A Concise List of Arabic Manuscripts of The Qur’ān Attributable To The First Century Hijra

Recent Post from Islam Awareness:

The study of ancient manuscripts of the Qur’an is steadily gathering pace. In decades past, a few scholars have compiled lists of Qur’anic manuscripts attributable to the 1st century hijra. Although helpful, these lists contain only the barest details, usually only the name of the manuscript concerned or sometimes even less. With this in mind, we have constructed a Concise List Of Arabic Manuscripts Of The Qur’ān Attributable To The First Century Hijra, that contains additional details providing further insights into these valuable manuscripts, accompanied by full bibliographic references. A discussion of how scholars date early Qur’anic manuscripts and an assessment of the value of these manuscripts is also provided along with some detailed mathematical calculations. Should one ponder over this list, they will come to the appreciation scholars involved in this field of study suffer from an embarrassment of riches. Quite simply, there is no other work from the Late Antiquity that comes close to the Qur’an in terms of the number of their earliest manuscripts including textual content.

Senior Christian Theologian Accepts Muhammad as a Prophet of God

Taken from Hans Küng on Prophet Muhammad (Part 4)

Hans Küng, as an ecumenical Catholic theologian, began his scholarly life by dealing with problematic issues within Christianity. But in the course of time, he became interested in contemporary common issues not only for Christians, but also for people of other faiths.

According to W. G. Jeanrond’s classification of Küng’s theological development, his reflection on theological method and the discourse between Christianity and world religions began in the early 1980′ s in order to promote inter-religious dialogue (105). In this context, he published his major work Christianity and World Religions: Paths of Dialogue with Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism in 1984. In each part of this book, first of all, he pays attention to scholarly accounts of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and then provides a detailed critical response to each one as a Christian theologian.

As a scholar interested in world religions, Küng has tried to understand them anew as a Christian theologian and to create a positive environment for Christians to relate to adherents of those religions. In so doing, he studies the status of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) from the Christian perspective in a number of his writings, namely: Christianity and the World Religions, Christianity and World Religions: The Dialogue With Islam, and Muhammad: A Prophet?.

We will examine Küng’s views on the status and prophethood of Muhammad in light of these accounts.

As a leading Catholic theologian, Küng, with special reference to Nostra Aetate, openly and boldly invited the members of the Catholic Church to officially acknowledge Muhammad’s prophethood if they wanted to establish better relations with Muslims. In this connection, Küng underlines:

The same church must, in my opinion, also respect that the one whose name is absent from the same declaration out of embarrassment, although he and he alone led Muslims to pray to this one God, so that once again through him, Muhammad, the prophet, this God ‘has spoken to mankind’. (“World Religions” 129)

Later on, too, he notes the necessity of acknowledging Muhammad’s prophethood by all Christians in the process of Christian-Muslim dialogue by maintaining that:

the Christian who wishes to engage in dialogue with the Muslims acknowledges from the outset his or her own conviction of faith that for him or her Jesus is the Christ and so is normative and definitive, but he or she also takes very seriously the function of Muhammad as an authentic prophet. (“Ecumenical” 124)

In our opinion, because of these two bold statements, Küng’s views deserve to be taken seriously. Not least because his remarks that in our pluralistic age in which more and more people from different religious traditions are living and working together, it is no longer possible for Christians to accept the distorted Medieval images of Prophet Muhammad such as false, lying pseudo prophet, a fortune teller, and a magician.

On the contrary, he stresses the need to develop a new and positive Christian understanding of Muhammad. To do this, he says it is necessary first of all to take into consideration the historical context of Muhammad’s prophethood and his message within the stream of the religious history of all humanity.

From this methodological perspective, he remarks:

Muhammad is discontinuity in person, an ultimately irreducible figure, who cannot be simply derived from what preceded him, but stands radically apart from it as he, with the Quran, established permanent new stands. (“World Religions” 25)

From this passage, David Kerrrightly concludes that Küng takes the discontinuity as an essential element for his evaluation of the originality of Muhammad’s prophethood (Kerr 437). By using this exposition, Küng advocates that “Muhammad and the Quran represent a decisive break, a departure from the past, a shift toward a new future” (“World Religions” 25).

Also, Küng argues that there is no one more worthy of being called a prophet than Muhammad in the whole of religious history, and this is because of his claim that he was no more than a prophet, who came to warn people. He says “when the history of religions speaks of “the prophet” tout court , of a man who claimed to be that but absolutely nothing more, then there can be no doubt that this is Muhammad” (25).

Küng draws attention to the similarities between Muhammad’s prophethood and the prophets of Israel in order to expose the significance of Muhammad for Christians an essential element for his evaluation of the originality of Muhammad’s prophethood (Kerr 437). By using this exposition, Küng advocates that “Muhammad and the Quran represent a decisive break, a departure from the past, a shift toward a new future” (“World Religions” 25).

