Islamic Banking (7)—Sookhdeo Continued

Post 37--:Is

Today we continue the enumeration of problems  associated with Islamic banking as listed by Sookhdeo.

 Why non-Muslims are drawn to Islamic Banking

§       In some countries non-Muslims are drawn to these banks; some, because of good profits; others, because they regard the system “as more ethical, fair, and stable” than the “predatory” Western institutions (pp. 52, 56, 76, 78).

Copies of Western Banks

§       “Contrary to their goals, the tendency is for the emerging Islamic economy to be driven by market forces and to become an integrated subdivision of the Western-dominated global economy.” Some see it as just copies of Western institutions (p. 55).

Creating Artificial Needs and Wants

§       “It is clear that the Islamist movements have artificially generated the need and demand for sharia finance” (p. 79). Boer: If Sookdheo does not object to the ways of Western banks and business in general, why should he object to this feature in Islamic banking? They both do the same thing: Create artificial needs and wants.  The goose and gander kick in once again.

Driven by Politics, not Religion

§       The demand for this system “is not a purely religious phenomenon.”  Sookhdeo holds the “assumption that sharia finance is a politically-driven Islamist invention masked in religious idiom” (p. 79).

Pre-eminence of Divine Directive

§       In spite of the negatives listed above, Sookhdeo admits that to Muslims the sharia connection, “this divine directive,”  “is the preeminent point and the final say in the matter” (p. 53). 

Issues to be Considered by Western Governments

§       The final paragraph in Sookhdeo’s book:  The response of governments and other authorities to this process requires urgent and sustained attention.  Detailed recommendations cannot be provided here, but we suggest that it would at least be prudent for Western governments to exercise more discernment over their…support for sharia finance, at least to the extent of recognizing…its vulnerabilities and in particular its lack of external accountability. At a time of intense debate in Western countries over the proper role of religion in public life, the possibility of sharia finance’s giving to Islam an inappropriate influence over financial and economic policy must also be acknowledged. Political, economic and financial institutions are wise to take note of any possible threat to their own systems, and to provide necessary checks and balances before it takes effect. The provision of rigorous regulatory mechanisms for Islamic practices and products, according to internationally accepted norms, must therefore be a priority (pp. 56-57).  

Summary of Islamic Banking in Various Countries

§       I would urge you to read Appendix 2-4 in Sookhdeo’s book, where he gives a summary of sharia banking in many countries, Muslim, Western and Asian non-Muslim.  It is very enlightening to see how countries react so differently. 

I want you to realize that though his is a very helpful book, it is not an objective book: It is part of Sookhdeo’s anti-Islamist struggle and thus selective in the topics discussed. Do not look for anything positive or supportive. Such a book is legitimate and I do not criticize Soohdeo for it. In fact, I recommend the book highly, especially for Nigeria that is presently trying to give birth to Islamic banking. Much of his critique of the system is derived from Muslims themselves.

But—and this is a criticism--it is also infused throughout with the semi-secularist dualism so common to evangelicals, that shines through all of Sookhdeo’s work and that partially derails it. While he totally condemns Islamic banking, he does not utter a single critique of the secular Western banking system that has only recently cast the world into an unprecedented downward spiral due to its avarice and carelessness. Sorry, not quite true. There is that one exception of one single word: Sookdheo refers to the Western system as “predatory.” Profoundly true. But that’s it.  For the rest, the Western system is implicitly upheld as the standard to which Muslims should conform. Well, that is Evangelicals for you and other Christians afflicted with this semi-secular dualism. It is a serious critique. Missionaries have exported the same worldview into many countries and saddled the church with it. The result is a clumsy and inadequate response on the part of many Christians to Islam.

In spite of that serious critique, Christians, moderate Muslims and governments need to ensure that the budding Islamic banking sector is not in any way tied to militancy and terrorism, whether internally or globally.  Sookhdeo demonstrates very convincingly that much of this sector has such connections. It is the reason some Muslim countries are either cautious or have rejected it altogether.  Any such institution must be shut down immediately with zero tolerance, for if left to operate, it will be like a cancerous worm that will be difficult to eradicate once it has settled in. 

