencies the best chance of stopping terrorists before they strike.

Serious concerns that the Prevent programme is being used at least in part to “spy” on Muslims have been voiced not just by Islamic groups, but youth workers, teachers and others. Some involved in the programme have told the Guardian of their fears that they are being co-opted into spying. They did not want to be named, fearing they would lose their job.

Some groups have refused its funding. In several areas the provision of funding is explicitly linked to agreeing to sharing of information, or intelligence, with agencies including law enforcement.

Traditionally in Britain intelligence is gathered by the police and security services. Prevent is trying to turn community, religious and voluntary groups into information or intelligence providers.

Prevent is run by the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism, part of the Home Office. It is widely regarded in Whitehall as being an intelligence agency.

The OSCT is headed up by Charles Farr, a former senior intelligence officer, with expertise in covert work. Also senior in the OSCT is another former senior intelligence officer. The Guardian has been asked not to name him for security reasons.

Chakrabarti said she was horrified by the revelations. “It is the biggest domestic spying programme targeting the thoughts and beliefs of the innocent in Britain in modern times,” she said.

“It is information-gathering directed at the innocent and the spying is directed at people because of their religion, and not because of their behaviour.”

The Home Office said: “Any suggestion that Prevent is about spying is simply wrong. Prevent is about working with communities to protect vulnerable individuals and address the root causes of radicalisation.”

On Islam (and what I believe)

Posted in Islam, Spiritual Truth by Paul Williams on October 8, 2009

Muhammad (pbuh) said,

‘If anyone bears witness that there is no deity save God alone, who has no partner, that Muhammad is His Servant and His Messenger, that Jesus is God’s Servant and Messenger, the son of His Handmaid, and His Word which he cast into Mary and a Spirit from Him, and that Paradise and Hell are real, God will cause him to enter Paradise, no matter what he has done’

(Bukhari & Muslim)

7 comments

Excellent Christian Rant

Posted in Christianity, Death, Fr Frank's Rants by Paul Williams on October 7, 2009

FATHER FRANK’S RANTS

Rant Number 366 6 October 2009

The Greatest Crime

Stumbling through a pathless thicket, you absent-mindedly break a twig off a tree. Then you freeze. In agony, the tree trunk is crying out: ‘You have torn my limb away! Have you no pity?’ Astonished, you behold thick, dark blood dripping away from the broken branch. It is true. The tree is alive!

‘You’ are in fact the poet Dante. Making his way through the second level of the seventh circle of Hell. In a rough wood, Dante comes across the shades of suicides. Changed into the shapes of trees – quite rightly, in the Sorrowful Kingdom those who in life have done violence to their own bodies are denied a human shape. Moreover, fierce harpies pick off their leaves, causing regular, unending torments.

Vivid poetry but only poetry. Mercifully, because I would never wish people like Kerrie Wooltorton to undergo a similar fate in the hereafter. Poor Kerrie was the depressed woman who, according to the Daily Telegraph, took poison after signing a living will. She then called an ambulance and was taken to hospital. There she handed the medics a note – she desired them to make her passing comfortable but not to stop her from dying. So, fearing prosecution or even being struck off if they tried to save her life, the doctors let her die. RIP? Not according to Christian teaching, I fear.

St Thomas Aquinas calls suicide crimen maximum – the greatest crime. First, it is a sin against God, the author of man’s being. Because the creature has no right to dispose of himself arbitrarily, against the will of the Creator. (A similar argument is advanced by Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo.) Although the Bible has no explicit divine command against self-killing, the prohibition is implicit. Significantly, the lowest figure in the Gospels is a suicide, Judah Iscariot, Christ’s betrayer. His desperate end is emblematic of the depth of his degradation.