Küng draws attention to the similarities between Muhammad’s prophethood and the prophets of Israel in order to expose the significance of Muhammad for Christians. He says that like the Old Testament prophets, Muhammad based his work not on any office given to him by the community (or its authorities) but on a special, personal relationship with God.

Muhammad was a strong-willed character, who saw himself as wholly penetrated by his divine vocation, totally taken up by God’s claim on him, exclusively absorbed by his mission. Muhammad spoke out amid a religious and social crisis.

With his passionate piety and his revolutionary preaching, he stood up against the wealthy ruling class and the tradition of which it was the guardian. Muhammad, who usually calls himself a ‘Warner’, wished to be nothing but God’s mouthpiece and to proclaim God’s word, not his own.

Muhammad tirelessly glorified the one God, who tolerates no other gods before him and who is, at the same time, the kindly Creator and merciful Judge.

Muhammad insisted upon unconditional obedience, devotion, and ’submission’ to this one God. He called for every kind of gratitude toward God and of generosity toward human beings. Muhammad linked his monotheism to a humanism, connecting faith in the one God and his judgment to the demand for social justice; judgment and redemption, threats against the unjust, who go to hell, and promises to the just, who are gathered into God’s Paradise (25–26).

Here, Küng explains the status of prophet Muhammad to Christians by presenting three important steps for them to determine that self same status. First, it is necessary for them to take into account the specialties of Muhammad’s teaching. Second, to compare them with the teachings of previous prophets i.e. Old Testament prophets, in order to observe their similarities. And lastly to make their decisions about his status by considering those similarities.

Küng continues to draw attention to the similarities of the teachings of the Biblical prophets and Muhammad by urging Christians to read the Quran and the Bible, especially the Old Testament, to find answers to the following questions:

Do not these three Semitic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — have the same origin? Does not One and the same God speak loudly and clearly in these religions? Does not the Old Testament’s ‘Thus says the Lord’ correspond to the Quran’s ’say’, as the Old Testament’s ‘go and tell’ matches the Quran’s ‘take you stand and warn’. (26)

He says that if Christians do this, it is impossible for them to answer these questions negatively. Thus, he concludes that “it is only dogmatic prejudice when we [Christians] recognize Amos and Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah, as prophets, but not Muhammad” (26).

Like Watt, Küng urges Christians to take into account the effect of Muhammad’s teaching on his followers in seventh-century Arabia. He says by following that message, those people

were lifted to the heights of monotheism from the very worldly polytheism of the old Arabian tribal religion. Taken as a whole, they received from Muhammad, or rather from the Quran, a boundless supply of inspiration, courage, and strength to make a new departure in religion, toward greater truth and deeper knowledge, a breakthrough that vitalized and renewed their traditional religion. Islam, in short, was a great help in their life. (27)

Küng also reminds Christians of the following facts when dealing with the questions about Prophet Muhammad. He says it is well known today that one fifth of the world’s population “are all marked by the exacting power of a faith that, more than practically any other, has shaped its followers into a uniform type”; and those people, Muslims, share a “feeling for the fundamental equality of all human beings before God, and international brotherhood that has managed to overcome barriers between the races” (26-27).

These quotations from Küng imply that the right way for Christian appreciation of Prophet Muhammad is to take into account the observable benefits of his message on his followers. In other words, according to Küng, it is necessary to move away from theology to the practical effects of the message on the life of its followers in order to reach a right conclusion about that faith. By implying this, it seems that Küng adopts a similar approach to both Smith and Montgomery Watt.

Finally, Küng moves to outline the theological meaning of this recognition of Prophet Muhammad for Christians. He begins by showing that in the New Testament there are statements which indicate that after Jesus there is the possibility of authentic future prophets. But, Küng restricts their mission to witnessing Jesus and his message by making it comprehensible for every age and every situation (27–28).

Within this context, in the last stage of his examination of the status and prophethood of Muhammad, Küng regards Muhammad “as a witness for Jesus — a Jesus who could have been understood not by Hellenistic Gentile Christians, but by Jesus’ first disciples, who were Jews, because, with this Jesus tradition, Muhammad reminds the Jews that Jesus fits into the continuity of Jewish salvation history” (126).

And he emphasizes that “this Muhammad” can be a “prophetic corrective” and “prophetic Warner” for Christians in order to inform them that the one incomparable God has to stand in the absolute center of faith; that associating with him any other gods or goddesses is out of the question; that faith and life, orthodoxy and orthopraxy, belong together everywhere, including politics (129).

In one of his papers which was delivered at Edinburgh Theological Club, Küng maintains that “I can, as a Christian be convinced that if I have chosen … Jesus as the Christ for my life and death, then along with him I have chosen his follower Muhammad, insofar as he appeals to one and the same God and to Jesus” (Watt 84).

As we have observed above, as an Ecumenical Catholic theologian and leading defender of inter-religious dialogue, Küng tries to reassess the status and prophethood of Muhammad in the light of modern day developments in Christian-Muslim relations. By doing this, he examines the issue from both practical and theological perspectives.