“Christian” Extremist Jihad

Post 33--:


We’re in Sharia Banking country at the moment, but this needs to be interrupted by the  recent shocking violence in the paradise of peace known as Norway.  Since Christians along with the entire West are always blaming Muslims and Islam for terrorism, it is necessary that I as a Christian blogger address this “Christian” attack.

Reasons for Breivik's Terror
I don’t intend to rehash the event itself as it happened and subsequently unfolded.  That’s what the media are for. But I do want to comment on some of the things I read and heard.  As always, various reasons and causes for this event have been offered.  No doubt many of them have elements of truth to them. All of them will have contributed in some way and to some extent.  There is, of course, the ubiquitous Marxist economic explanation: It was due to economic conditions, these conditions then seen as encompassing almost everything else.  Probably there was an economic element to it, but certainly not that Breivik himself is poor.  You don’t lease a farm and, on that basis, buy enough chemicals to prepare for this attack, if you don’t have access to raw cash.  Neither can it be attributed to lack of education, not when he wrote a document of some 1500 pages.  Not even most highly educated people could manage that.  

European Restlessness
I tend to give more credence to the role of restlessness that has developed in Western Europe with respect to immigration issues, especially Muslim immigration.  The West’s extreme secularism, its dominant and main stream orientation, has naturally called up its obvious opposition, the “extreme right.” It seems that this “extreme right” has bubbled to the surface in every Western European country.  Of course, it does not take much to be dubbed extreme by the secular media.  You may not be more extreme than the secularist community, but since you are not main stream, you will be considered extreme simply because you represent its “opposite” in some way and make the secularists uncomfortable. Applying the epithet “extreme” is their declaimer and puts you at a safe distance.

Secularism vs "Extreme Right"
Though I do not approve of or support this “extreme right” anymore than I do secularism, I do sympathize with them in some way or, at least, understand their reaction.  They are reacting at the situation of indiscriminate Muslim immigration created by blind and ignorant secularists who were assuming all along that “these Muslims” will become rational and normal like their Western hosts.  That is to say, they were expected to become secular naturally, for is that not the reasonable and natural way to be?  Just like Muslims feel it is natural for every one to be or become Muslim, so  many secularists think it natural for every one to be or become secular.  Muslims proved them wrong and threw them into a dither from which they have not yet emerged.  The “extreme right” is a natural reaction to that extreme left of main stream secularism.  It was to be expected, us humans being the polarizing animals that we are as especially Herman Dooyeweerd, the main Kuyperian philosopher, has clearly shown us.  As it is sometimes said that Western sects like Jehovah Witnesses are the unpaid bills of the church, so is the “extreme right” the unpaid bill of secularism.  

A Pre-Emption
I must pre-empt a misinterpretation.  I am not suggesting that Muslims should not have been allowed in the West.  However, if the secular(ized) politicians and bureaucrats had not been so blind to the nature of religion in general and not been burdened with their secular tunnel vision, if they had been blessed with the clear and comprehensive view of religion in general as embodied in the Kuyperian movement, they would have had different expectations and therefore developed more realistic policies.  And if they had been blessed with a clear understanding of Islam, that might have given them even better guidance.  Unfortunately, even the Kuyperians among them were lacking here as we can see in The Netherlands, the source country of Kuyperians, in spite of the fact that “Father Abraham” Kuyper wrote a fairly penetrating 2-volume tome on the Mediterranean Muslim community a century ago.  (See my translation of a key chapter at www.lulu.com. Just type in < Kuyper-Boer >.)  

