Theology and Islamic Origins
klei...@astound.net
is an attack on Islam. In my opinion this is not a fully justified
fear.
There is, of course, some foundation for the feeling. Much early
research on the origins of Islam was done by Christian believers (often
missionaries) who sought to find ways to discredit traditional Islam
and thereby convert Muslims to Christianity. This kind of activity
continues today, but it has not been genuine research for a long time.
It has become a cottage industry among fundamentalist Christians that
perhaps would produce amusing results if studied for its own sake. But
it has nothing much to do any more with a serious consideration of
Islamic Origins.
A much more serious attack on Islamic orthodoxy has been launched from
an atheistic point of view (generally called secular humanism). Here,
of course, Islam is only one example of the target.
The atheists reject all theistic religion. Their argument is extremely
simple. (1) There is no evidence for any deity. (2) Therefore there is
none. The point they have to prove is that there is no evidence.
The atheists have made little or no headway against mystical claims for
evidence of the existence of a deity. Their assertion that mysticism,
by definition, is not evidence is clearly self-serving. Certainly no
mystic is going to agree with them.
Every religion I am aware of has its mystical defenders. In Islam they
are usually called Sufis. But the majority of believers are not
mystics.
It appears that generally a religious believer is called upon to accept
something "on faith". It seems to always be the case that what one is
asked to accept is unclear and what "on faith" means is unclear.
Suppose one is asked to accept the shahada ("There is no god but Allah
and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah"). Suppose one does so. What has
one done?
Superficially one has assented to two propositions (1) There is no god
but Allah and (2) Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. I took my version
of the shahada from an English language Muslim glossary and it contains
a feature, perhaps trivial, that has always bothered me. Muhammad, in
my understanding, cannot "is" anything. He died almost fourteen hundred
years ago. If I accepted the shahada I would have to accept the second
proposition in the form (2) Muhammad was the Messenger of Allah. If I
did that would I be accepting the shahada?
I am well aware that this problem has arisen because, in Arabic, the
second proposition is expressed (everywhere I have seen it) by a
nominal sentence and the copula, "is" or "was", has been added by the
translator. But what does the Arabic version of the shahada matter to
me? I accepted the English version given above. I believe that the
orthodox Islamic answer to that question would be that the English
version of the Shahada is only a stand-in for the Arabic version. If I
say I accept the Shahada, according to orthodox Islamic thought, I
really mean I accept the Arabic version.
Personally I know enough Arabic that this is a coherant proposition. I
could just as well accept "LA ALE ALA ALLE W MHMD RSWL ALLE" as I could
the English version. But only a rather small minority of Muslims
understand Classical Arabic even as well as I do. What are they
accepting?
I have posed a question that can only be answered by a consideration of
the origins of Islam. Why a Muslim should have any interest at all in
the Arabic language can only be answered by considering the origins of
Islam.
Considering the origins of Islam I observe that the second proposition
of the Shahada is a historical statement. It states that something or
other really was the case once upon time. In a rather strong way all
our opinions about historical fact are things we have accepted "on
faith". The notion that Muhammad "is" the Messenger of Allah is
dangerous because it implies it is a testable (that is, there is a way
to prove it is false) statement. In my opinion it was not a testable
proposition even while Muhammad was alive. The only way the rest of us
could possibly know the Muhammad was not the messenger of Allah has
always been that we ourselves learned from Allah that he was not.
The Qur'an tells us about opposition to Muhammad based on the fact that
he could not possibly be the messenger of Allah. But the Qur'an does
not describe this kind of opposition as having any substantial
intellectual content. It is described as more like prejudice than
reasoned opposition. For example, either Jewish or Christian beliefs as
to the nature of God's interaction with mankind might have adduced. But
they were not.
It could be argued that the proposition that "Muhammad is/was the
Messenger of Allah" is meaningless because it cannot be tested. The
philosophy called Positivism (which I believe no longer has any
supporters) applied exactly that argument to all religious discourse.
This philosophy did not prove to be attractive to very many people.
Testable or not, the proposition does have a meaning. What that meaning
is, and how a Rasul differs, if at all, from a Nabi, is a problem in
Islamic origins.