In view of our examination of his standpoint within the context of these two perspectives, we may draw the following conclusions. First, according to Küng, all Christians, both officially and individually, need to make some correction in their approaches to Prophet Muhammad’s status in the process of Christian-Muslim dialogue so that their views will not offend Muslims.

Second, while doing this, it is necessary to take into account the similarities between Prophet Muhammad and the Old Testament prophets, and the observable fruits of his teaching on Muslims. In this issue, Küng argues that like the Old Testament prophets, Muhammad, too, deserves to be called ‘prophet’ by Christians.

From the Muslim understanding of prophethood, there is no problem in Küng’s argument, since according to Islamic teaching there is no difference between prophets (Al-Baqarah 2:285).

However, from the Christian point of view his argument needs further clarification to avoid ambiguity. For, what Muslims understand by this term differs from what Christians understand.

Third, from a theological perspective, according to Küng, the New Testament allows the continuation of prophecy after Jesus Christ as long as they witness to him in every age and in every situation.

Therefore, Küng acknowledges Muhammad’s prophethood by seeing him “as a witness for Jesus” not as understood by Hellenistic Gentile Christians but by his first disciples and also as a “prophetic corrective” for Christians. In our opinion, there are two significant implications of these arguments.

The first is that Christians may have an opportunity to revise their own understanding of Jesus by taking into account Jewish Christians understanding of Jesus, since according to Küng there is a great similarity between the Quranic and Jewish Christians approach to Jesus (“Religious Situation” 105 (ff)).

The second is that being a “prophetic corrective” for Christians seems to be compatible with the Prophet’s teaching as long as this is understood as just one of his duties among others.

For example, in the Quran, Christians are invited to give up their extreme views about Jesus not his teaching. Although these are positive implications, when Muhammad and Jesus are compared, Küng always seems to make Muhammad inferior to Jesus.

There is another negative implication here for the development of Christian-Muslim understanding. If the mission of Prophet Muhammad is restricted to witnessing to Jesus in order to make him intelligible for every age and every situation, then there is no difference between Prophet Muhammad and the Gospel authors and even Church authorities and missionaries. This certainly reduces the value of Prophet Muhammad not only in the eyes of non-Muslims but also Muslims.

To be continued…

See also: A Roman Catholic US Marine Discovers Islam

Reading the NT in its historical context…

A Muslim friend emailed me this interesting question about the imminence of the End in Paul’s New Testament letters. I have interspersed my answers in bold

Assalamu Alaykum Paul,

You stated:

“The apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians speaks of Christians as people who ‘wait for [God's] son from heaven…who rescues us from the coming wrath’ (1 Thess 1.10). Later, Paul adds that ‘we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep’ (1 Thess 4.15). He does not say, ‘those who are alive (which could refer to some far future and as yet unknown group), but ‘we who are alive’, thus showing his expectation that the Lord will come before Paul’s death. Furthermore, Paul boldly claims that this is ‘the Lord’s own word’ (1 Thess 4.15).”

How would you refute Shamoun who states:

Paul often uses “we” in a corporate sense, choosing to identify himself with the people he is writing to. Note the following example:

“For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether WE ARE AWAKE OR ASLEEP, we may live together with him.” 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10

In the context of the earlier teaching in 1 Thess 4:15 where Paul speaks of the End within the lifetime of those then living, this quote must be understood as further clarifying that whether we ['we' meaning the recipients of Paul's letter cAD 50] are still alive or have died, we will live with Jesus. Paul showed no awareness that Jesus’ return would be delayed by thousands of years.

Other examples include:

“By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise US also.” 1 Corinthians 6:14

Again, he will raise us – ‘us’ meaning those who Paul writes to around AD 50. Not ‘us’ 2000 years later.

“It is written: ‘I believed; therefore I have spoken.’ With that same spirit of faith WE also believe and therefore speak, because WE know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise US with Jesus and present US with YOU in his presence.” 2 Corinthians 4:13-14

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we need to remember who ‘us’ and ‘we’ are. It is not referring to Shamoun thousands of years later.

These passages clearly show that Paul wasn’t necessarily expecting Christ to descend during his lifetime since he speaks of his being raised from the dead to be with the Lord Jesus.

these passages show no such thing.

Further confirmation that Paul wasn’t necessarily expecting Christ to descend before his death can be found in the Apostle’s second epistle to Timothy:

“For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come FOR MY DEPARTURE. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day–and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:6-8

Firstly, Paul did not write this letter. It is a forgery as most Christian scholars now know.

Secondly, as these same scholars recognise this forgery demonstrates the slackening of the eschatological fervour in the early church, when it became clear that Jesus had not returned as originally thought. So II Timothy is evidence for my argument not Shamoun’s
Finally, even if it were true that Paul did in fact believe that Christ was going to return during the Apostle’s lifetime this still would pose no problem. The Lord Jesus had already warned his followers that his return would be like a thief in the night:

So even if Paul was dead wrong in his letters about Jesus’ return within his own lifetime it wouldn’t matter! But Shamoun believes in the inerrancy of the Bible so it would matter enormously. The Bible would contain a significant error.

“Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be br oken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour WHEN YOU DO NOT EXPECT HIM.” Luke 12:35-40

And:

“Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief.”
1 Thessalonians 5:1-4

The Lord Jesus also made it clear that only God knows the day or hour of Christ’s return:

“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.” Mark 13:32-33

“So when they met together, they asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them: ‘It is not FOR YOU TO KNOW the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.’” Acts 1:6-7

Being prepared for Jesus’ return at any moment is one thing, but the NT teaches in many places that it will happen very soon (see Revelation 22:18 and many other places in 1 John, James and Paul).

Important teaching about the End is found in 1 Cor 15:51ff. When we do exegesis on a biblical passage we ask ourselves at least three questions: who wrote the text? when was it written? and to whom was it written to?

1) Paul wrote 1 Corinthians (no one seriously doubts this)

2) it was written in the 50s of the first century (no one doubts this)

3) the recipients are the church members in Corinth (no one doubts this)

It is very important to bare these three facts in mind when we read Paul.

So now read the verses:

51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. Fo r the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

Do you see my point? Paul in circa AD 50 is telling the Corinthians in circa AD 50 that we will not all sleep (ie die), but those of us who are alive and those of us who have died, all of us will be ‘raised imperishable’ etc.

Shamoun, like most Christians, has de-historicised Paul’s teaching. The ‘we’ in Paul becomes the we of all Christians over the last 2000 years. After all, they think, its God’s eternal Word, addressing all peoples at all times. But this perspective distorts Paul’s teaching in its original historical context. This de-historicising of Paul is the reason most Christians don’t see the problem at all, and why they get a nasty shock when they study the Bible academically at university. University courses in the Bible teach exegesis of the text, ie its original, historical meaning.

One last passage is worth mentioning: Mark 13 (and the parallel passage in Matthew 24).

I won’t quote the whole chapter, but it is clear that Jesus teaches that the End of the world will occur within the generation of those then living, ie in the first century. See especially Mark 13:30.

The great Christian writer CS Lewis said that this verse was the single most difficult verse in the entire Bible for Christans to read…

regards

Paul

Evangelical Review of ‘Escaping from Fundamentalism’

For Christian readers of this site I thought I would post a perceptive review of James Barr’s book (called Beyond Fundamentalism in the American edition). It is written by the evangelical scholar William J. Abraham

Beyond Fundamentalism
By James Barr
Philadelphia, Westminster, 1984. 195 pp. $9.95.

James Barr is the Jack Dempsey of modern Anglo-American theology. Outside the ring he is a perfect gentleman; inside it he is a ruthless opponent. Over the years, Barr has attacked fundamentalism with fervor and skill. In this book, he has changed his role from that of a critic and iconoclast to that of a pastor and shepherd. That in itself makes this book a remarkable and courageous tract for the times. Some friends and foes will be tempted to read it as part of Barr’s own struggle to escape from an earlier past. This is otiose and false. Barr has correctly perceived that fundamentalism is a very serious force to be reckoned with in the modern world. It is a major factor within Christianity and shows no signs of abating. Church leaders and scholars cannot ignore it if they intend to be realistic about their listeners and readers. Besides, many find their way to a genuine faith in Christ within fundamentalism, and they need help to cope with its complexity and its intellectual structure. Hence this book is extremely important for Christendom as a whole. I can think of no one, be it layperson, student, pastor, or scholar, who would not benefit from it. Certainly it is essential reading for those seeking to escape from fundamentalism.

Beginning with the issue of biblical inspiration and authority, Barr sets out to evaluate the central religious assertions of fundamentalism. He covers such issues as Jesus and the Old Testament, justification by faith, the divinity of Jesus, miracles, prophecy, and creation. In dealing with these matters, the general strategy is straightforward. Barr starts on the fundamentalist’s own ground, the content and character of the Bible as it is. He then proceeds to show how Scripture rarely supports the exact theology built up by fundamentalist thinkers. Either the Bible contradicts the fundamentalist position, points in another direction, or states the matter more subtly. Hence fundamentalist theology rarely, if ever, fulfills its own boasted promise. The whole argument is a model of sustained clarity and rigor. Aside from an occasional lapse where he appeals to alternative logical possibilities rather than alternative practical possibilities, Barr invariably establishes his case. Fundamentalists will prefer to ignore rather than answer his arguments.

But Barr wants to do more than win an argument. What was implicit in his earlier work on fundamentalism is quite explicit here. Barr wants to foster the development of a genuinely evangelical vision of the Christian faith. Hence he seeks to show that a penetrating evangelical faith can still be derived from Scripture, provided, of course, that evangelicals take the trouble to extricate themselves from the rigidity of the recent past and honestly set about developing a serious theological alternative. This is a costly move to make within evangelical circles, but Barr is right to insist that it must be made if evangelicals are to remain loyal to Scripture rather than to the traditions about Scripture into which they have been initiated. This will not be easy theologically. Barr, perhaps without fully realizing it, shows how difficult it is to integrate what we know about the nature and content of the Bible into the fabric of a living faith. Thus, anyone concerned to think deeply about the authority of Scripture could well begin with this book as a stimulus. Barr in his asides identifies very graphically some of the issues that need to be addressed.