Breivik a Christian?
Breivik is dubbed a “Christian extremist.”  He does claim to be a convinced Christian. Translating from a Dutch translation of the Norwegian original, he said of himself, “I am a baptized Protestant and had that voluntarily confirmed when I was fifteen.” But he is totally dismayed about the state of the Protestant Church and considers it a joke.  Should we accept his self-designation as Christian?  Jesus warns us not to judge a man’s heart, but He also affirms that one can judge a tree by its fruits. If Breivik were a member of my denomination, the Christian Reformed Church in North America, he would traditionally have been placed under formal ecclesiastical discipline and banned from Communion as well as all official positions and functions.  He would become the object of intense pastoral care. If he were to resist the church’s overtures, refuse to confess his sin and reject repentance, he would eventually be excommunicated and considered to be beyond the pale, a non-Christian. Breivik may consider himself a Christian, but I judge his ambitions and acts of violence as totally unchristian.

Christianity and Violence
At any rate, Muslims often complain that Islam is unfairly accused of generating violence and terrorism. They are looking for an acknowledgement that Christians also engage in violence and terrorism.  In the past, they have pointed to Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma.  Sometimes they point to the various mass shootings that occasionally take place in North America. To what extent any of these shootings are triggered by twisted versions of the Christian faith, I do not know.  But, bluntly put, I cannot possibly recognize any of these acts as triggered by Biblical Christianity.  Seems simply impossible to me. As to the Crusades, the Christian church or its members have time upon time expressed their disapproval of that movement. I see it as an action by a Christian community that was still very close to its pagan past and which, along with most of the world, considered warfare and other forms of violence a normal and legitimate part of life. It was an era described in the Old Testament as, “In the spring, when kings go to war….” They would not have had the “patience” we display today with the current unjust stalemate between the Palestinians and Israel. They would have just marched in with their hordes and blown up the whole place.  Muslims should discontinue their custom of considering everything the West or Westerners do as Christian.  Mainline Islam denies that Muslims always act as Muslims; same with Christians and Christianity.  Terrorists may be Muslims but their terrorism is not motivated by Islam; same with the McVeighs and Breiviks of this world. The most awful things have been perpetrated by both Christians and Muslims, but I can vouch that none of it could ever be justified or was ever motivated by Biblical Christianity.  Most Muslims would say the same of Islam, but I would not be the right party to vouch for that.   

Promise re Next Post
In the next blog we return to Islamic Banking, I promise, but, as with everything else in this world, inshallah.

What Christians Can Learn from Islam

Post 27 

Offer of Free Lecture

Today we deal with question no. 5 in my Christian Courier series.  Once again, I apologize for the interruption.  Life sometimes becomes too hectic for me to cope.  I take on too many responsibilities or obligations and then find I need to temporarily change course.  This time around it was a trip to Ibadan, Nigeria, where I was invited to deliver an annual lecture to Christians about sharia.  My title was “Re-tooling Our Approach to Sharia: A Wholistic and Pluralistic Perspective.”  Readers interested in that issue may contact me at < boerjf@hotmail.com > to request an electronic copy.  If you do forward this request, please be sure to mention this blog post and tell me what province or state and what country you are from.

Islam's Reminding Function

So, what can Christians learn from Muslims?  Many things, actually.  If you have read my earlier post “The Muslim Within You,” you have already become aware of how, far back in history, the Western world adopted various major ideas and institutions from the Muslim world.  Today my concern is not something that took place way back there in history but what is taking place or could take place today in your own life.  

Years ago, in Nigeria, I met a Muslim biking along the long driveway leading to our mission compound. I greeted him in the local style and he stopped to chat in the Hausa language. In the course of the conversation, I told him about my plans for the next day.  I was going to do this and that, I confidently announced.   He was silent for a moment, cocked his head slightly and then asked, “Allah fa?”  “What about God?”  Does He not figure in your plans? 

I felt deeply embarrassed.  Here was a Muslim for whom I was paid to bring the Gospel and he brought the Gospel to me!  I was brought up in a culture where the term “Deo volente,” Latin for “God willing,” laced daily conversation.  Immigrating to Canada where that term is rarely used, I had dropped it somewhere along the line.  And, now, here was this Muslim reminding me of a neglected component of my own inherited worldview and language. 

