Unraveling Islam

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed I have recently had a propensity to discuss medieval Christian apologists. I must confess that I have been intrigued by the subject, and engaged in a little research into the area. While there are overarching themes within their writings that bear similarity to today, those observations must wait until later articles. For now, I wanted to comment on another interesting argument put forward by an early Arab Christian thinker.

One of the earliest apologists who engaged Islam with a systematic approach was Theodore Abu Qurrah. There is some dispute about the particulars of Abu Qurrah’s life. What is known for sure is that he lived in the eighth century, was fluent in Arabic, and resided in Muslim occupied lands during the Abbasid dynasty. Born in Edessa and serving for a time in the Mar Sabas monastery, It is believed that his work was likely the first Christian work to be written in Arabic.

Abu Qurrah’s main thrust was that the use of reason was enough to determine which religion was the correct one. While he has written an entire systematic treatise, one of the more unique analogies had to do with how to identify which view of God was the correct one. Abu Qurrah proposes that a truly wise and just God would send a messenger to humanity to carry His message to us. Of course false messengers would likely arise claiming to be God’s spokesmen as well. The problem for us would be to determine which of the many individuals claiming to be God’s messengers would be the genuine, and which were imposters. In order to do so, Abu Qurrah proposed the following allegory.

A king sent his son on a long journey. The king also sent along a wise physician to be with the son should trouble arise. As it happened, the lad did take ill. When the king heard the news, he sent a courier to the physician with the correct remedy. However, many of the king’s enemies also caught wind of the son’s illness, and sent their own messengers, each with phony remedies. Their intent was to exacerbate the ailment by providing fake medicine. The problem for the wise physician was to ascertain which messenger was the correct one, and which messengers had nefarious intentions. His solution was rather straightforward. He asked each of the envoys to describe the illness in detail for which they had brought the cure. The one who was correctly able to identify the symptoms would be the one who had true knowledge of the original report of the son’s sickness. Abu Qurrah concludes the allegory,

And when among them there was only one description to bear a resemblance to him, the document in which it occurred would be the one in which there was the true description of his illness and the beneficial remedy. [i]

The allegory is rather obvious. The true messenger of God is the one who can accurately describe humanity’s problem that only God can solve. So how does the Qur’an compare to the Bible when laying out our condition before the application of God’s remedy? Jesus says that apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5) and that until we are born again of the spirit, we cannot ever enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5-6). The Bible has much more to say about this (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 5:12). According to the Bible, our sickness is unable to be overcome through our own power, that is, the disease of sin is inherent to our being. Islam, on the other hand, states that our problem is just one of weakness or forgetfulness. (Qur’an 39:8;20:115) Islam teaches that we are all born Muslim (Qur’an 30:30), and it is our parents that lead us astray. [ii]

So which is correct? Are we born with propensity to evil or with the true religion of God in our hearts that gets corrupted by others? Perhaps parents can answer this question best. Do parents teach their children to steal toys from other children, or do parents try to teach children to share because their natural tendency is otherwise? Which word does a child learn first, “yours” or “mine”? Do children tend to act selfishly, focusing on their own needs, or do they typically act selflessly, first considering the needs of others before their own?

As the king’s physician, we must honestly diagnose the human heart’s problem in order to recognize whether Jesus or Muhammad brings the right remedy.

[i] Samir, Samir Khalil and Jorgan S Nielsen. Christian Arabic Apologetics During the Abbasid Period (750-1258). E.J. Brill: Leiden, The Netherlands, 1994, p35.

[ii] Sahih Bukhari, USC-MSA web (English) reference : Vol. 2, Book 23, Hadith 440

Many of the articles I write for this blog incorporate an ironic twist. However, sometimes it is just interesting and eye-opening to examine the written interactions between Christians and Muslims of days long past. The number of such written documents that has survived from the medieval period is slim, but what there is contains some fascinating material.

One of the relatively early Christian apologists was Yahya b. ‘Adi. He lived under Islamic rule during the Abbasid dynasty in the tenth century. Many of the Arab Christian writers of both his day as well as from the previous generation quoted both the Qur’an and the Bible extensively. Yahya sometimes took a more philosophical approach toward Islam, though. One of his arguments for the reality of the incarnation I found particularly compelling. This particular polemic uses neither the Qur’an nor the Bible, but is founded solely on one of the ninety-nine names of Allah, and follows that name to its logical consequences.

Consider the title Allah the Most Generous. [i] Let’s start with the assumption that God is the most generous being who exists, has ever existed, or ever could exist, then follow that assumption to its logical conclusion. If God is the most generous entity in the universe, then by definition, God has not only the power but also the desire to share that generosity with his creatures. To be the most generous means not just that there is the ability to bestow blessing upon others, but that there is also the reality of pouring out those blessings. After all, a rich miser represents the very opposite of what generosity entails. Therefore, God has not only the most capacity to give, but would act correspondingly in the most generous fashion. He would give to His creatures that which is the best gift He could give. As one Islamic web site puts it, God would be “The One who is continually giving forth the grandest and most precious bounty”. [ii]

So what is the best gift God could give? The greatest thing in the universe is not financial or material, or even some abstract spiritual provision. The most awesome and wonderful thing in the universe is God Himself. Anything less would be second rate. The Creator is of more worth than any of His created objects. As the same Islamic web site states, God is “The One whose kind, noble and generous essence is most esteemed, valued and honored”.
To summarize, the logic is as follows.

1. God is most generous,
2. If God is most generous, then He would give most generously.
3. The best gift in existence is God Himself.
4. Therefore, a most generous God would not hold anything back, but rather give Himself.

What would it look like for God to give Himself to humanity? Here we now arrive to the reality of the incarnation. The incarnation is the logical outcome of the original premise. [iii] Anything less than the provision of God Himself given to humanity proves that God would not be the most generous creature in existence.

Of course such a discourse would meet a likely objection from Muslims that the incarnation would be impossible. This just forces the same issue down another path. Does such an impossibility of God fusing with man occur due to God’s limitations? Clearly, God is all-powerful, and thus can do anything. If the reason for objection is that God would find the incarnation dishonoring rather than impossible, this shifts the conversation back to whether God is generous or not. If God refuses to give Himself, for any reason, this refusal confirms that His supposedly generous nature was subordinate to other concerns. Thus He truly would not be the most generous, as the most generous creature would give regardless of mitigating reasons.

This philosophical approach was much different than the other polemics of the day. I don’t view such arguments as some type of silver bullet, and I don’t advise anyone reading this to view it that way either. Such logical devices are useful under the right circumstances, but not in isolation. If you have a Muslim friend, this could be an interesting discussion. As a broadcasted call to faith in Christ, I remind everyone that such techniques have limited value.

[i] Arabic Al-Karim, although Yahya himself used the term Al-Jawwad.

[ii] http://wahiduddin.net/words/99_pages/karim_42.htm

[iii] Samir, Samir Khalil and Jorgan S Nielsen. Christian Arabic Apologetics During the Abbasid Period (750-1258). E.J. Brill: Leiden, The Netherlands, 1994, p74.