Two words of caution are needed, however. Some readers may only know fundamentalism through Barr’s writings. If this is so, they should know that Barr is using the term “fundamentalism” polemically. The real target of Barr’s attack is not so much the old fundamentalism of the 1920s, which has recently been revitalized by figures like Jerry Falwell, but the conservative evangelicalism of the recent past. Barr has not acknowledged that there was a genuine and costly break with fundamentalism in the neo-evangelical movement of the last generation. To that extent, I think his reading of recent evangelicalism is much too abrupt and simplistic. Yet his basic criticisms of the recent past remain secure. In particular, Barr is correct to say that the doctrine of Scripture is by far the weakest element in the whole tradition. Secondly, given Barr’s success in demolition, many readers will be tempted to hold that the renewal of evangelicalism is quite impossible, especially so if they judge that in this volume Barr as iconoclast still wins out over Barr as pastor. Yet this judgment would be premature and unfounded. Surely it is true that the best traditions produce the best rebels. Barr is one of the best rebels evangelicalism has ever produced. So its resources cannot be entirely bankrupt.

William J. Abraham
Seattle Pacific University
Seattle, Washington

taken from:
theologytoday

Escaping from Fundamentalism

My recent contacts with Christians has highlighted a problem that is becoming increasingly widespread in the world, namely Christian fundamentalism.

Many good folks who enter into the active life of Christian faith enter it through the gateway of fundamentalism (as I did). But it is just as true that many of those who do so come to feel after some time that it is a deeply inadequate form of religion. But finding a way out is difficult. Making the transition to a different understanding of the Bible, of faith, and of theology can be a time of deep uncertainty and even of severe personal suffering. Fundamentalist groups will do nothing to help the struggling person who becomes convinced that he must leave it and find a different world of faith.

So as a service to those struggling Christians who want an authentic faith free from the prison house of fundamentalism, I strongly recommend the excellent book by the Old Testament scholar James Barr, who has done the church a great service in this book and in many others:

Escaping from Fundamentalism.

Bigotry, Christian Style…

My response to Nabeels comment that,

“It seems that when Islam meets the West, a reaction slowly takes place. As the Muslim population rises, free speech and equal rights decline. London is just a few steps ahead of Dearborn, and Dearborn may possibly be the beginning of a change in the US. Will this pattern continue?”

…and my response to Nabeel’s recent video shot in Edgware Road, London.

Nabeel is clearly an intelligent person who thinks about what is happening in the world today. But it seems to me that he has bought into the all too familiar right-wing fundamentalist American Christian agenda in his newly adopted world view. Though he would vehemently deny this, his views nevertheless objectively contribute to the hatred and gross misunderstanding of Islam and Muslims we see growing in sections of Western society. Such growing hatred is of great concern to moderate believers of all faiths.

In the UK, where he was a brief recent visitor, his views most closely reflect those of the extreme rightwing nationalist party the BNP (British National Party). Visit their website and you’ll see similar examples of whipped up hysteria about Muslims and Islam. That’s where Nabeel’s politics are on the UK’s political spectrum.

For an alternative view of Muslim experience in Britain and the similarity I see between Nabeel’s views and extremist rhetoric here in the UK, visit the IslamOnline website here:

Testing Times for UK Muslims

The language that far-right Christians and extreme nationalists in Europe express is the modern 21st century counterpart to the neo-fascist language of the 1930s in Germany and Italy. Then the enemy were the Jews:

‘It seems that when Judaism meets the West, a reaction slowly takes place. As the Jewish population rises, free speech and equal rights decline….’

Concerns about Jewish finances (cf. Muslim Bank of Britain), Jewish cultural practices (cf. hijab), and the Jewish threat to our Western values (cf. the bogeyman of Islam) were very common then. In many respects Muslims are today’s Jews.

Of course virtually everyone who posts on his site shares this extremist world view with total religious certainty and will dismiss what I say as rubbish. I accept this and await the inevitable torrent of abuse. But there was a time, in the not too distant past, when I shared this ugly perspective. I pray that Nabeel and his Acts 17 ministries will one day come to their senses and rediscover a nobler vision of humanity and the Abrahamic faiths and develop some respect for the faith of Muslims.

l do not write these things with a judgemental heart, but with a sincere heart that prays Christians will turn to the moderate, measured Christianity I find in such mainline Churches as our Church of England and attend to the enlightened discourse of such distinguished figures as Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

regards

Paul

Welcome to new readers from ‘Answering Muslims’!