Presence of God

That seemingly insignificant interchange has stuck with me ever since.  “Allah fa?”  Yes, indeed, what of God in our ordinary daily lives?  His name interlaces most Muslim conversations, not, as in the West, as barbaric profanity, but as an expression of our dependence on Him in everything. Of course, deep down I knew that God is there all the time, but the secular culture in which I grew up on Vancouver Island made me careless and drop the lingo—and with it blunted the edge of this spiritual awareness. It was still there, but marginalized, so that this Muslim gentleman was offended. He reminded me. 

A major function Muslims can play for Western Christians is that of reminder.  We have been so deeply influenced by the pervasive secularism around us that much of our Christian sensitivities have been blunted and Christian standards marginalized, if not plain forgotten, or, worse perhaps, actually rejected as outmoded or politically incorrect. Politically incorrect they most assuredly are, but outmoded? We know the Name of Jesus is holy and needs to be revered, but when He is insulted in public life by sheer derision or outright exclusion, we shrug our shoulders. Muslims cannot tolerate such carelessness and infidelity. A few years ago the Anglican Church in the UK was silent when someone publicly insulted Christ, but the Muslim community stood up and denounced the insult.  After all, Jesus is seen as a Muslim Prophet second only to Muhammad.  When someone is perceived as insulting Muhammad, even non-practicing Muslims can get on their high horse and cause riots.  But Christians just shrug their shoulders in indifference as if it were an inconsequential matter. 

Pioneer Reformed Challenges to Secularism

The generation that founded the Christian Courier, the semi-monthly that originally published this series, was deeply offended by Canada’s secularism and challenged it by establishing Christ-honouring alternative social institutions. They took their issues to the highest courts of the land and achieved some remarkable victories.  Half a century later, the structures they built still exist not only, but are fully Canadian, flourishing and effective institutions. Today, only half a century later, most of their descendants know little of and care less for those issues.  Some of them are now run by Canadians from other Christian traditions that became excited by the broad vision of these early Reformed pioneers.

Muslim Challenge to Reformed and Other Christians

Muslims continually challenge this secularism and remind us of God across all of life.  They have their prayer times and little stops them from performing them.  Certainly not shame or embarrassment.  Neither are they embarrassed about being identified as Muslims and, thus, religious.  In fact, they are proud to be Muslim.  We may sneer at some of their female fashions, but who sees Christ in us with our fashions?  Where has modesty gone?  Women, without any apology on my part to those concerned with the politically correct, do you realize how many of you befudge the reputation of Christ among Muslims with your fashions?  Muslims remind us of modesty not only but of the general need for morals, both private and public.  Of course, men who casually ascend Christ’s pulpits in torn jeans and flip-flops similarly downgrade His holy Name by their lack of respect, another concept we have almost forgotten (Unless it is a conscious decision to identify with a population where such dress is standard.). While many Christians have largely succumbed to the secular demand for separation of religion from both politics, government and the market place in general, Muslims boldly march into the market place with religion up front, even with Muslim banks. In contrast, we deride such banks that uphold moral standards that go beyond the financial bottom line.  When Muslims speak mission, they do not talk merely of church planting; they actively claim the entire world for God.  To the descendants of those early pioneers I ask, “Does this sound familiar to you?  Are you reminded of some things from your background?  Might you even experience some slight twangs of conscience?”

Muslims serve to remind us of the need to re-install God in our daily lives at every level. I should put it differently, for God does not need to be re-installed, for He is there and everywhere, whether we are conscious of Him or not.  He needs to be re-installed in our consciousness. Islam reminds us of that.

We Reformed ought to respect them for it, observe them, listen to them and be reminded once again of our roots.  Perhaps we can even cooperate with them at selected fronts.  

