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Abraham and His [Mahmoud M. Ayoub] 19

Abrah am And His Ch ild ren:

A Muslim Perspective

Mahmoud M. Ayoub*

Abstrak:Ibrahim (Abraham) menempati posisi penting dalam tiga

agama besar samawi yaitu Y ahudi, Kristen dan Islam. Walaupun

ketiganya memiliki versi mereka masing-masing tentang Ibrahim.Bangsa YA hudi yang menganggap diri mereka sebagai manusia

pilihan (the chosen people) menempatkan Ibrahim sebagai bapak dan

sumber keberkatan mereka (father and source of blessing). Kaum

Nasrani memposisikannya sebagai perjanjian iman dengan Tuhan

yang kemudian menjelma menjadi perjanjian baru dalam Kristus.

Orang Muslim memposisikannya sebagai bapak dan pembimbing

kepada menyembah Satu Tuhan (tauhid). Dalam diri Ibrahim ketiga

penganut agama meyakininya sebagai bapak yang baik dalam

pengertian fisik maupun dalam pengertian spiritual. Ibrahim diyakini

sebagai bapak bangsa Arab dan Y ahudi, tapi juga sebagai bapak

spiritual bagi Muslim dan Nasrani. Dalam Ibrahim ketiga penganut

agama menemukan dasar-dasar warisan keagamaan bersama, tetapi

dari sini juga menjadi akar konflik-konflik keagamaan dan politik di

antara ketiganya. Untuk menjembatani konflik perlu adanya dialog

keagamaan dan doktrin (dialogue of belief and doctrine), atau

dialog keimanan (d ialogue of faith) diantara ketiganya.

Kata-kata k unci: millah, d in, covenant, p lu ralism, d ialogue

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DINIKA Vol. 3 No. 1 January 2004 : 19 - 3420

millata abikum Ibrahim hua al-ladhi sammakum al-muslimin min

qabl.

It is the milla of you r father Abraham. He it was who called you

Muslims aforetime.1

This brief and somewhat enigmatic Quranic phrase defineswell the Islamic view of Abraham. He is not simply the father of

Muslims, bu t also the found er of Islam. It was to his commu nal

religion (millah) that Muhamm ad is believed to have been sent by God

to call the people of Makkah, all the Arabs, and all of humankind.

Abraham is therefore, for Mu slims, the father of all the p eop le of faith

and archetypal found er of true religion.

The Qu ran uses two words for religion. The first is d in

which means religion, broadly speaking, or a religious system by

which an individual or society lives. It is a moral and spiritual set ofvalues according to which individual men and women will be judged

on the Day of Judgment called in the Quran yaum al-din the day of

din.2

The other term is millah.Millah is a difficult term to translate. It

signifies religion, not in the abstract sense, but the religion of a

community.3 The Quran says that the Jews and the Christians will not

be pleased with Muhammad unless he enters into their millah, that is

adopt their religio-communal identity.4 In other Islamic languages, as for

example Persian, Turkish and Urdu, the term m illah took on the

extended meaning of nation, with or without reference to religion.

Taken all these significations together, it may be conclud ed that millah

means the religious polity of a distinct people or nation. Therefore,

millah is best thought of as a community with a distinct religious

identity.

I have d welt at some length on the term millah because it defines

both Islam and Muslims in relationship to Abraham, and consequently

to the faith-communities associated with him. Like all other prophets,Abraham for Muslims is not ju st a pious individual, bu t a prototype of

the perfect hum an being, as created by God before he/ she becomes

defined by her-his environment. This u ncorrup ted state of hum anity in

which all human beings are originally made, is called in the Quran

fitrah (the p ure creation) of God, which cannot be a ltered.5

Abraham is a p rophet, and more than a p rophet; he is the father

of all true prophets and universal exemplar of pure faith in the One

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God. Since, moreover, prophetic existence manifests Gods original

pu re creation, it is the highest or best form of hu man existence. It

therefore is the ultimate goal of the human quest for perfection. As a

prophet who su p remely embod ies this goal, Abraham has been a role

mod el for Muslims to emu late. Prophets in Islam rep resent one of the

two foci of history. History in fact is the history of divine authorityrepresented by the prophets and temporal authority represented by

kings. The first major Mu slim historian, Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari

[d. 1023?], entitled his world history The History of Prophets and

Kings.