Second, suicide is a crime against self. Against the love which naturally every person cherishes for himself. Such love is not to be equated with selfishness. ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’, the highest moral injunction in the New Testament, presupposes as the highest standard of care a natural inclination to self-preservation. In other words, self-love. A people who regularly and systematically cut off their limbs, starved themselves to death and threw themselves down cliffs, might be the denizens of a science fiction planet – they could not be those we know on planet Earth. That is why self-destruction is deeply unnatural – contrary, opposed to the gregarious social drives which the provident Creator has implanted into human nature.

Third, suicide is a crime against society, or, as they say today, ‘the community’. Against the rampant individualism of our time, this may sound a bit totalitarian but it is not. Himself an inveterate individualist, the priest accepts that man is a social animal. Anyone outside this norm is either a beast or a god, Aristotle affirms. Someone not human. Even if ‘the community’ sounds rather impersonal, think of family, loved ones, friends. Kerrie’s own relations – how have they felt when she took her own life? Was it fair to them?

I myself have known someone who committed suicide. His name was Nick Duc. ‘Frank, we failed him’, my friend C. told me at the time. ‘Had we really cared for Nick, had we really shown him our love, he would not have done it.’ Maybe. Or maybe, had Nick cared for us, been aware of our hurt, he might have thought twice about doing what he did, who knows? The point is that no man is an island. Every person fits into a network of relationships. Suicide does not just kill a single person, it wounds, it offends many others. That is what Aquinas meant by a crime against the community.

Dante, note, does not absolutely condemn all suicides. Noble Cato, who stabbed himself to death rather than survive the destruction of Roman freedom by Caesar’s tyranny (liberta’ va cercando ch’e si cara, come sa chi per lei vita rifiuta), is in Purgatory, not Hell. That means that eventually he will attain salvation. The idea is that freedom is so precious that it is all right to sacrifice your life for it. I agree. For a just cause, a soldier may rightfully die for his country, hearth and home. But Cato’s sacrifice smacks of Stoic pride, ethical aloofness, a sense of inhuman superiority. Liberty being already lost, his sacrifice was for nothing. Dante’s poetic Muse dimmed the poet’s theology, I feel.

‘…the Office ensuing is not to be used…for any who have laid violent hands upon themselves’ directs the rubric for the Burial of the Dead in the Anglican Prayer Book. The historical doctrine of the Church of England never beat about the bush – self-killing is so absolutely sinful that suicides should be denied burial in consecrated ground. Now the Labour Government has passed the Mental Capacity Act, which makes living wills into law. Another piece of devious secularism, another bit of demolition of this country’s legal and ethical safeguards. Consequently, if a physician ignored a living will and saved his patient (isn’t that his job?), he might find himself charged with assault. Did any of the 26 Episcopal bums-on-seats in the House of Lords warn about the unchristian implications of the living wills? The grave perils incumbent upon them, such as abuse by relatives and endless litigations? Did any mitred pate utter any whimper of criticism? I know I am naive but…insh’allah someone did.

Nick Duc and Kerrie Wooltorton, where are they now? Unbelievers and sceptics will scoff at the very question. Of course, death is the end. Survival is a chimera, an illusion, a savage superstition. The Christian faith disagrees. Kerrie and Nick have not perished. None of us will. (Condemnation is not the issue – besides, the idea that fear of hell would deter anyone from sinning sounds these days as quaint as belief in Red Riding Hood.) But, please, check out the question the grieving children ask of Aliosha Karamazov at the end of Dostoevsky’s great work, Brothers K.: ‘Is what religion teaches true? Is there another world? Shall we meet our dead friends again?’

Check also, pray, Aliosha’s reply.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

Does Allah Love You?

Posted in Cool Stuff, Islam, Spiritual Truth by Paul Williams on October 2, 2009

sun By Jinan Bastaki

Allah’s Love

Much is said about the first two of the three components in our relationship with Allah: fear, hope and love. But less is said about Allah’s Love. And this is important to know, because by realizing Allah’s Love, those of us whose hearts are hard are softened; those of us who feel deep inside that we can never be forgiven will be awoken with hope; and those of us whose relationship with Allah is mechanical will be enriched.