Hi there to Christians who have surfed in from Answering Muslims. You are very welcome to have a look around my blog…

best wishes

Paul

Christian responses to my debate with Nabeel Qureshi on 12th July 2009

A reader kindly sent me a link to the Christian ‘Blogger: Answering Muslims’ site. It contains mostly hostile reviews of my arguments that evening but you can judge for yourself if they are being fair.

Blogger: Answering Muslims

My Book has a new chapter: ‘Introduction’

I have written a new chapter, the Introduction.

All the chapters are currently drafts and will be further editied and even rewritten at a later stage.

Comments, as always, are welcome.

The Burka: A Christian View

FATHER FRANK’S RANTS

Rant Number 355 15 July 2009

The Burka

‘The burka, a symbol of repression, has no place in a free society’ ran a Times editorial. Splendid oxymoron. A free society is then one which takes away the freedom to wear certain clothes. Huh! Really? Funny kind of freedom one that robs you of freedom of personal choice! In this case, in a sartorial matter. A self-contradictory contention. Because freedom, if it means anything at all, must mean freedom of choice. But that the august Times negates. A pearl!

The burka, a symbol of repression. Of darkness, the editorial asserts. Useful statements. They serve to clarify what this debate is all about. Some claim to object to the burka on pragmatic grounds. A burka-wearing female cannot clear a security check. Or drive a car. Or enter a jewellery shop – all Times examples. But pragmatic objections have pragmatic answers. An articulate burka lady interviewed on radio the other day claimed she drove a car OK. Still, let us assume the burka is a bit uncomfortable to the wearer. So must be high heels. When did that stop a woman from wearing them? Similarly, the thobe, the long white loose garment Muslim men wear in Arabia. A Qatari youth told me in Doha that it was not very comfortable for walking. Yet, he elected to wear it. Why? I don’t know. But it was his choice.

As to security, fair enough. Let a female officer check the burka woman out, what’s wrong with that?

And I bet you, if a bona fide Saudi prince wanted to walk into a jeweller’s, even with his whole harem, the salivating owner would hardly wish to stop him!

A symbol of repression. This bellicose, intolerant remark lets the cat out of the bag. This debate is about ideology, not pragmatism. Pragmatism is a red herring. The Times invokes the inevitable, tedious J.S. Mill on libertarianism, tolerance, diversity and blah, blah, blah. But what stands behind statements like the burka equalling oppression is not Mill but Rousseau. Jean Jaques Rousseau. Yes, him. The writer of Emile. The founder of modern educational theory. The same creep who had five illegitimate children from a poor washerwoman – and abandoned them all to the Foundling Hospital. ‘The people must be forced to be free’ he famously wrote. Even if a woman willingly wears the burka, as a matter of personal, free choice and preference, Rousseau would prevent her. For that notorious and personally despicable forerunner of typical left wing intellectuals – of totalitarianism, in fact – freedom means not the freedom to do what you choose but the ‘freedom’ to do what the state, or the revolution, or the proletariat, or the party or the Fuhrer or political correctness choose for you. Freedom my foot!

A symbol of repression. But how can you be repressed, or oppressed, by what you freely elect to wear? Aristotle taught that a person cannot do moral wrong to oneself, if he voluntarily wishes it so. By contrast, Rousseau’s brutal view is that freedom, personal choice must be overridden when some superior, abstract intellectual will in its omnipotence decides so. The State knows best, in other words. So much for personal freedom.

A symbol of darkness. To buttress its dogmatic stance, the editorial boldly ventures into Islamic doctrine. Practices like the burka are not based on the Quran but on the hadiths, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, this (presumably infidel) theologian contends. That illustrates the supreme foolishness Western journalists are prone to when straying into Islamic theology. Even the poor priest – no a’alim him – could have told the writer that the sharia, the holy law of Islam, normative for pious Muslims, is based both on the Quran and on the hadiths. Hence driving a wedge between the two won’t do. Nor will the line that there seems to be uncertainly as the authenticity of many hadiths. Be that as it may, that is a matter for Islamic scholars to determine. I myself have my own informed opinion on this but I allow it cannot be an authoritative one for Muslims. A fortiori, even less so can Western infidels plugging liberal and permissive agendas legislate here.

The burka ‘is controversial within Islam’. Maybe so but, again, that is Muslims’ affair. And it takes more than one or two remote-controlled (from 10 Downing Street or from Tony Blair’s sinister Faith Foundation, presumably) Imams to establish right and wrong here. Whatever else it may be, the burka is certainly an Islamic practice. That no one can gainsay.

A face veil creates ‘mistrust, alienation and brake in communication’. Does it? Always? Necessarily? During a conference in Provo, Utah, a few years ago I met a large South-African Muslim lady with full burka. I soon realised she was quite brave, as more conventional Muslims shunned her. Someone said that ‘she gives Islam a bad image’. Actually, her conference speech was interesting and humorous. (‘I am not a ninja’, she joked.) Along with her husband, we got on great. ‘Father Frank, we will never forget you’ she effused when we parted. Although I never saw her face, we communicated extremely well. Her voice and attitude was what mattered to me. Indeed, I related to her much better than I do with umpteen other people, of both sexes, whose faces are, as Oscar Wilde put it, ‘such that you wish to forget as quickly as possible.’