Tabaris History begins not with the rise and fall of empires, but

with the lives of the patriarchs of ancient Israel, who were the first

heroes of this prophetic history.6 Human history is in reality the

instrument of Gods actions in the affairs of human societies which

ought to be regu lated by the law of God, as promu lgated and execu tedby His prophets, and in the temporal history of particular nations,

which is d irected by kings.

In the end, however, both authorities are mandated by God.

Gods wisdom and inscrutable will are manifested in the sad cycles of

history - of the successive rise and fall of nations and emp ires - of

which Surah 3 of the Quran reminds us: Say, O God, Master of all

dominion, Y ou give dominion to whomever Y ou will, and Y ou cease dominion

from whomever Y ou will, Y ou exalt whomever you will and Y ou abase

whomever Y ou will and These are the days which We interchange among

human beings.7

Muslims have generally been all too aware of the transiency of

human authority, however formidable it may be. They have therefore

been reticent to acknowledge any authority as representing a real and

ever lasting power. They have likewise eschewed any absolute claim

to any land to be anyones eternal homeland, country or possession.

The earth belongs to God alone, which He had decreed that it be the

inheritance of His righteous servants. In a rare instance, where theQu ran d irectly quotes the Hebrew Scriptu res, it says: And We have

inscribed in the Psalms after the remembrance [of God], The earth

shall su rely be inherited by m y faithfu l servants. 8

On the stage of world history, God asserts His absolute

dominion through the activities of His prophets, whose mission is to

warn errant nations of Gods imp ending punishment and call on them

to mend their ways. When such nations stubbornly refuse to heed the

warnings of their prophets, Gods judgment falls upon them and

they are destroyed. The great Muslim social historian and philoso-

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pher of history Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun [d. 1406] bases his well-

known theory of history on this Qu ranic world view. For Ibn Khaldu n,

the nation is an organic body, much like the hum an individu al. It is

born, matures, declines and d ies, either through a natural catastrophe

in punishment for its sins, or through conquest by another nation

which succeeds it. Eventually, however, the conquering nation willitself su ffer the same fate.9

Muslims, Christians and Jews have shared this prophetic

history and fought over who truly possesses it, and particularly its

great hero Abraham. Let us briefly look at what we, as children of

Abraham, have shared and at what we have been fighting over. Then

let us ponder the fundamental question: who are the children of

Abraham. This question is not an academic curiosity but a defining

issue of our historical, theological and, since the rise of modern

Zionism and Arab nationalism, political relations. It has been both thecause of conflict and basis of interfaith dialogue among the followers

of the three Abrahamic faith-traditions.

In Abraham we all share a father in both the physical and

metaphysical or spiritual senses. Abraham is believed to be the

physical father of Arabs and Jews and by extension; he is the moral

and spiritual father of all Christians and Muslims as well. In the

fatherhood of Abraham we have the foundations of our common

religious heritage, but also in this common paternity lay the roots of

ou r historical religious and political conflicts. This is because each of

our three faith-communities wants our venerable patriarch for itself

alone. As the Q uranic verse with which I began these reflections

clearly asserts, it was not Muhammad but Abraham who first called

the Muslims mu slims.

The exclusive claim of the Jews to Abraham is implicitly

asserted in denying Abrahams first-born Ishmael his primogeniture

rights. The name Ishmael (yishma el) means God hears, which makes

Ishmael too a child of a d ivine p romise, an answer to the prayer of hisfather Abraham. Furthermore, although the book of Genesis showers

blessings on Ishmael and his descend ents, still Ishmael remains the son

of the slave woman in contra distinction with Isaac who is

the son of her mistress, and legitimate wife of her master

Abraham. Hence, from the point of view of Jewish tradition, the

heritage, or legacy, of Abraham belongs not to all his children, but only

to the p rogeny of Isaac, the true son of the prom ise. Yet, from the point

of view of general Semitic culture, it is patrilineal rather than

matrilineal descent that defines a person. This is true not withstand-

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ding the fact that now legally a Jew is a person whose mother is

Jewish.

