In what different ways have Christians viewed Islam?

What follows is a precis of ‘Christian views of Islam’, by Hugh Goddard, in St Andrews Encyclopedia of Christianity.  Online.

1. Initial Christian reactions to the coming of Islam

(a) Islam as a fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham concerning the Ishmaelites

See Gen 21:12f, 17f.

‘The Armenian bishop Sebeos, writing in the period before 661, thus describes Muhammad’s mission in terms of teaching the Arabs to know the God of Abraham, and telling them that God was going to realize in them the promise made to Abraham and his successors.’

(b) Islam as God’s judgment on an erring Christian church

See Jer 4:6f.  Islam came to be seen as a challenge to Christianity, since it viewed itself as the bearer of God’s final revelation to humankind.  Those Christian communities which rejected the christological affirmations of Chalcedon saw Islam as God’s judgment on those communities that did accept those affirmation.

(c) Islam as a Christian heresy

See 1 Jn 2:22; 4:2f.  John of Damascus (died about 750) was raised and educated in a Muslim environment.  Perceiving similarities, as differences, between Christianity and Islam, he concluded that the latter was a distortion of the former.

(d) Islam as ‘the Antichrist’

See Dan 7:23-25.  Byzantine Christians, and some of those in Islamic Spain, came to see Islam as a cultural and military threat.  In the latter part of the 9th century, some in Spain expressed the view that Islam was the precursor of the Antichrist.  Whereas the four beasts of Dan 7 had traditionally been understood as representing the Empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, the fourth beast was now seen as prefiguring Islam.  This negative assessment persisted into the medieval period and beyond.

2. Later medieval views (to around 1500 CE)

In the later medieval period, various forms of relationship developed:-

(a) Debate and exchange

By the time of the caliph al-Ma’mūn (813–833), discussed and debate with representatives of various Christian traditions, including Christianity, was encouraged.  During the following century, the school of philosophy in Baghdad became a focus for the exchange of Muslim and Christian teachings.  Some Orthodox Christians in the Byzantine Empire expressed a more negative evaluation of Islam, describing Muhammad as ‘the chief and false prophet of the Saracens’, and the Qur’an as ‘a lying and pernicious book’.

(b) The Crusades

The idea that Islam was ‘the Antichrist’ (see above) gave impulse to the Crusades:

‘The Crusade was first preached by Pope Urban II in 1095, partly in response to an appeal from the Byzantine Empire for military assistance but also with a view to facilitating pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In response, a number of European princes took up the cross, and popular itinerant preachers such as Peter the Hermit took up the call alongside them, arguing that Jerusalem and the Holy Land needed to be recaptured from the hands of the infidel Muslims in order to pave the way for the second coming of Jesus Christ. This apocalyptic dimension did much to arouse popular enthusiasm for the venture.’

The Second Crusade was preached by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1146.  Best known today for his hymns ‘O sacred head sore wounded’, ‘Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts’, and ‘Jesus, the very thought of thee’, no contradiction was seen between crusading and these hymns’ message of the love of God.

(c) Studying Islam

Even while the Crusades were in progress, some Latin Christians were studying Muslim texts in fields such as philosophy and medicine.  A key figure was Peter the Venerable (c.1092–1156).  His strategy was to understand Islam in order to refute it.  For support, 1 Pet 3:15 was appealed to (‘Always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who calls you to account for the faith that is in you, but do it with gentleness and reverence’), as were texts in the Qur’an, including 29:45: ‘Argue not with the People of the Book [i.e. Jews as well as Christians] except in a way that is better’.

The works of Thomas Aquinas (c.1225–1274) evince a deep engagement with Islamic (as well as Greek and Jewish) philosophers.  Subsequent translation work renedered many Greek and Arabic works into Latin.

(d) Mission to Muslims

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) demonstrated an approach markedly different from that of the crusaders.  Failed attempts to travel to Syria and Morocco were followed by a journey to Egypt.  His convicton was that it was better to make Christians than to destroy Muslims.

Ramon Lull (or Llull; c.1232–1316) devoted his life to three things: writing books explaining the Christian faith, establishing colleges for the training of Christian missionaries, and dying as martyr.  The last aim was achieved during a debate with Muslims in North Africa.

3. Christian thinking about Islam in  from 1500 – World War II

(a) Reformation and Enlightenment

The Reformers produced little new thinking about Islam.  Their primary concern was the reform and purification of the church.  Luther regard papacy, rather than Islam, as representing the Antichrist.

‘Although there is a frequent conflation in Luther’s writings between Muslims and Turks, he was concerned that the Turks should be represented accurately, and that their admirable qualities of being faithful, friendly, and careful to tell the truth should be recognized. Luther therefore found it possible to respect and even to grudgingly admire Turkish culture even while disparaging the Islamic religion. Towards the end of his life, Luther supported the translation and publication of the Qur’an in order to facilitate a better understanding of Islam’

In accepting God as Creator but denying the centrality of Christ, Muslims, in Calvin’s view, were idolatrous.  Zwingli, Bullinger, Bibliander, on the other hand, were somewhat less negative.

1636 saw the establishment of a Chair of Arabic in the University of Oxford.

In 1649 the first complete English translation of the Qur’an was made (although this was from French, rather than Arabic).  In the years following, account were written of Islam which drew from Muslim sources.  These led to a deeper and more sympathic understanding.

Voltaire was, at first, antagonistic towards Islam.  However, in later life he became more tolerant, praising, for example, its tolerance of various religious groups.