A symbol of darkness. A provocation to ‘the values and mores of Western society’. But aren’t we told, ad nauseam, that we live in a pluralistic, multi-ethnic, multicultural society? That we must not judge other people’s customs, not be ethnocentric, not culturally chauvinistic, all that? Why are a few females who willingly wish to wear burka an exception to that wonderful stuff, eh?

As to provocation. Funny how in art that seems to be de riguer. (A ridiculous duo like Gilbert and George is praised for being ‘provocative’. So have Hirst, Emin & Co.) Why not in religion? So the priest cofesses he is into provocation. And subversion. In a big way. The values and mores of contemporary Europe urgently need challenging. He speaks as Christian, sure. Christianity from early on could not avoid challenging the pagans. Today’s aggressive neo-pagans must be challenged. A reason why today’s Christians are so feeble is because they have forgotten how provocative their symbol, the Cross, intrinsically is. That is why I declare: long live provocation.

for more of these rants go here

MDI Debate Series continues:

You are invited to attend the remaining debates in our MDI series. Inshallah I’ll be chairing the events.

go to the MDI website for more information

Thursday 16th July 2009, 6:30pm-9pm

“Is Christianity a Religion of Peace?”
David Wood vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
St Lawrence Church and church centre, London Rd, Morden, SM4 (nearest [tube] station: Morden, [Rail] Modern South)

***

Friday 17th July 2009, 7:30pm-9:30pm

“Was Muhammad a True Prophet?”
Yahya Hayder Seymour vs. David Wood
Hyderi Islamic Centre, 26 Estreham Road, London SW16 5PQ (Nearest station, Streatham Common [Rail])

***

Saturday 18th July 2009, 12:30pm-3:45pm

“Has the Qur’an Been Perfectly Preserved?”
Bassam Zawadi vs. Nabeel Qureshi
Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, London, (Nearest station: Edgware Road [tube])

5:15pm-8:30pm

The Debate Series Finale “The Concept of God in Islam and Christianity“
Abdullah al-Andalusi vs. David Wood
Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, London, (Nearest station: Edgware Road [tube])

The rival to the Bible

By Roger Bolton

What is probably the oldest known Bible is being digitised, reuniting its scattered parts for the first time since its discovery 160 years ago. It is markedly different from its modern equivalent. What’s left out?

The world’s oldest surviving Bible is in bits.

For 1,500 years, the Codex Sinaiticus lay undisturbed in a Sinai monastery, until it was found – or stolen, as the monks say – in 1844 and split between Egypt, Russia, Germany and Britain.

Now these different parts are to be united online and, from next July, anyone, anywhere in the world with internet access will be able to view the complete text and read a translation.

For those who believe the Bible is the inerrant, unaltered word of God, there will be some very uncomfortable questions to answer. It shows there have been thousands of alterations to today’s bible.

The Codex, probably the oldest Bible we have, also has books which are missing from the Authorised Version that most Christians are familiar with today – and it does not have crucial verses relating to the Resurrection.

Anti-Semitic writings

The fact this book has survived at all is a miracle. Before its discovery in the early 19th Century by the Indiana Jones of his day, it remained hidden in St Catherine’s Monastery since at least the 4th Century.

It survived because the desert air is ideal for preservation and because the monastery, on a Christian island in a Muslim sea, remained untouched, its walls unconquered.

Today, 30 mainly Greek Orthodox monks, dedicated to prayer, worship there, helped as in ages past by the Muslim Bedouin. For this place is holy to three great religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam; a land where you can still see the Burning Bush where God spoke to Moses.

The monastery itself has the greatest library of early manuscripts outside the Vatican – some 33,000, and a collection of icons second to none.

Not surprisingly, it is now a World Heritage Site and has been called a veritable Ark, bringing spiritual treasures safely through the turbulent centuries. In many people’s eyes the greatest treasure is the Codex, written around the time of the first Christian Emperor Constantine.

When the different parts are digitally united next year in a £1m project, anyone will be able to compare and contrast the Codex and the modern Bible.

Firstly, the Codex contains two extra books in the New Testament.

One is the little-known Shepherd of Hermas, written in Rome in the 2nd Century – the other, the Epistle of Barnabas. This goes out of its way to claim that it was the Jews, not the Romans, who killed Jesus, and is full of anti-Semitic kindling ready to be lit. “His blood be upon us,” Barnabas has the Jews cry.

Discrepancies

Had this remained in subsequent versions, “the suffering of Jews in the subsequent centuries would, if possible, have been even worse”, says the distinguished New Testament scholar Professor Bart Ehrman.

And although many of the other alterations and differences are minor, these may take some explaining for those who believe every word comes from God.

Faced with differing texts, which is the truly authentic one?

Mr Ehrman was a born again Bible-believing Evangelical until he read the original Greek texts and noticed some discrepancies.