Biblical culture as well as later Jewish tradition lay far greater

emphasis on paternity than maternity, so that a man is known as so

and so, son of his father so and so. This has been true also of Muslim

tradition and of most trad itional Eastern Christian cu ltures. Yet, whenthe Muslims came in contact with Europ ean Jews and Christians, they

were contemp tuously called sons of Hagar. This negative ep ithet has

survived to our ow n time in the book, Hagarism, written, perhaps half

in jest, by a respectable group of European scholars.10 Of course, the

aim of this derisive identification was not to emphasize the Abrahamic

fatherhood of the Muslims but their maternal inferiority as the

descendants of a black Egyptian handmaid .

The Quran and subsequent Islamic tradition, however, has

upheld the equal legitimacy of the two sons of Abraham and assignedto each a special role in the covenantal history of humankind.

Significantly, the Quran does not name Abrahams sacrificial son,

because it regards both children of Abraham as sons of the promise.

Isaac had the privilege of being the progenitor of all the prophets of

ancient Israel, including Jesus and his mother Mary, as well as

Zechariah and his son John the Baptist. Ishmael, on the other hand,

was favored with being, along with his father Abraham, the builder of

the Kabah of Makkah, the first house for humankind as a p lace of

worship of the One God.11 He was as well the father of the Arabian

prophets, who came after Abraham, includ ing Muhammad .

The significance of all that we share and fight over of this sacred

prophetic history lies in Gods covenant with Abraham. When God

chose Abraham for His covenant, Abraham was a fugitive, running

from one p lace to another withou t homeland or family. This man who

belonged to no land or nation was chosen by God to be a source of

blessing for all land s and nations.

Although God promised Abraham to make his descendants asinnumerable as the stars of heaven,12 each of his three families Jews,

Christians and Muslims belied the universality of this d ivine promise

by limiting it to them alone to the exclusion of any other tribe or

nation. The Christian tradition exclusively appropriated Abraham by

exclusively appropriating his covenant with God, which they believe

to have been fu lfilled in Christ. Christians have therefore undermined

the significance of Abrahams spiritual fatherhood of both Muslims

and Jews.

The Abrahamic covenant, according to the book of Genesis,13

was between a frightened and overwhelmed man and an all-powerfu l

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Deity. Abraham, we are told , fell into such a deep sleep , that he was

taken for dead . Then God sealed His covenant with this nearly dead

and helpless man by manifesting His own majesty and might in the

tongue of fire that consumed the sacrificial animals which signified

this covenant.

In form, the Abrahamic covenant was both new and old . It wasnew in that it was initiated by the Maker of the heavens and earth. It

was old in that it followed the well-known covenantal rituals of

ancient Mesopotamian peoples with their local deities. However,

regardless of its form, this ancient covenant continues to shape the

modern history of Jews, Christians and Mu slims.

The Quran, which came after both the Hebrew Bible and

Christian New Testament, often recasts Biblical events and

personalities to fit its own world view. Thus it transformed Abraham,

for instance, from the timid and precau tious patriarch of Genesis into arobust and dynamic man, a daring idol breaker. The Abraham of the

Quran was not only a determined and strong man; he was also a

mischievous you th. When he broke the idols of his people, he spared

the chief one and, according to Midrashic and later Islamic tradition,

hanged the axe that he used to break them arou nd the chief idols neck.

When the peop le discovered their smashed god s, they suspected a

you th called Abraham. He sarcastically answered, ask them,

perhaps they wou ld speak. They had to humbly adm it that idols

cannot speak, which allowed Abraham to retort, Do you then

worship instead of God that which can d o you neither good nor harm,

fie on you and on what you worship instead of God; do you not

understand? 14

Like all the great people of history, the Quranic Abraham is

both a paradigm and a p aradox. He is at once an Ernest, yet uncertain

seeker for God in a shining star, the lum inous m oon and blazing sun,

and a true man of faith in the One God, the creator of the heavens and

earth. 15The Quran uses the sacrificial covenant ritual of Genesis to

demonstrate Gods power to create life and death and Abrahams

questioning faith. Abraham prayed , my Lord, show me how you

revive the dead . God answered , What! do you not have faith? Yes,

he answered, but in order that my heart may be at peace.16 God then

ordered Abraham to cut up four birds and scatter their dismembered

carcasses on four d ifferent hills, then call them to him, and they wou ld

hasten to him alive. In this way the Quran links the historical

covenant with Abraham to the p rimordial covenant between hu manity

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and God, which affirms God s absolu te sovereignty over His creation.

