Islam in context: past, present and future

Balancing act

ISLAM IN CONTEXT
Past, Present and Future
By Peter Riddell & Peter Cotterell
Baker Academic. 231 pages
ISBN 0 8010 2627 X

This excellent book, written in a popular and engaging style, helps promote a proper understanding of Islam, especially for the average church member bewildered by its complexity.

With British Muslims eagerly seeking converts, it is a 'must-read'. Muslims often employ liberal biblical criticism when debating with Christians, but this rebounds on them. The critical-revisionist school of Crone, Cook and Wansborough note the lack of 'hard evidence for the existence of the Qur'an' before the end of the seventh century. Muslims base their historical claims for the Qur'an on the hadith, Muhammad's narrations, but many were fabricated, and this aids the average Christian interacting with his Muslim neighbour.

The strange structure of the Qur'an is explained by its composite nature, 'containing sections from different points in Muhammad's lifetime'. Rather than chronological order, its shorter but usually earlier chapters are at the end. Christians are often confused by the Qur'an's contradictions, such as verses that praise Christians while others berate them; this is explained by the concept of abrogation, involving 'cancelling out one passage by a later passage where the two appear to be contradictory'.

The Islamic view on inspiration is essentially dictation, Muhammad's role being like a tape-recorder. Hence, Muslims cannot understand the idea of the gospel writers being actively involved in the production of our holy books. Another problem for Christians is the difference between Qur'anic and biblical narratives of the same event. The book shows that this originates in Jewish/Christian oral traditions, often apocryphal, rather than direct encounter with the Bible.

The origins of jihad are explained by traditional economically-motivated tribal raids, aided by the promise of Paradise for the martyr. It would have helped to distinguish defensive and offensive jihad, and its rules of combat, since Al-Qaida breach these. The book examines the Sunni-Shia divide, vital for understanding contemporary disputes in Iraq. The topic of polygamy, always a contentious point with Christians, is explained by an original necessity of caring for the widows of fighters. Other topics include alleged Biblical prophecies of Muhammad, Muslim misconceptions of the Trinity and denial of the Crucifixion.

The chapter on Palestine is where I would be most critical. Much of this has to do with its sources, notably the militant Zionist writer Bat Ye'or, whose writings one leading UK academic recently described as 'propaganda masquerading as scholarship'. Perhaps reflecting her ideas, the book claims that Muslim attitudes to Jews as dhimmis partly explains the conflict, whereas since the Jewish colonists (as opposed to native Palestinian Jews) were Europeans, they were classified as aliens in Islamic law, not dhimmis. No reference is made to Israeli scholars such as Segev and Morris, who demonstrated that the 1948 Catastrophe was an act of ethnic-cleansing against Palestinians, nor any examination of the apartheid-style discrimination against Israeli Arabs, nor any mention that Palestinian Christians and Muslims are united against Zionism.

The causes of 9/11 - American forces in Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and Iraq are all examined, but the book notes other reasons for Muslim anti-Western attitudes, namely hostile Qur'anic verses and hadiths and anti-Western stereotyping in the Muslim media. Muslims rightly condemn Westerners for Islamophobic stereotyping, but this book demonstrates that this works both ways.

Balancing act

Dr. Anthony McRoy

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