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Faith in the Power of Good
An Arab scholar, Al-Afif al-Akhdar, writes: "There are two
Islams from the period of Mohammed. There is Meccan Islam [referring to
Mohammed's period in Mecca], which is a 'Christian' Islam – that is, under
Christian influence – and is essentially peace-seeking. The use of violence,
even for self-defense, was prohibited. In this Islam, jihad was prohibited. This
Islam was the basis for the mystical Sufi movement."
Most Christians would be shocked by the phrase "Christian Islam" and also by the
idea that the earliest form of Islam was nonviolent, to use a modern term. These
same Christians are also likely to ignore the passages in the New Testament that
present Jesus as an advocate of nonviolence.
Akhdar goes on to say: "When Mohammed was forced to move from Mecca to Medina, a
second Islam – jihadist Islam – was born. And it is this Islam that the
contemporary terrorists have adopted. To justify the passage from the
'conciliatory' peace of Mecca to the militant peace of Medina, Mohammed told the
Muslims that jihad is permissible only for self-defense [The Pilgrimage, Surah
22:39]: 'To those against whom war is made, permission is given [to fight],
because they are wronged.' Mohammed was wronged – he was expelled from Mecca,
and the purpose of the defensive jihad is to enable his return." (Ehud Ein-Gil,
"The Roots of Jihad," Haaretz, 18 March 2006)
Christians asserted the right of self-defense, after the Roman Emperor
Constantine was converted and began to use the church to promote support for
imperial rule. This rationalization for violence in the name of all that is holy
was soon used by church leaders to suppress heretics and later was employed to
justify killing Jews and crusading against Muslims.
Surely, our desire to characterize the Christian tradition as more peaceful than
the Islamic tradition is largely self-serving. We know too little of Islamic
history, and we have forgotten too much of Christian history, to make any such
comparison. In fact, history reveals that Muslims and Christians have been both
peacemakers and warmongers.
Only a minority of Christians and a minority of Muslims believe that the
nonviolent imperative initially embraced by the founder of each community of
faith is the true Christianity or the true Islam.
Christian and Muslim communities have generally justified the use of violence in
self-defense, and often each community has promoted war as a means of extending
its influence. Moreover, Christians and Muslims continue aggressively to spread
their civilizations throughout the world, and there is no sign that the
influence of either tradition will soon decrease. It is too soon to declare what
the true Christianity or the true Islam is. Only time will tell.
Therefore, it would be wise to refrain from characterizing either religious
tradition in terms of its past or even its present.
Instead, our challenge is to construct a future that draws on the teachings
within both traditions that support peacemaking and faith in the power of good.
It is fair enough to expect Muslim leaders to do this, if Christian leaders are
equally engaged in facing this challenge within their own religious communities
and secular societies.
We should support efforts by our government to secure religious freedom and
other human rights for Muslims in countries now ruled by wealthy families and
military leaders, so long as such assistance is offered without the threat of
violence. Encouraging elections, fair trade, and educational and cultural
exchanges can be pursued peacefully in a spirit of mutual benefit and
collaboration. Grants and loans to enable countries to invest in the development
of democratic institutions make sense, as does support for training police,
jurists and other government officials in nonviolent conflict resolution
according to the rule of law.
Christians as well as Muslims must find ways to reaffirm the teachings within
their traditions that support peacemaking and faith in the power of good, rather
than war and violent jihad.
To pursue this imperative in the Muslim world Akhdar recommends "a reform of the
Islamic discourse, of religious education, the religious media, the sermons in
the mosques, and so forth. The plan is to remove from the textbooks all the
violent and jihadist verses and leave them only in the source, in the holy
writings." To Christian ears this sounds very unlikely. Yet, he notes that
Tunisia has done this since 1999, and in October 2005: "Libya, too, canceled the
[public] teaching of jihadist Islam and of the verses that justify violence."
What might a similar approach to the Bible mean for Christians? That we should
stop reading, as the word of God, texts in the Old Testament in which God orders
the Israelites to exterminate their enemies. (See Deuteronomy 20:17, for
example.) A peacemaking approach must also mean not reading on Good Friday the
passage from the passion story that has the crowd of Jews say, in reference to
the coming crucifixion of Jesus: "His blood be on us and on our children!"
This horrific condemnation of Jews, which surely reflects a first century
conflict among Jewish Christians, is only in Matthew 27:25. So, reading the
Passion account is an easy way to omit this from Christian worship. Tragically,
throughout history Christians have used this verse to rationalize violence
against Jews. We must now repudiate that understanding of scripture and repent
by recommitting ourselves to the gospel of nonviolence that Jesus preaches.
In addition, Christians should not teach that the battle depicted in the Book of
Revelation at the end of time is a prophecy of an actual war to be fought by
Christians versus Muslims (and other non-Christians). The image of this battle
is indelibly a part of Christian scripture, but the interpretation that the end
of Revelation is about an actual war to be fought is a reading that the church
has resisted for much of its history. The witness of Jesus and his followers in
the rest of the New Testament call us to interpret this violent imagery
figuratively, as representing a spiritual battle rather than an actual war.
Christians and Muslims should also urge their leaders not to identify with Satan
those who oppose their understanding of the Bible or the Koran. Both scriptures
identify Satan with the force of evil in the world, but leave the notion of
Satan shrouded in mystery. Yet, recently some Christians have labeled Saddam
Hussein or Osama Bin Laden as Satan, and some Muslims have identified President
Bush or America with Satan. We should reject all such invidious
characterizations.
Instead, we should affirm that faith in the power of good is at the heart of
each of these traditions. To encourage this faith Muslims have, since the 9th
century, taught that Jesus said: "Charity does not mean doing good to him who
does good to you, for this is to return good for good. Charity means that you
should do good to him who does you harm." (Tarif Khalidi, editor and translator,
"The Muslim Jesus: Savings and Stories in Islamic Literature," Harvard 2001) As
Christians, we may act in solidarity with this Muslim teaching by taking to
heart the words of Paul: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with
good." (Romans 12:21)
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