In accordance with this primordial covenant, all the children of

Adam acknowledged Gods absolute Lordship in their affirmative

answer to the question, Am I not your Lord ? God then warned them

not to say on the d ay of Resurrection we were heed less of thispledge He then promised to guide humanity out of its heedlessness

into living faith in Him alone. God w ou ld affect this guidance throu gh

a long series of prophets, beginning with Adam and ending with

Muhammad.17

Subsequent to this primord ial divine covenant with Adam and

his progeny, God mad e a covenant with every p rophet to acknowledge

the prophet that came before him and to announce the coming of the

one to succeed him.18 Thus Abraham is succeeded by his sons Ishmael

and Isaac and they are succeeded by Jacob and his twelve sons, thepatriarchs (al-asbat), whom the Quran regards as prophets. The

patriarchs are followed by Moses and his brother Aaron, and these by

David and his son Solomon. Finally, Jesus annou nced the Messenger to

come after him, whose name is Ahmad , that is Muhammad .19

Muslim traditionists have interpreted the term Ahmad to refer to the

holy spirit.20 All these prophets are, according to the Quran, of one

progeny, and all were favored by God.21

Let us now retu rn to the question, who are the children of

Abraham? Was it only Isaac, Isaac and Ishmael, or all the children

that Abraham had with Hagar, Sarah and a third wife who remained

generally anonymous? If Abrahams anonymous children were to be

taken to represent all the nations that were to be blessed by him,22 then

Abraham could be regarded as the spiritual father of all of humankind .

We all share Abrahams faith, a faith that made him unique

among all the peop le of faith. The New Testament declares, Abraham

had true faith in God and that was accounted for him as

righteousness. 23 The Quran insists that the Prophet Muhammadcame not to bring a new religion, but to turn his fellow Arab

descendants of Ishmael from the worship of idols back to the faith of

their father Abraham.

Abraham is the initiator of the hajj pilgrimage, which is one of

the five pillars of Islam. The Hajj is a unique social and spiritual

moment in the life of every Muslim who is able to make the journey.

The hajj experience links the present moment of the lives of the

p ilgrims to p rophetic sacred history. This is because the rites of the hajj

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are reenactments of the experiences of Abraham and his family.

As the p ilgrims circumam bu late the Kabah, and stop to pray at

Abrahams station (maqam), they walk in the footsteps of the intimate

friend (khalil) of God. After they run between the two hills of al-Safa

and al-Marwa in emulation of Hagars frantic running up and downthese two hills in search of water for her dying son, they too are

refreshed by the same water of the sacred well of Zamzam, which

revived Ishmael. When they observe the rite of stoning (rajm) of Satan

as Abraham did when Satan came to tempt him away from obeying

God, who had commanded Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice to

Him, they learn from the first absolu te submitter to the will of his Lord

what true islam is.

The hajj pilgrimage concludes with an animal sacrifice

commemorating Abrahams unquestioning willingness to offer hisbeloved son as a sacrifice and Gods ransoming the son with a

tremendous victim. 24 We can clearly see in all this that Abraham is

far more than simp ly a common ancestor we all share.

Like all the prophets before and after him, Abraham had to

have a small following to lend him support during his life and

disseminate his message after his death. Abrahams followers were

the mem bers of his family that is his children and his nephew Lot, who

too was a prophet. A prophet must as well have identifiable enemies.

Abrahams enemy was Nimrod, the arrogant and wicked king who

thought himself to be God.25

After a heated debate in which Abraham utterly confounded

Nimrods false claim to divinity, Nimrod threw Abraham into a

blazing fire but God miraculou sly tu rned the fire into coolness and

peace for Abraham. 26 God punished N imrod by sending against him

a vast army of flies, one of which entered into his skull through his

nostril and slowly gnawed at his brain until he died. The aim of this

fantastic tale is to demonstrate that God can use one of His weakestcreatures to abase the high and mighty and thus affirm His absolute

power in His creation.

Many of the events and anecdotes that make up the story of

both the Biblical and Quranic Abraham are similar, but substantially

d ifferent in intent and significant d etails. Yet Abraham is as u niqu ely a

prophet of Islam, as he is u niqu ely the father of the Jews. The point at

issue here is, can Abraham p lay both roles simu ltaneously and w ithout

conflict? I believe he can, bu t his child ren are so far unwilling to accep t

each others claims to their common inheritance.