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Muslim Women: A Secular Solution (4)

Post 26—

Intreoducing Ayaan Hirsi Ali 

This is my fourth post on Muslim women and, for now at least, the last.  Time to move on.  The last post presented the views of mostly traditional Nigerian Muslims. The one before that was an article written by a modern Indian Muslim.  Today’s is about a radical woman who was brought up as a Muslim and struggled with the Muslim perspective as she experienced it, but whose current Muslim credentials I cannot vouch for—the Somalian Dutch Ayaan Hirsi Ali. When a person publicly expresses doubt about the existence of Allah, as Ali does in the preface to her book, The Caged Virgin, I am not sure Muslim authorities will still consider her a bona fide Muslim.  I describe her as “radical” because she tries to get to the “radix” or root of things. Though this post is for now the last one on women, it will certainly not be the last on Ali.  She is too interesting and challenging to ignore in a Christian-Muslim environment.

Folk Religion

 Ali wrote a number of books during her sojourn in my native land, The Netherlands.  They go totally against the grain of all that is politically correct, including the issue of women in Islam.  While in The Caged Virgin she writes on the position of women in Islam in general and calls for their emancipation, in Infidel she writes her own story and development. She grew up in a very folksy Muslim environment.  Folksy Islam, like folksy Christianity, is a mixture of a very conservative form of the religion and the local culture.  It usually means that the official structures, both religious and social, are shaped by the religion but the dominant spirit underlying it all and providing its dynamic is shaped more by the culture than by the religion. Both those structures and that spirit are usually very rigid and resistant to change.  If change does come, it is often regarded as an attack on the religion rather than on the culture. If that culture is cruel with respect to women, then the religion will display the same cruelty, except in the case of a religious revival, when the social furniture can get shuffled around into new configurations.  My comments here are based not only on observation and reading, but also on personal experience as a Christian living in tight folksy Christian communities. 

I am not about to summarize all the problems, difficulties and sufferings of Muslim women as experienced and described by Ali.  You can find those stories everywhere, in books, especially Ali’s own, in the popular media and on the internet.  They are horror stories, many of them. 

Ali's Solution

But what is Ali’s solution?  She urges Muslim women to “Stand up for Your Rights,” the title of her first chapter in The Caged Virgin and she encourages the West to aid them in this process.  This is not a call for a violent and bloody revolution so much as a call for enlightenment. She is jealous of the Western Enlightenment inheritance and wishes a similar process for Islam. That means first of all for Muslims to take a critical look at themselves.  They must regain a “balance between religion and reason.”  She opts for the secular solution: “We must structurally drive religion back to the places where it belongs: in the mosque and in the home” (The Caged Virgin, pp. 13-14); a most unMuslim solution—or un-Kuyperian, for that matter.

Islamic Diversity

One of the theses throughout this blog is that, except for some deep core tenets, it is difficult to pinpoint the true Muslim perspective on almost any topic.  Ali writes, “There are as many Islams as there are Muslims.”  “…a single Islam does not exist” (The Caged Virgin, p. 9).  If that is true of Islam in general, as I in the company of many others have argued, it is also true of the “Muslim view of women.”  This mini-series is a demonstration of this diversity. For this reason, Christians must be careful when they discuss Muslim issues, whether women or anything else. 

Secondly, Christians must become more aware of the nature of folk religion within both their own religion as well as in Islam, in both their historical as well as current versions. 

Possibility for Change

Adhering to these two guidelines may help us become aware of the beam in the eyes of both religions, keep us from hasty condemnation and judgement, and make us optimistic with respect to future developments.  If one religion, Christianity, once so resistant to change but became more malleable due to the forces of the Enlightenment and its aftermath, why not view Islam as changeable as well?  There are any number of books that give good reason to expect an enlightenment of Islam. The current revolutions among Arab nations are indications that some form of enlightenment and change may be acomin'.  

I am aware that neither Ali’s call for the secular solution nor my apparent approval of the Western Enlightenment will not sit well with some of my fellow Kuyperian readers.  I will address that in due time, after I have completed my series from Christian Courier.

 

I

 

Islam a Threat to Christianity and West?

Post 21--:

Before reading this post, please reread the introductory paragraphs to Post 19. That introduction holds for this one as well. Though in most of these posts, my main reading target consists of Muslims and others interested in Islam, in this series I am addressing Canadian Christians and their concerns about Islam. But you, my Muslim friends, feel free to read and consider. Reading this series of posts originally published in Christian Courier (CC) may help you understand your Christian neighbour a bit better.

