Islam's challenge

Islam’s transcendent challenge

November 4th will be historic not only because the U.S. will elect its first black president or its first female vice president, but also because Pope Benedict XVI will convene the most important interfaith conference in recent history.

Responding to his controversial 2006 speech at the University of Regensburg - in which he seemed to imply that Islam is inherently violent and irrational – 138 Muslim leaders sent an open letter to Benedict and the heads of other Christian denominations titled “A Common Word Between Us and You.” The letter said, in effect, “we need to talk.” The Vatican subsequently announced the formation of a new Catholic-Muslim Forum. Its first meeting will be held on election day.

Islamica magazine explained the letter’s significance: “All eight schools of thought and jurisprudence in Islam are represented by [its] signatories. In this respect the letter is unique in the history of interfaith relations.” According to www.acommonword.com, “…138 Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals have unanimously come together for the first time since the days of the Prophet to declare the common ground between Christianity and Islam.”

As two of the three Abrahamic faiths, there are countless similarities between Islam and Christianity. There are also important differences. Without a basic understanding of these differences productive dialog can’t happen, and common solutions to taming extremism will remain elusive.

Both Islam and Christianity hold that God exists within all he has created. He is immanent. However Islam holds that God exists beyond humanity’s capacity to comprehend him. He is absolutely transcendent. Christianity holds that man can come to know God, even if imperfectly. He is transcendent in that he exists separate from the universe he created, but he is interactive. Man can have a personal relationship with God.

Christian scholars have argued that because God is unknowable, and because the Koran contains his literal word, there’s no place for reason in the practice of Islam.

Islamic scholars argue that although Muslims don’t interact directly with God they do interpret his perfect word and apply it in their daily lives in different ways.

They point out that there is not a single Islam any more than there is a single Christianity. Most interpret the Koran [and the hadith] through an historic lens that takes into account the language, customs and the society of the time.

It’s generally agreed that there’s a rift within Islam between forward-looking progressives who accept the Koran as God’s perfect word but believe it must be interpreted in context, and backward-looking fundamentalists who believe the literal word of God as conveyed to Muhammad and recorded in the Koran cannot be subjected to such analysis. This rift is proving to be difficult for Muslims to reconcile.

Benedict knows that when read fully the Koran offers more than enough scriptural evidence for the Muslim middle, progressives and fundamentalists alike, to know that Islam extols peaceful behavior, that jihad is essentially a spiritual struggle for the eternal soul and justifiable as a physical war only in self-defense.

He also knows that among the fundamentalists resides a small group of extremists who cherry pick the parts of the Koran that support their violent cause - a cause many think is more political than religious - ignore the parts that don’t, and use the concept of God as absolutely transcendent to fend off anyone who might question them.

What Benedict seems to find most troubling is that those doing the twisting are among Islam’s learned - its clergymen, scholars, professionals and the like. He no doubt finds these sophists to be entirely unreasonable.

On November 4th a broad cross section of Muslim leaders have the opportunity for the first time to condemn the extremists, not for being un-Islamic as they have often done, but for using the Islamic belief that God is absolutely transcendent to sell a twisted interpretation of the Koran as his unquestionable will.

Benedict has the opportunity to lead members of both faiths, despite their important differences, to universal agreement on what it means to be faithful to God. This agreement can then serve as a platform for active interfaith cooperation in the fight against religious extremism, a fight that must be won.

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