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Both the tensions and promise which have characterized these

conflicting claims have primarily arisen from Jewish, Christian and

Muslim differences over the priority and status of Abrahams two

children Ishmael and Isaac. According to the Hebrew Bible, Ishmael

was expelled with his mother at the insistence of Sarah, his step-

mother who became jealous of Hagar, the handmaid and her son. TheQuran regards Ishmael as a prophet with a mission away from his

fathers hou se. Thus it was not Sarahs jealousy bu t God who ordered

Abraham to leave Ishmael and his mother in the p recincts of the sacred

house of Makkah.

There, Abraham p rayed : My Lord, I have brought some of my

family to dwell in an uncultivable valley near your sacred house.

Make, therefore, the hearts of many peoples incline toward them and

provide them with diverse fruits; and send them a messenger from

among themselves to teach them the book and wisdom. 27 Thus theProphet Muhammad is said to have asserted his claim to this sacred

inheritance in the word s, I am the answer to the p rayer of my father

Abraham. 28

Accord ing to the Qu ran and Islamic trad ition, Abraham d id not

aband on Ishmael. Rather, he visited him frequ ently, and together they

were entrusted by God to build His house and purify it for those who

were to use it as a house of prayer.29 In contrast, Ishmael ap pears in the

Bible with his family, after his expulsion, only once, when their father

died and both Ishmael and Isaac came together to wash and bury

him.30

The Quran upholds the logic of its worldview regarding the

universality of faith and the special status of the children of Israel as

heirs to the holy land which God promised to their father Abraham.

God showed Abraham all the kingdoms of the earth, as the inheritance

of all his progeny and ordered the children of his grandson Israel to

enter the holy land which He had prescribed for them.31 Abraham is

a universal personality and his inheritance is likewise a universalinheritance. Therefore, Abrahams true heirs are those who live his life

of righteousness, his obedience and his total submission to the will of

God.

As a man of pure faith , faith that is not bound by

institutionalized religion, or even scriptures, Abraham transcends

religion. The Quran declares, Abraham was neither a Jew nor a

Christian, bu t a man of pure faith, a true Mu slim. He was a true

mu slim before the Torah and Gospel were revealed. 32

Let me say a w ord about the term islam as used in the Quran to

refer to Abrahams faith. He is often called a hanif that means one

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who tu rned aw ay from the worship of idols to the worship of the one

God. The hanifwas in fact a true muslim, a man or woman of faith.

The term was used in its plural form (Hunafa) to refer to those

Makkans, includ ing Muhammad before his call to p rophethood , who

rejected the idol-worship of their peop le and lived as mu slims before

Islam. The word islam and its derivatives is used in this broad sense tocharacterize all those who professed faith in the One God before the

establishment of Islam as an institu tionalized religion.

The Quran draws a clear distinction between legal Islam, or

outward Islamic identity and true submission to God. On this deeper

level, Islam becomes synonymous with inner faith (iman) in God. This

inner living faith becomes synonymous with a life of righteousness

(ihsan), wherein a person of faith, worship s God as though she-he sees

Him and if they do not see Him He sees them. 33

It is clear from what has been said so far that Abraham occup iesa central place in the faith and history of Jews, Christians and Muslims.

We each have our own Abraham. The Jews have Abraham as their

father and source of blessing. For Christians, Abraham is the faithful

covenanter with God to whose covenant the church became heir

through the new covenant in Christ. The Muslims have Abraham

also as their father and gu ide to the worship of the One God. Thus we

each are favored with our own version of Abraham. But instead of

accep ting him as an archetypal hu man being, who at one and the same

time can enter the history of our faiths and transcend them, each of his

three families sought to monopolize him while insisting on his

universal significance.

Now, given is rich Abrahamic heritage in which we all share,

the question is, can Abraham serve as the focus of interfaith dialogue

among all his children? The dialogue I have in mind is one whose

ultimate aim is to share not only Abrahams life and personality, but

also Abrahams faith. I am convinced that he can, but we must first

depoliticize Abraham and set him free from the shackles of ourmod ern nationalistic and even religious id eas and ideologies. In order

for u s to achieve these goals, we mu st strive to live the life of Abraham,

a life of obed ience, and unqu estioning faith.