In a 2002 “Identity Statement,” my denomination, the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) identified secularism, not Islam, as “the primary enemy.” This is supported by a statement of the Reformed Ecumenical Council of 1991 as well as by Reformational or Kuyperian philosopher, Bennie van der Walt. The reason for this view is that, if you will permit me a Dutchism, Islam comes in wooden shoes, while secularism sneaks up on you in socks. Wooden shoes clatter; you can hear them clearly. Anyone coming up from behind you cannot possibly hide himself. But you can’t hear someone sneaking up behind you in socks. Islam is the wooden shoes that makes its presence known everywhere. Secularism is a sock; it sneaks up on you. It is so interwoven in Western culture that we have largely become immune to its effects in our minds and hearts.

Islam is a threat in some way, but not the most dangerous one. Various forms of Islam are indeed threatening the West for a number of reasons. I have in mind here mainly Fundamentalist, militant and terrorist versions.

Secularism has created a spiritual vacuum in this culture and has blinded Westerners to the essence of religion. If it were not for secularism, Islam would not have made the inroads it has in the West. And to the extent that secularism has made its inroads, to that extent we are handicapped in our response to Islam. Secularism has led its adherents to assume that Muslims coming to the West would become ”reasonable” like the rest of us! That is, become secular like us. Forgive my bluntness, but I consider this a “stupid” approach by which a certain ignorant “philosopher-king” shaped our multicultural philosophy on which subsequent emigration policies were based. Designing a national policy on basis of ignorance is dangerous and thus a threat, a threat even to the very secularism that welcomed those Muslims. Too bad dead philosopher kings are beyond the reach of earthly judges!--except of course of self-appointed ones, like myself.

Terrorism of any stripe among us, whether intellectual or violent, is an undeniable threat to all of us. The creeping influence of Wahabism and the presence of other forms of intolerant militant fundamentalism, sometimes in the form of violent hidden cell groups, are dangerous. They inculcate intolerance and hate in their schools in the West, especially Europe and the USA. They plan violent attacks on innocent crowds. Antonides has done well to warn us in his CC articles.

More moderate forms of Islam reject violence and have said so repeatedly. Their approach includes a philosophy of mission that will use all the tools of Western democracy to infiltrate our entire culture, especially Canada’s human rights instruments. They are supported in this effort with oil money from Muslim governments and by the efforts of the Organisation of Islamic Conference via the UN. They target especially Western concepts of freedom of speech under the guise of protecting their religion. There is an undeniable threat component to our Canadian secularism as well as to legitimate Christian activity in their legally legitimate approach.

I have been a missionary for 30 years in a country with over 60 million Muslims. Those Muslims consider Christian missions a dangerous threat, especially because they associate it with colonialism and its aftermath—and they are partially right. Most missionaries do not understand the legitimacy of this charge and do not consider themselves a threat to anyone. If it is legitimate for Christians to send missionaries to Muslim countries, then it is also legitimate for Muslims to do their mission work among us, even if we also tend to identify theirs with a kind of Muslim imperialism. So, is their legitimate mission a threat?

I would rather think of the da'wah mission of moderate mainstream Islam as a challenge, a serious challenge. Our challenge is not to prevent them from carrying out their mission. Rather, it is for us to cleanse ourselves from our secularism and once again read the Bible afresh, with an open spirit not restricted by the dictates of our Western worldview. That way we may begin to acknowledge our own imperialistic history and what our countries have done and continue to do among Muslims. This cleansing above should lead us to demand that our governments and corporations reshape our relationships with the Muslim world on basis of justice and equality for all people and to quit supporting oppressive regimes for the sake of oil.

Yes, some Muslims present us with threats; others, with challenges. Imperialistic and missionary urges have always driven Islam. However, the West has been equally imperialistic and missionary with respect to the Muslim world. We should recognize that their current hostility towards us is at least partially a response to our imperialism. We have evoked it. We are seen as a threat to them as well!