The Bible we now use can’t be the inerrant word of God, he says, since what we have are the sometimes mistaken words copied by fallible scribes.

“When people ask me if the Bible is the word of God I answer ‘which Bible?’”

The Codex – and other early manuscripts – omit some mentions of ascension of Jesus into heaven, and key references to the Resurrection, which the Archbishop of Canterbury has said is essential for Christian belief.

Other differences concern how Jesus behaved. In one passage of the Codex, Jesus is said to be “angry” as he healed a leper, whereas the modern text records him as healing with “compassion”.

Also missing is the story of the woman taken in adultery and about to be stoned – until Jesus rebuked the Pharisees (a Jewish sect), inviting anyone without sin to cast the first stone.

Nor are there words of forgiveness from the cross. Jesus does not say “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”.

Fundamentalists, who believe every word in the Bible is true, may find these differences unsettling.

But the picture is complicated. Some argue that another early Bible, the Codex Vaticanus, is in fact older. And there are other earlier texts of almost all the books in the bible, though none pulled together into a single volume.

Many Christians have long accepted that, while the Bible is the authoritative word of God, it is not inerrant. Human hands always make mistakes.

“It should be regarded as a living text, something constantly changing as generation and generation tries to understand the mind of God,” says David Parker, a Christian working on digitising the Codex.

Others may take it as more evidence that the Bible is the word of man, not God.

source: BBC News

see also http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/

Archbishop points to history of coexistence

Archbishop points to history of coexistence

Yonat Shimron, Staff Writer

Archbishop Elias Chacour of the Melkite Catholic Church offers a powerful counterargument to those who maintain that the battles in the Middle East are based on intractable religious differences. A Palestinian Arab who lives in Galilee, he was evicted from his native village by Israeli soldiers in 1948.

As an adult, Chacour became a priest and later founded an interfaith school and university open to Jews, Christians and Muslims. Last year, he was named archbishop of the Galilee by the Vatican and the Synod of the Greek Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch, a group that joined the Roman Catholic Church. He now oversees Israel’s largest Christian group, a flock of about 76,000.

On a visit to Duke University this week, Chacour, 67, said he takes a long view of history and sees coexistence as the rule rather than the exception for Jews, Christians and Muslims. Chacour explained his views in an interview.

Q. At age 8, you and the residents of your village were evicted from your home as part of Israel’s War of Independence. Why aren’t you bitter?

A. I was raised not to hate. I was raised to face evil with good, rather than to adopt the corruption that others used against you in order to gain back your rights. We can be persecuted, oppressed, ill-treated, but we will never return evil for evil. If we do that, we have no right to blame anybody else.

Q. So how do you see the war on terrorism?

A. This absurd war against the abstract idea of terrorism is creating terror everywhere in the world. We end up no more respecting people than suspecting everyone. Look at what happened in Israel this summer. … We destroyed most of south Lebanon. Anyone with any kind of sympathy to Israel we destroyed. We destroyed the ongoing myth that our army is invincible. We destroyed the psychological security of every Israeli individual.

Q. How could Israel have done it differently?

A. Maybe Israel should change its tactics. I told the [Israeli] defense minister recently, I hope you stop considering yourself the 51st state of the United States, and think of yourself as the 21st nation in the Middle East, which means to … look for positive integration with other Arab countries. We should start thinking of how to live together with the Arabs and not look down on them with superiority and say, ‘We’re civilized, they’re primitive. We’re wealthy, they’re poor.’ Maybe it’s good to remember the history of Judaism and Islam.

Q. Do you mean the Golden Age of Islam, when conditions under Muslim rule were extremely favorable for the Jews and Christians of Spain?

A. Not only that. In Morocco, the Muslim king saved 250,000 Jews by refusing to deliver them to the Gestapo during World War II. Lebanon recognized the right of the Jews to a homeland in 1942, six years before the creation of the state of Israel. We are focused on the present-day conflict. We don’t want to consider the long history of sharing and coexistence. Look at the history of Jews in Damascus, Alexandria and Lebanon. We don’t need to learn how to live together. We need to remember how we lived together.

Q. You are often quoted as saying the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs is not a religious conflict.

A. It has never been a religious conflict. We are blinded by the ongoing conflict around the territory of Palestine. The Jews wanted it to be Israel. The Palestinians wanted it to be Palestine. No one has the courage to say ‘I am also right.’ In order to prove only you are right, you brandish the weapon of the Bible. In order for them to prove only they are right, they brandish the weapon of the Quran. And then you have a selective reading of the holy books. But this conflict over 60 years should not be labeled a history of Judaism and Islam. It’s not.

Q. So how do you deal with the reality of a growing anti-Jewish perspective in the Arab world?

A. We have to change the equation in Israel as well as in the Arab states. That equation says, ‘Whether we want it or not, we are condemned to live together.’ This has to change. We are not condemned. We should think how great and glorious and privileged we are to live together in different but complementary ways.

source: www.newsobserver.com