If we can all claim Abraham as our father, and live his life, a

creative and meaningful dialogue would be possible. The life that

shou ld be ou r goal is a life of humble faith that seeks to share throu gh

dialogue the total Abraham: the Abraham of the House of Jacob, the

Abraham of the Church, and the Abraham of the Quran and Islamic

tradition. If Abraham is truly the father of all of us, then all these

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aspects of his personality and faith should be ou r common heritage.

Abrahams multi-faceted personality demands a multi-faceted

approach to dialogue. An important type of dialogue which the

prophetic heritage of Abraham calls for is the dialogu e of life. It is a

living dialogue among members of churches, synagogues andmosques, as they work together for the causes of social justice and

world p eace.

The aim of this type of dialogue is to seek fairness, to dare to

speak collectively against war and senseless killing on our city streets

and in our public schools. It is to strive for a better world for us and

our children. These are values which we all cherish and strive to live

by. They are an essential part of our Abrahamic heritage and the

found ations of what I am calling the dialogue of life. This is the most

widespread and most concrete form of dialogue. Many of usunfortunately make of this dialogue of life a kind of social etiquette.

Consequently, we often reduce it from a d ialogue of action to a formal

exchange of polite cou rtesies.

I wish in no way to belittle the importance of courteous

relations among peop le of d ifferent faith-traditions. On the level of the

day-to-day interrelations courtesy ought to be a polite expression of

und erstand ing and compassion. It is therefore a necessary p re-

condition for any kind of deeper d ialogue.

For centuries our greed for power and domination made even

comm on cou rtesy a d ifficu lt goal to attain. This is because Jews,

Christians and Muslims did not live as equal citizens of a multi-

religious nation state, but su bjects of a Christian or Mu slim empire. As

we all now live as citizens of independ ent nation states, its neither the

church nor the Muslim ummah which defines our rights and d u ties bu t

the secular state in which we live. With the end of Western colonialism

of the Muslim world du ring the first half of the last centu ry, almost all

Muslim states have adopted the parliamentary democratic Europeanstate system. By so doing, they have op ted for a secu lar state mod el, a

state inhabited by people of diverse religious traditions, sects and

denominations. At least officially these states are obligated to grant all

their citizens the same p rivileges, rights and responsibilities. Therefore,

I believe that the modern nation state, be it Jewish, Christian or

Muslim, need not clash with, or threaten, the integrity and universal

character of the People Israel, the Christian Church or the Muslim

Ummah. On the contrary, the modern concept of citizenship provides

the best framework for peacefu l coexistence and d ialogue on whatever

level it may hap pen.

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A second type of dialogue is what I would like to call the

dialogue of belief and doctrine. It is the dialogue of academics,

theologians and intellectuals. Even if this type of d ialogue may become

an abstract endeavor, it is necessary in that it allows us to study

together as scholars our common heritage. This is best achieved by

objectively examining our particular literatures and traditions whichhave so often touched and enriched one another.

Let me briefly illustrate my point. Abraham Geiger, the 19th

century Jewish reformer raised an important question in a book

entitled, what did Muhammad take from Judaism. 34 Geigers

question was a rhetorical one, because he himself assum ed, as did all

Western scholars of Islam since the 18th centu ry and until recently, that

Islamic disciplines, such as law, Quran exegesis and classical

historiography, came actually from Jewish halakhic and Midrashic

sources. No one denies that Islam was influenced by Judaism andChristianity. Jewish influences are specially obvious in Islamic

jurisp ru dence and Eastern monastic Christian influ ences are clearly

d iscernable in classical Sufi sp irituality. But now we believe that much

of the Midrashic literature which Jews and Muslims share, appeared

after Islam. It was therefore the result of a creative interaction between

the two traditions, rather than one community simply borrowing from

the other. Likewise, after significant initial Christian influences on

Islamic spirituality, both Catholic and Orthodox mystical traditions

were influenced by Sufi ideas and p ractices.