Some Enlightenment thinkers maintained that Islam was more rational than Christianity, given the former’s strict monotheism and its rejection of ‘irrational’ doctrines, such as the Trinity.

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) praised Muhammad as a genius, and the Qur’an for its testimony to the unity of God.

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) regarded Muhammad as a ‘hero’ which had made a positive impact on human history.

F. D. Maurice (1805–1872) taught that Islam, along with other religious traditions, emphasised an important aspect of God.  Moreover, he held that:

‘in an apparent revival of a view from the earliest period of Christian thinking about Islam, the emergence of Islam should be seen as a judgment of God on Eastern Christians and the pagans of the Middle East. For him, Islam thus has a place in God’s future.’

The 1500s saw the development, first of Romand Catholic, then of Protestant, missions into the Muslim world.  In 1579 a group of Jesuits undertook a mission to the court of the Moghul Emperor in India.  Jerome Xavier spent the years between 1595 and 1614 at the imperial court producing Christian literature in the language of the court (Persian).

In 1604 and 1621 Carmelite missions were sent to Iran.  These had both political and spiritual aims.  At the time of the second mission, some Protestant Christians were also present.  There ensued, therefore,

‘a three-way discussion which ensued, focused on fasting and good works, the cross and images, free-will and predestination, and authority. On each topic, it was the Protestant Christians who found themselves the odd ones out, with the Roman Catholics and the Shī‘ī scholars generally appearing to hold rather similar opinions.’

Protestant missions were rather slower to get off the ground.  Lyle Vander Werff suggests four reasons for this:

(1) the belief that the Great Commission of Matt 28:19–20 had been fulfilled by the first generation of Christians;

(2) the doctrine of divine election, which made mission redundant;

(3) the idea that the task of mission was the responsibility of civil rulers rather than the church; and

(4) the argument that the time was not ripe because other matters – such as the struggle against Roman Catholicism – were more urgent.

Henry Martyn (1781–1812) was the pioneer missionary to Muslims.  His work was significant in a number of ways:

(1) The quality of his translations of the New Testament into Urdu, Persian and Arabic;

(2) His habit of engaging with ordinary Muslims rather than political leaders;

(3) His practice of not attacking Islam publicly.

Sir William Muir (1819–1905), an official in the Indian Civil Service, gave active support to Christian missions.  He saw Islam as a formidable opponent of Christianity.  It was the duty of the British to rescue people through the light of the gospel.  He published scholarly writings on Islam, based on Arabic, Persian, and Urdu.

Temple Gairdner (1873–1928) worked with the Anglican Church Missionary Society in Egypt.

The Dutch-American Samuel Zwemer (1867–1952) was the founder of the Arabian Mission of the Reformed Church of America.

The two men just mentioned stressed the importance of learning Arabic, and both sought to stir up interest in mission to Muslims among Christians.  Gairdner, however, tended toward a more irenic approach, building on common ground between the two traditions.  Zwemer was more confrontational and less compromising.  The one stressed continuity, while the other emphasised contrast.

4. Christian thinking about Islam after WW II

Three general approaches are apparent.

(a) Inclusivism

The post-Vatican II document  Nostra Aetate (In Our Time, 1965) states:

‘This sacred Council now urges everyone to forget the past, to make sincere efforts at mutual understanding and to work together in protecting and promoting for the good and benefit of all men, social justice, good morals as well as peace and freedom.’

Anglican writer Kenneth Cragg (1913–2012) first published his Call of the Minaret in 1956.

‘The call from the mosque, [Cragg] suggests, is one which Christians should…heed, and although there are long traditions of mutual alienation there are also elements which point to openness and concern – so that Christians should seek to understand, to serve, to retrieve (in an echo of the earlier ideas of Temple Gairdner), to interpret, and to be patient.’

An openness to Islam in Orthodoxy is exemplified in the work of Georges Khodr, the Orthodox Metropolitan of Mount Lebanon.  To summarise what Khodr wrote in 1971:

‘If, as Eastern Christians believe, the Spirit proceeds only from the Father and not the Son, it may be easier to perceive the activity of the Holy Spirit even where the Son is not named. Western Christians, with their view that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, may find it more difficult to recognize the Spirit’s activity if Jesus is not specifically named.’

(b) Exclusivism

Building on the theology of Karl Barth, Hendrik Kraemer (1888–1965) characterised Islam as:

‘unoriginal, superficial, simple, ruthless, stubborn, and possessing something of a superiority complex. Islam, he suggested, has almost no questions and no answers.’

Exclusivism is widely prevalent in evangelicalism.  Dispensationalists, believing that Israel continues to hold a special place in God’s affection and purposes, tends, conversely, to portray Islam quite negatively.  Christians living in lands where they and Muslims are in roughly equal numbers, experience competition for political power and therefore sometimes develop negative judgments of Islam.  Far right groups in Europe often make use of Christian language to stir up resistance to a real or supposed islamification of the continent.

(c) Pluralism

Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916–2000) was one of those who believed that Islam could be one of a number of ways of salvation.

‘In his The Meaning and End of Religion (1962), Smith drew what was to him the crucial distinction between what he called ‘the cumulative tradition’ (Smith 1962: 154–169), the outward manifestations of religion in terms of rituals, beliefs, communities, and institutions, and ‘faith’, the attitude of trust which is the core of all religious experience.’

Kenneth Cracknell suggested that:

‘Christians and Muslims should see each other as fellow pilgrims to the truth that none has yet grasped in its immensity.’