I do believe that Islam is a threat to the West as it is. It is generally acknowledged that the West is drifting away from its religious, historical and cultural foundation and is left with a spiritual and cultural vacuum that Islam is rushing in to fill. Its leaders are adept at using the democratic institutions of the West for their own ends.

The West is built on a bubble that could burst anytime. Insufficient births coupled with abortion, collapse of the family structure, loss of sexual restraint and modesty, rape of the environment, outrageous materialism, a culture of entitlement and human rights devoid of any degree of responsibility, extremely high pay for less work, political correctness—all these and more will lead to collapse if allowed to continue. Muslim leaders are watching it happen from the sidelines and in the meantime preparing their community for what seems to some as the inevitable. It has happened before. Why can it not happen again?

Islam is definitely a threat to Western Christianity in so far as the latter is defined in terms of the current church institutions without a vibrant faith and personal commitment that come from being born again. People are dropping church membership by the droves. The original ancient Christian world has been overtaken by Muslims long ago with few traces left of the Christian church that once thrived there. With hardly any exception, wherever the Christian faith has had no roots in the hearts of the common people, Islam has been able to supplant it. It is poised to do it again, this time in the heartland of the former Christendom, not with the sword, according to Ghadafi, but with the womb.

It is impossible to predict the future or God’s plans. He has created unexpected revival of His people before and He can do it again. No reason to reject that possibility. In fact, we should pray for such a revival. Expect it even. But such a revival, to be effective, needs to move beyond the so-called spiritual to wholistic reformation across the entire culture, including but reaching beyond the family by reducing abortion and divorce, restoring our sexual mores and modesty, accepting more realistic incomes and “lower” our standard of living, healthy politics. Islam challenges Christians to do that. Islam is a challenge to Christians, more than a threat.

Major Differences between Christianity and Islam

Post 19—:

Recently, the editor of Christian Courier (CC), a bi-weekly Christian newspaper published in Ontario, Canada ( www.christiancourier.ca ), asked me to write a series of six articles about Islam that would address the “faq” –most frequently asked questions--of their readers. Now, their readers are mostly Canadian Christians, as am I. I wrote those six articles. Some have already been published by CC, while others are still in the lineup. I plan to reproduce them in this blog in slightly edited form. The questions reflect the interests and concerns of Christian Courier’s constituency more than my own. Without these questions, I might not even address the issues of this series on my own. These posts then serve to satisfy their curiosity without reflecting my own preoccupation with Islam. My answer to today's question does not cover the entire subject. The women issue, for example, is one not covered today, but that is because there is a separate question on the subject that will be addressed in due time.

However, most of my experience with Muslims and most of my very extensive research on the subject has focused on Nigerian Islam, not Canadian Islam. My orientation, interests and response will definitely be coloured by my 30-year experience and 15 years of research in Nigeria. Some of the things I wrote and repeat in these posts may not fully reflect or apply to the majority of Canadian Islam or Muslims, but these articles reflect where I have been or am going. Every country’s Islam has its own local characteristics, sometimes even contradictory.

I was going to say that in spite of these local variations, the broad outlines are universal. But that would not be entirely true. Yes, the core of the religion, the five pillars, is indeed universal, but the relationship of Muslims to Christians, for example, varies widely from historical tolerance through different degrees of intolerance to outright and harsh persecution. While some Muslims consider the secularism or soft secularism adopted by Christians as the core relational difference between the two, other Muslims describe themselves calmly as secular. That difference even divides the Canadian Muslim community.

I encourage Muslim readers to correct me where they think I am wrong about their religion. It is the easiest thing for one describing a religion not his own to go in the wrong direction. So, please, be free. I will appreciate it.

The above comments are written as an introduction to each of the next six posts, including this one. Please remember them when you read the rest of the series. I promise to assist you by reminding you in each post in this series.

The first question: What are the differences between Christianity and Islam?

You can divide differences between these two religions in various ways. My favourite way is between the core differences that will always remain and cultural differences that have developed over time and could theoretically either change or be overcome. These changes could take place within either Christianity or Islam or within both.