Not Just Fear

For many people, the relationship with Allah has become either that of fear or of something ritualistic: “I have to pray, so let me just get up and do it. If I don’t pray, I’ll go to hell.”

Fear is important, but at the base of our relationship with Allah is love. In the following Hadith Qudsi, Allah demonstrates the nature of His relationship with us:

“Myself, Mankind and Jinn are in a great serious state. I create them, then they worship other gods that they make for themselves; I bless them with my bounties, then they thank someone else for what I sent them; My Mercy descends to them while their evil deeds ascend to Me; I endear them with my gifts even though I have no need for any of them while they alienate themselves from Me with their sins even though they are desperate for My help.

Whoever returns to Me, I accept him no matter how far he is; and whoever turns away from Me, I approach him and call on him. Whoever leaves a sin for my sake, I reward him with many gifts and whoever seeks to please Me, I seek to please him. Whoever acknowledges My Will and Power in whatever he does, I make the iron bend for his sake. My dear people are those who are with Me (i.e. whoever would like to be with Me, let him supplicate to Me and remember Me). Whoever thanks Me, I grant him more blessings; whoever obeys Me, I raise him and endear him more. Whoever disobeys Me, I keep the doors of My Mercy open for him; if he returns to Me, I bestow him with My Love since I love those who repent and purify themselves for My Sake. If he does not repent, I still treat him by putting them in hardship to purify him.

Whoever favors Me over others, I favor them over others. I reward every single good deed ten times over or seven hundred times over to countless times over. I count every single bad deed as one unless the person repents and ask for My Forgiveness in which case I forgive even that one. I take into account any little good deed and I forgive even major sins. My Mercy supersedes My Anger; My Tolerance supersedes My Blame; My Forgiveness supersedes My Punishment as I am more merciful with My slaves than a mother with her child.” (Madarij As-Saalikeen by Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziya)

What is amazing is not a servant who seeks to get closer to his Lord, but that the Lord endears His servant to get closer to him. Many of the ahadeeth that I will recount are those ahadeeth that we already know; yet reading them one after the other shows us the extent of Allah’s Love and Mercy. Allah says, “If my servant comes closer to Me a hand span, I come closer to him or her an arms-length; and if he or she comes to Me walking, I come to him or her at speed.” (Bukhari)

Sometimes we despair, yet the above ahadeeth show us how silly that is. All we have to do is turn to Allah, return to Him and remind ourselves of these words: If we go to Allah walking, He will come to us with speed. The Prophet (pbuh) told us of another way Allah shows His love to us:

“Our Lord (glorified and exalted be He) descends each night to the earth’s sky when there remains the final third of the night, and He says: Who is saying a prayer to Me that I may answer it? Who is asking something of Me that I may give it him? Who is asking forgiveness of Me that I may forgive him?” (Bukhari)

We have to see – Allah doesn’t need to be like this with us. All He has to do is command, and we should obey. If we don’t obey, it’s our loss. And many of us do not even deserve to have such a relationship with Allah; yet we are told this in order for us to strive to build this relationship of closeness with Allah. We are told this so we never despair and so our hearts fill with love, awe and amazement at our Creator’s Love and Mercy. Ali (R) truly understood this relationship, and this is why he said that if he were given the choice to be judged by his parents on the Day of Judgment, he would refuse. Why? “Because Allah is more merciful to me than my parents.”

When Allah loves a servant

“When Allah loves someone he calls to Jibreel (as) saying, ‘O Jibreel, I love such and such a person, so love him.’ Then Jibreel will call to the (angels) of the heavens, ‘Allah loves such and such a person so love him.’ And the angels will love [that person]. And then Allah will place acceptance on earth for that believer.” (Bukhari and Muslim)

It would have been enough for Allah to say that He loves a person, for what more could someone want? But because Allah is Al-Wadood (the Loving) and Al-Kareem (the Most-Generous), He declares this love to the Angels, which does not stay in the heavens but descends to the earth because Allah puts acceptance of this person in the hearts of people.

So who is eligible for this love?