A third type of dialogue which we ought to cultivate is the

dialogue of faith. The dialogue of faith that I am calling for is one

whose ultimate aim is to create a fellowship of faith among the

children of Abraham. Through this dialogue of faith, your faith as a

Christian or Jew wou ld deepen my faith as a Muslim and my faith as a

Muslim wou ld nu rture your faith as a Jew or Christian. This requ ires

that we engage in dialogue on the basis of how each of our traditions

defines itself, and not on ou r view of what the trad ition of the other is,or it ought to be. This implies that we must refrain from judging the

truth or falsity of the scripture of the other by the criteria of our own

scriptu re and theology.

Meaningful d ialogue is not only p ossible, it is in fact a growing

phenomenon in our world. Unfortunately, it has not yet gone far

enough to make a real difference in our communal, national and

international relations. We are still, in my view, bound by our ancient

and medieval norms and thus unable to engage in an authentic

d ialogue of faith and action between group s of equal partners.

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One of the fundamental obstacles in the way of achieving

constructive dialogue is the Jewish, Christian and Muslim respective

world views. The Jews are generally not interested in converting others

to their faith. Muslims and Christians, in contrast, are still fighting

over the salvation of sou ls through mission and dawah activities.

Let me again illustrate my point. The Jewish community seesitself as Gods chosen people. Hence, their Biblical heritage is

definitive, not only for them but for the universe. therefore they are

fund amentally not concerned w ith the destiny of the gentiles, that is all

other communities and nations. However, this exclusive attitude has,

at least from the viewp oint of Rabbinic Judaism, been counterbalanced

with a more p ositive view of the righteous peop le of other nations and

their religions. Thus Moses Maimonides, the great Jewish Rabbi and

Arab philosopher says Islam and Christianity are willed by God

because through them God delivered the Torah to the nations.There is no dou bt that the Second Vatican Council ushered in a

new era in Muslim-Christian dialogue. Furthermore, the work of the

World Council of Churches has greatly broadened the horizons of

international Christian-Muslim relations. Christians are now willing to

accept Muslims as genuinely pious people of faith who, like them,

believe in the One God. But as the Vatican II important document

Nostra A etate points ou t, Muslims d o not accep t Jesus as God. This will

forever remain a dividing point, but it should not be an

insurmountable problem. While Christians have not been able to

accept Islam as an authentic religious tradition, they have come to

accep t Muslims as genuinely religious p eop le. This is because to accep t

Islam as a genuine faith, would be to admit that Christianity is

essentially incomp lete and that Christs salvific mission is neither final

nor complete.

On the other side, Muslims are willing to accept Christianity

essentially as a true and genuine faith, but they do not accept

Christians as true rep resentatives of their own faith-tradition. TheChristianity which Muslims accept is not the Christianity of the

Christian Church, bu t the Christianity of the Qu ran and early Muslim

tradition. Quranic Christianity is interesting and shou ld be stud ied on

its own, bu t it cannot serve as the basis of Christian-Muslim d ialogue.

One final obstacle in the way of constructive andusefu l d ialogue is

our seemingly irreconcilable views of the nature and u ltimate p u rpose

of revelation. For Jews and Muslims, the revealed word of God

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is a book, the Torah and the Quran. But the Jews reject the Quran as

revelation, includ ing the Qu ranic view of Abraham. On the other

hand, while Muslims recognize both the Torah and Gospel as Divine

revelations, they generally believe that both scriptures have been

corrup ted, and therefore have no au thority.

For Christianity the Divine word became not book, bu t the man,Jesus Christ. For Christians therefore, the Torah is authentic, but only

as the Old Testament , or covenant that was fu lfilled in Christ.

Hence the Torah of the Jews was abrogated by the Old and New

Testaments. As for the Quran, it cannot be a Divine revelation,

because revelation ceased with Christ.

In spite of our differences, we all wish to listen to the divine

word, as it speaks to us through our Scriptures. But the divine word

seems to sp eak in d ifferent and mu tually exclusive languages to each

of our faith-commu nities. But if, as we all believe, God created u s all,then He mu st love us all and wish to guid e u s to Him. If this is true,

then I see no problem with Christians and Jews accepting Muhammad

as a prophet and the Quran as a divine revelation. Muslims should

also accep t the au thenticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptu res.

In my view the Quran preaches a message of religious

pluralism. I am therefore convinced that the Prophet Muhammad

wanted no more from Christians and Jews but to accept the

authenticity of the Quran as a divine revelation and to recognize him

as a messenger sent by God. The Quran calls on all of us: Jews,

Christians and Muslims to accept the authenticity of each others

scriptu res and faith. When we d o that, we can meaningfu lly enter into

a true dialogue of faith. Then we can listen to the voice of God

speaking to u s through our d ifferent trad itions.

