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PERSONAL OPINION
Perspectives on Islam

John H. Redekop

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, many Christians are unclear about how they should view Islam. Broadly speaking, the perspectives can be grouped into three clusters or general categories. We must acknowledge, of course, that there is great diversity among the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims and that many Muslims are fully committed to freedom, including religious freedom.

The first category consists of people who have a very high view of Islam. They acknowledge that the September terrorists were Muslims, but they assert that the terrorists were motivated not mainly by their Muslim faith but by economic or political concerns.

A very strong presentation of this high view of Islam was given by Robert Schuller on The Hour of Power television program broadcast from the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California in September 1999. In his extensive interview with Bill Baker, author of More in Common Than You Think, Schuller promoted the organization known as CAMP, Christians and Muslims for Peace. He seemed to concur with the assertion that ethically Christianity and Islam are very close, and seemed strongly to support closer cooperation between these two religions.

Muslim leaders who seem to share this view include Imam Hamid Slimi, a spiritual leader of the International Muslim Organization in Toronto; Faisal Kutty, general counsel for the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association; Farouk Elesseily, a spokesperson for the B.C. Muslim Association; and Ibrahim Ashoar, a volunteer with the Islamic Information Centre in Vancouver. In a published interview, Ashoar observed that, “Our teaching is just like any other religion, spreading peace and getting good relationships with God and other people, regardless of their religion.”

I have difficulty with this perspective. First, the two religions, it seems to me, are fundamentally different. Islam has no place for Jesus as the Son of God, rejects the crucifixion story, seems not to promote toleration as Christianity does, and seems to have little or no room for Jesus’ teaching on self-giving love, to note only four of the many important differences. As I read them, the Koran and the New Testament are not promoting similar truths, even ethically. Second, evidence, including personal testimonies, indicates that the terrorists were, in fact, motivated by their fundamentalist Muslim faith. Third, one is hard pressed to find full freedom for Christianity or other dissenting faiths in any of the countries comprising the 56-nation Islamic Conference. In many Muslim countries, it is illegal for Christians to build churches, to publish their beliefs, to evangelize or even to assemble for worship.

The second category consists of people who acknowledge that the September 11 terrorists were Muslims and that they were motivated largely by their fundamentalist beliefs but then stress that these beliefs are not part of mainstream Muslim teaching. They emphasize the distinction between the militants and all other Muslims. Major spokespersons for this perspective include President George Bush, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and numerous Muslim leaders.

It seems to me that one can make a fairly strong case for the validity of this perspective. The point at which I find myself questioning this view is when its advocates insist that there is nothing in Islam which endorses intolerance or militancy. Maybe adherents of all religions which claim to possess unique truth have difficulty practising tolerance. The actions of the Puritans in England and New England and of the overseers of the Spanish Inquisition certainly did not promote freedom for all faiths. Whether they represented New Testament Christianity becomes the real question. I think that they did not.

Those who disagree with this second perspective tend to say that while terrorism is an extreme action, it has some logical connection to at least some Islamic teachings. They point out that while Mohammed wrote of toleration and protection of adherents of other religions – saying, for example, “Let there be no compulsion in religion” (Koran 2:257) – he also wrote about extreme intolerance. In the so-called “sword verses”, which many Muslims believe trump the toleration verses, Mohammed wrote: “O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other” (Surah V, 49); “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolators wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush” (Surah IX, 3-30); and “Cursed: wherever they are found they should be seized and murdered” (Surah XXXIII, 61).

In his syndicated September 13 column, the respected journalist Charles Krauthammar wrote: “The enemy has identified itself in public and openly. Our delicate sensibilities have prevented us from pronouncing its name. Its name is radical Islam.”

The third category consists of those observers who argue that while September 11-style terrorism is not typical of Islam, it is a logical extension of some mainstream Muslim beliefs. Proponents of this view claim to look not so much at formal teachings as at reality. In their October 17 article, columnists David and Richard Landes argue that “the duty of all Muslims is not only to reject the adversary but to destroy him.” In his October 17 analysis, David Warren states that almost all regimes in countries dominated by Islamic majorities are repressive. He writes: “From Morocco to Indonesia, from Kazakhstan to Sudan, we see the spectacle of Islamic political failure. Every regime, with the singular exception of Turkey, is a tyranny that relies on force.” In his carefully researched volume Their Blood Cries Out, Paul Marshall describes “complex patterns of oppression within Islam”. He adds that “Persecution is rampant. Bloodshed is, lamentably, unexceptional.” Unfortunately accounts of forced conversion, circumcision at gunpoint and execution of Muslims who convert to Christianity are extensive.

Which of the three perspectives is most valid? In a sense, at least as far as the future is concerned, only time will tell. Many Imams and other Muslim leaders, in Canada and elsewhere, defend perspectives 1 and 2 and assert that the September 11 terrorists do not reflect true Islamic values. I will be impressed by this “milding of Islam” when I read that these same leaders also denounce the well-documented horrors practised by Muslim leaders in the Sudan; the massacre of at least 20 Christians by Muslims in El-Kosheh, Egypt; the brutal barbarism of the Taliban in Afghanistan; the inhumane and unfair treatment of 17-year-old Bariya Ibrahim, an innocent rape victim in Nigeria; all coerced conversions to Islam; and the execution of Muslims who convert to Christianity.

John H. Redekop is on the faculty of Trinity Western University and is a member of Bakerview MB Church in Abbotsford, B.C.

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Last modified February 11, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
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