“…God loves those who do good” (Surat Al Baqara, 2:195) ”
“…God loves those who repent to Him, and He loves those who keep themselves clean” (Surat Al-Baqara, 2:222) ”
“…God loves those are mindful of Him” (Surat Aal-Imran, 3:76)

“…God loves those who are steadfast” (Surat Aal-Imran, 3:146)
“…God loves those who put their trust in Him” (Surat Aal-Imran, 3:159)
“…God loves the just” (Surat Al-Maida, 5:42)

So not only does Allah love the Prophets (as), the Companions (ra) and the scholars, but all the people listed above as well. And though those who repent are those who committed sins, maybe even grave sins, Allah loves them because they return to Him. By being one of those people above we are eligible to be loved by Allah.

Look at another manifestation of Allah’s love. He says in a hadith qudsi: “Whosoever acts with enmity towards a closer servant of Mine (wali), I will indeed declare war against him.” (Bukhari)

And who are the awliya? ”Now surely the friends (awliya) of Allah – they shall have no fear nor shall they grieve – those who believe and are conscious of God.” (Surat Yunus, 10:62-63)

Allah continues in the same hadith qudsi, showing us how we can be of the awliya: ”Nothing endears My servant to Me than doing of what I have made obligatory upon him to do. And My servant continues to draw nearer to Me with the supererogatory (nawafil) so that I shall love him.”

That’s it? Start with the obligatory and then add the things that are sunnah? Then what happens?

“When I love him, I shall be his hearing with which he shall hear, his sight with which he shall see, his hands with which he shall hold, and his feet with which he shall walk. And if he asks (something) of Me, I shall surely give it to him, and if he takes refuge in Me, I shall certainly grant him it.” (Bukhari)

Our problem is that we invest so much in people’s love, yet forget that the everlasting love is that of Allah. Some of us are taught to believe that because of our sins, we can never be eligible for this love, yet nothing could be further from the truth. The examples above are only a tiny glimpse of Allah’s dealings with us. May we always be of those who have hope in Allah’s Love and Mercy and seek to get closer to Him. Ameen.

The above was adapted from a lecture by Amr Khaled.

suhaibwebb.com

Should God be de-radicalised? MDI Debate: Wednesday 30th Sept 2009

Posted in Debates, Islam, Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI), my talks by Paul Williams on September 27, 2009

I’ll be moderating this MDI debate:

My opening statement:

Hello, good evening and welcome to the Muslim Debate Initiative’s public event, ‘Should God be de-radicalised?’.

My name is Paul Williams. Our title this evening reflects modern anxieties about the level of religious involvement in the political spheres of life. The term ‘radical’ is being increasingly used by secular authorities to describe those of a religious persuasion who dare to desire a link between their theological beliefs and an epistemological basis for governing human societies. The debate today is not literally whether God should be deradicalised, rather it is about how far religion is and should be involved in man’s social life.

The question of whether God (whether or not you believe in him) should be de-radicalised, is a moot point, considering that it is the human perspective of how far God should penetrate the affairs of man. This question forms the basis of contemporary discourse that activist secularism and political theism seeks to influence. In essence, today’s debate focuses on the key question – should society keep religion separate from state?

This event is hosted by Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI), an intellectual, political, and theological initiative, formed by experienced Muslim researchers, debaters and speakers, aimed at encouraging inter-community debate, discussion and dialogue. MDI believes that only through frank and open discussion and debate can deeper understanding be gained, relations between different communities be improved, and hopefully, the breaking down of prejudice and false conceptions. It is with this in mind, that we invite our honoured guests to come and present to you today’s event entitled ‘Should God be de-radicalised?’

The Speakers

Abdullah al Andalusi
Abdullah is a former Christian who embraced Islam at a young age, and has studied Islam in depth since he was 18. He also has an academic background in Computer Science. Abdullah has had a long experience in working for Islamic revival and the establishment of Islamic shariah in the Muslim world.