This can be done only when we engage in dialogue as equal

human beings, concerned with the dignity of all the children of Adam .

The Qu ran declares, We [God] have indeed honored the children of

Adam and carried them over land and sea, provided them with goodand wholesome things, and preferred them over many of our

creatures. 35 This divine favor is expressed in Christianity in the

humanity of Christ. The book of Genesis refers to this human dignity

in the assertion that God created Adam and Eve in His image. I

therefore believe that hu mankind is both d ivine and hu man. There is

much that we can learn from each others Scriptures and faiths when

we learn to accep t each other as we are and to app reciate the traditions

that God gave us.

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Endnotes :

* Mahmoud M. Ayoub is a Professor of Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion at

Temple University, USA and Visiting Professor at Graduate Program Center for Religion

and Cross Cultural Studies (CRCS) Gadjah Mada University.1

The Holy Qur an (fn 1 Q. 22:78.)2

The Holy Qur an 1:4 and 82:17-18)3For the lexical meanings and derivations of the term millah, see E. Lane, English-Arabic

Lexicon, s.v. millah.).4

The Holy Qur an 2:1205


See the impressive English translation of this work biblio. Ref., especially vols 1 and 2),

which deal with ancient Biblical history7

The Holy Qur an 3:26 and 140; for different interpretations of these verses, see M.

Ayoub the Qur an and its Interpreters, II.8

The Holy Qur an 21:105; and Psalm9

See the Prolegomena to his History of the Arabs and Berbers, trans. F Rosenthal, 3 vols.,

vol. 1, etc.10P. Crone and M. Cook,Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World(Cambridge:

Camridge University Press, 1997)11

The Holy Qur an 3:96 and 2:127).12

Genesis13

Genesis14

The Holy Qur an 21:60-6715

The Holy Qur an 6:77-9). (He is a questioning doubter, and also an obedient submitter

(Muslim) to God.16

The Holy Qur an 2:260; and M. Ayoub the Qur an and its interpreters I. p. ref for

different interpretations of this verse.)17

The Holy Qur an 7:172, 2:39 and 4:16518 The Holy Qur an 3:81; and M. Ayoub the Qur an and its Interpreters II.19

19 The Holy Qur an 61:6.20

See Alfred Guillaume,Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaqs Sirat Rasul

Allah (Lahore: Pakistan Branch Oxford University Press, 1970)21

The Holy Qur an 3:33; see M. Ayoub, the Qur an and its Interpreters, II for the

exegesis of this verse.22

Genesis23

Rom. 4:3.24


The Qur an neither mention Nimrod by name, nor identifies him as king, but later

tradition wrongly identifies him with the Nimrod of Genesis, who is described as --- for

the Lord. See gen. ref and Tabari, opcit, vol and page26

The Holy Qur an 2:258 and 21:69. See also Tabari, ibid. vol. p. ref for a dramatic

account of this miracle.27


Ahmad b. Hanbal,Musnad Ibn Hanbal, k. al-shamiyyin, H. 1652529


Genesis. 25:31

The Holy Qur an 5:21 and 6:7532

The Holy Qur an 3:67 and 3:65

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33Sahih Muslim, Kitab Al-Iman (Beirut: Dar`al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, 1992) Hadith number

1, p. 3734

The original German title was wass hat Mahomet aus Judintum genomen? ).35


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ayoub, Mahmoud, The Quran and its Intrprpreters, II

Hagarism

Ibnu Khaldun, Polegomena to his History of the Arabs and Berbers, trans.F. Rosental, 3 vols., vol. 1

Ibnu Ishaq,Life of Muhammad, trans; Alfred Guillume.

Tabari, Tarikh al-Umran wa al-Muluk (Beirut: Dar al Fikr) especially vols1 and 2

Hanbal, Ahmed b., Musnad Ibn Hanbal (Beirut: Dar al Fikr, 1992) Hadithnumber. 16525

Muslim, Sahih Muslim: Kitab al-Iman (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah,1992I Hadith number 1, p. 37.

The original German title was was hat Mahomet aus Judintum genomen?

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