His activities involve speaking at community centres, universities, colleges and appearances on various TV programmes. He is experienced in debates with Atheists, Secularists and Christians, and has be involved in public and radio debates with Atheists and Christians.

Bob Churchill

Bob studied Philosophy at the University of Warwick and Queens University, Canada. He worked in communications and marketing, then systems development, before joining the British Humanist Association in January 2008 as the Membership and Web Manager. He now liaises with local humanist groups, manages membership communications, and has been responsible for the BHA’s online presence during the “Atheist Bus Campaign”. He has represented the BHA on radio and television and has discussed philosophy, religion, values and Humanism in public debates and “interfaith” forums.

Venue and Time:

Date: 30th September 2009

Time: 6:15pm

Venue: Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, London, (Nearest station: Edgware Road [tube])

Disgrace: A New Report Details Religious Abuse at Guantanamo

Posted in Islam, The News by Paul Williams on September 26, 2009

Michael Peppard, professor of theology at Fordham University, writes:

Last winter, I wrote for these pages about reports of religious abuse at Guantánamo (“The Secret Weapon,” December 5, 2008). Among the abuses that had been reported were desecration of the Qur’an, prevention and mockery of prayer, and sexual assaults intended to undermine piety. I argued that the victims of religious abuse considered it worse than anything else they had endured at Guantánamo, though allegations of this kind of abuse have been mainly ignored by the American media.

Some readers responded to the stories of abuse in my article by insisting that terrorists are trained to lie. I couldn’t prove they were wrong. If you had asked me when I wrote the article which of the abuse claims I thought was most likely to have been fabricated by detainees, I would have said it was the stories of forced prostration before a makeshift shrine to a false god. It seemed too outrageous. What could contradict America’s commitment to religious freedom more than coerced apostasy?

But there it was in the recent Senate report on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Listed among the many techniques designed to increase a detainee’s stress level during interrogation was “forcing him to pray to an idol shrine.” Other forms of religious abuse were also acknowledged by the report: the prevention of prayer, grotesque methods of sexual harassment, and the forced shaving of the beard and head, which was intended not only to violate Islamic norms but also to emasculate the detainees, one of whom was even made to wear a burqa.

Until recently, we could only speculate about the origins of such techniques. But the widely held suspicion that many interrogation methods at Guantánamo had been reverse-engineered from the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) military training program has now been confirmed. Those who instructed Guantánamo’s interrogators used training slides that recommended “religious disgrace” as a method to “defeat resistance.” Elsewhere the Senate report refers to the religious beliefs and practices of the detainees as “taboos” and “superstitions,” language that suggests an attitude of contempt for Islam.

Acts of religious humiliation remain legal at Guantánamo. In Rasul v. Rumsfeld, four British nationals brought a civil suit against ten U.S. government officials. The four claimed they had been illegally detained and mistreated at Guantánamo. Their case was based in part on allegations of religious abuse, which were upheld in the District Court. In January 2008, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decided against them. The Supreme Court later ordered the case to be reviewed by the Court of Appeals, which again ruled against the plaintiffs in April 2009. But the issue of religion at Guantánamo had gained another airing. The Appeals Court’s majority opinion again insisted that the plaintiffs were not among the persons protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which their lawyers had cited in their case. But the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 also prohibits “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,” and who would pretend that religious abuse does not fall into this category? Judge Janice Rogers Brown, in a concurring opinion based on different reasoning, encouraged Congress to revise RFRA for a new era, in which “prolonged military detentions of alleged enemy combatants” are now “part of our consciousness.” If Congress had considered a Guantánamo-like situation when the law was being drafted, she argued, “it likely would have prohibited, subject to appropriate exceptions, unnecessarily degrading acts of religious humiliation.”

One word was surprisingly hard to find in the Senate report: Qur’an. Why? After all, desecration of the Qur’an is by far the most widely alleged form of religious abuse among former detainees. But in the report the Qur’an is mentioned only as a “comfort item” that may be removed from a detainee’s cell to weaken his resolve. Apparently, we are to believe that several carefully planned violations of the tenets of Islam were encouraged at Guantánamo, but that desecration of the Qur’an-the ubiquitous symbol of Islam in every cell-was not allowed.

But then, it’s hard to tell, since many portions of the report are blacked out, including lines in sections about religious abuse. Maybe references to the desecration of the Qur’an were judged too incendiary for the general public. The government knows that if such desecration were officially acknowledged, this would be the lead story in newspapers all over the Muslim world. The harm that would come from such a disclosure might outweigh the good of transparency.

Consider the case of Muntathar Al-Zaydi, the Iraqi journalist now famous as the “shoe thrower.” What was it that stoked his rage? When the London Times asked his family why he turned against the United States, his brother mentioned a May 2008 incident: a Marine in Fallujah had used the Qur’an for target practice. It was an iconic event that tarnished the image of the U.S. military in the region and threatened the security of Baghdad. “He talked incessantly about the subject,” said Al-Zaydi’s brother.

Nothing threatens America’s national security more than the perception that we are at war with Islam. We are not. But to change that false perception we must first change a disgraceful policy.

from Commonweal

New Translation of Qur’an

Posted in Islam, Reviews by Paul Williams on September 22, 2009

Penguin Classics have just published a new translation of the Qur’an by the scholar Tarif Khalidi. The Times Literary Supplement hailed it as ‘A landmark in the history of English translations of the Quran’.

Tarif Khalidi is Sir Thomas Adam’s Professor of Arabic at Cambridge University (the oldest chair of Arabic in the English-speaking world), and also Director of the Centre for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the same university.

In his Introduction he says the following about the history of the Qur’anic text. I have put some significant statements in bold.

‘So far as one can determine its general contours, early Muslim scholarship on the Qur’an emanated from circles close to the Prophet Muhammad (c. 570-632) and involved, in its beginnings, the collection and preservation of revelation. For the first twenty or so years of its existence, copies of the Qur’an, in whole or in part, were in possession of venerable collectors dispersed by the Muslim conquests in the diverse regions of the new empire. Because of this dispersal and subsequent political and ideological alignments we possess several contrasting, sometimes conflicting, accounts of the Qur’an’s earliest history. Eventually a dominant narrative emerged which held that a committee appointed by the third caliph ‘Uthman (r. 644-56) assembled one definitive copy of the text, disseminated it in the major urban centres of the new empire and ordered all other copies destroyed.

This master narrative holds that the caliph’s edict caused a great deal of distress to possessors of private or family copies of the pre-’Uthmanic text was indeed one of the causes of the rebellion which ended in the caliph’s murder in 656. Nevertheless, Muslim scholarship has preserved examples, in the form of lists, of the variant readings of these early texts. In almost all cases, however, such readings concern very minor variations in grammar or dialect and add nothing of substance to the ‘Uthmanic text, the one that is in our hands today. This narrative has not gone unchallenged in both Muslim and non-Muslim circles, but it has withstood the test of time and of recent and dramatic epigraphic and textual discoveries. The result is that Islam has possessed a definitive sacred text from a very early point in its history. There are simply no ‘apocrypha’ where the Qur’an is concerned. We can therefore be confident that what we possess today is in all essential respects the Qur’an that Muslim narrative tells us was circulated by caliphal fiat somewhere around the year 650. Numerous historical problems remain, but these need not concern a reader who wishes to encounter the text directly, with minimal contextual demands.’

(ppxii-xiii)

A Beautiful House

Posted in Islam, Spiritual Truth by Paul Williams on September 13, 2009

Abu Hurayrah said that the Messenger of God said, “The relationship between me and the prophets who came before me is as the analogy of a man who built a beautiful house, but in which the space of one brick was left incomplete. The onlookers go around it, admiring the beauty of its construction, with the exception of the place of that brick. Now I have filled up the place of that brick: in me the building is completed, and in me the messengers are completed.” (Bukhari & Muslim)

Abu Hurayrah said that the Messenger of God said, “You will not enter Paradise until you attain to faith, and you will not attain to faith until you love one another. Shall I tell you of a thing to do that will make you love one another? Spread peace among yourselves.” (Muslim)

Mind the Gap! Some recent reflections on Christology

Posted in Christianity, Reviews by Paul Williams on September 5, 2009

I have just received through the post (thank you Amazon!) a book I’ve been trying to get my hands on for ages: Christology and the New Testament: Jesus and his Earliest Followers by Christopher Tuckett. In case you didn’t know, Tuckett is Professor of New Testament Studies in the University of Oxford and author of several books including Reading the New Testament: Methods of Interpretation, Luke and Q and the History of Early Christianity.

I went straight to the final chapter entitled ‘Jesus’ Self-Understanding’ (pp 202-226). I was eager to find out how he assessed the evidence. Here are some of his conclusions (italics in the original):

Son of God

Did Jesus think of himself as in any sense Son of God? For many this is perhaps the most important question of all to ask about Jesus’ self-understanding, showing some clear continuity between Jesus and later Christian claims. We should be alert to the possibility – even probability – that, even if Jesus did think of himself as in some sense a/the son/Son of God, this may not have meant anything remotely similar to what later Christians meant in using that phrase of Jesus.

Sonship seems here to imply a relationship of trust and confidence, reflected too in some of the Q sayings about God as the ‘father’ of the disciples. It probably does not indicate any idea of ontological being, at least at the level of Jesus. Language of divine sonship, as we have seen was thoroughly at home in a Jewish context, indicating perhaps a special relationship to God characterised by obedience and trust on the side of the human being, and by special choice or favour on the side of God. Jesus’ God-talk seems to fit perfectly well into this mould. But it does not suggest that the one referred to as the ’son’ of God is in any sense a ‘divine’ being.

Jesus very probably saw himself as a son of God. As such he claimed a special personal relationship with God and a closeness to God. As such too he claimed the right to enable others to share in that relationship. But the latter should warn us against seeing Jesus’ sonship as ‘unique’ in the sense that later Christians claimed Jesus’ divine sonship as unique and qualitatively different from that of other human beings. If anything Jesus’ own ideas of his divine sonship work in precisely the opposite direction: to unite others to enable them to share in the relationship to God which he claimed to enjoy himself.

We have looked at a number of facets of the Jesus tradition to try to recover something of Jesus’ own self-understanding. One must say that, at the end of the discussion, the conclusions may be more than a little imprecise. So much of Jesus’ ministry is not directly concerned with his own person: it is focused on God and on the needs of other people. We thus have to deduce possible facets of Jesus’ self understanding from what is implied quite as much as from what is said explicitly. That there is an ‘implicit Christology’, in the sense of a ’special position/role’ occupied by Jesus and implied in his actions, seems undeniable. Trying to gain greater precision is much harder. In some sense Jesus seems to have regarded himself as a prophet with a mission that would arouse hostility and violence against himself. He was willing to accept that violence, convinced that he would be ultimately vindicated by God, and may have used the imagery of the vision of Daniel 7 to express this (albeit perhaps a little cryptically). He may have had some idea of ‘messiahship’ as not totally against his own beliefs about his role, though it would seem that many aspects often associated with messiahship were probably not part of a programme which he would accept as his own. In all this he claimed a close personal relationship with God, expressed through an idea of sonship, but which others would share with him.

All this probably distances Jesus’ own self-understanding by some way from later claims about Jesus to be the unique Son of God, meaning by that a fully divine member of an eternal Trinity. There may be also something of a gap between Jesus’ self-understanding and the views of his earlier followers (who may not quite have reached the stage of Chalcedonian orthodoxy immediately!). Does such a gap matter? It is that question which we address very briefly in the Postscript.

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To Christians: Why Attack the Prophet of Islam, Have you read the Bible?

Posted in Christianity, Debates, Islam, Video by Paul Williams on September 1, 2009