The core difference between the two religions centres on a complex set of ideas about God, humanity, sin and salvation. Muslims fulminate against the notion of the Trinity and emphasize the unity of God exclusively. The thought of God having a son is the ultimate blasphemy to them. However, Jesus is a revered prophet, second only to Muhammad. They reject the notion of original sin—as do some major Christian traditions. They also reject the need for a mediating saviour. God just forgives—if He pleases. God has not bound Himself to any promises and is free to decide everyone’s ultimate destiny. He will weigh everybody’s deeds, but remains free to reject or accept each individual. Though there is no ground for assurance of salvation, in practice, Muslims do not seem to live in constant fear of hell. They emphasize that, though God is absolutely free, he is also the Merciful and Compassionate. These differences have been there from the beginning and will never disappear. This is where the basic antithesis resides. But there is more....

The Muslim attitude to sin is, compared to the Christian idea, superficial and often results in hypocrisy. I believe this helps explain why they seldom admit to wrongs. While they castigate the West for imperialism and intolerance, they seldom if ever recognize their own imperialism and intolerance and are not prone to apologize. They complain about intolerance in the West, while their (ancestral) home countries are shot through with it. They accuse the West of racism, while racism—or tribalism-- is rife on their ancestral turf. Some persecute Christians in their countries of origin and destroy churches, but demand freedom of religion for themselves in the West. Admittedly, they have no monopoly on hypocrisy; it just comes in different shapes and forms for different people. While the core differences are permanent, these results could potentially change due to internal shifts or to the influence of Western secular tolerance.

Then there is the core issue of church-state relations. While almost all Christian traditions support the separation of church and state-- not to be confused with the separation of religion from state/politics--, with the notable exception of minority secular Muslims, Muslims generally tend to insist on the unity of state and religion, including mosque. They see the state as the handmaiden of Islam that supports the latter’s institutions, pillars and mission, including financially. That is a major reason for violence in Nigeria. We don’t hear much of that emphasis in Canada, which does not mean it’s not there long-term in the minds of Muslim strategists.

As to historically conditioned differences, Muslims themselves often point to Western secularism as the most crucial difference. For today’s Western Christian, secularism is almost our “native air” with which we have grown up and become accustomed to. It has deeply penetrated our hearts and mind. Secularism confronted Muslims in the context of oppressive colonialism. Hence, to most Muslims it has always been a hostile and ungodly worldview. Although there are secular Muslims, most Muslims have resisted the influence of secularism much more than have Christians. Many have contempt for its adherents, especially for its Christian adherents. They hold secularism responsible for Western moral decadence and tend to be angry at Western attempts to impose this corrupt system on them in the context of imperialism and globalism. I do not consider this a core difference, for at its core Christianity is also anti-secular, even though most Christians have been unduly influenced by it.

Over against secularism, Islam is a wholistic, comprehensive religion that covers all of life, theoretically much like the Reformed Christian tradition. They are not shy about praying in public or dressing differently and are not averse to making public demands on issues that wimpy Western Christians have long surrendered to secularism or shoved with embarrassment into a hidden “religious” corner of life. Islam is a political religion that insists on using the organs of state, United Nations, corporations and all other structures, even its oil money, for its advance. Politics, economics, education—all of life is of one piece and all of it is to be harnessed to the global Islamic mission. In reaction to the aggressive push of Western secularism, Muslims have in recent decades revived and strengthened their wholism, while most Christians have at least partially cashed in theirs for a soft secularism. Christians can learn some powerful lessons from Muslims in this regard with respect to our politics, culture and personal lifestyles, including decreasing modesty in our dress codes and free-lance sex. Actually, not learn so much as to be reminded of what Christianity is meant to be about as well. Under the pressure of secularism, Christians have forgotten much and surrendered much that Muslims can remind them of.

The Muslim in You (2)

Post 18—

Remember the topic from the last post? The influence of Islam in you, influence that goes way back to the Middle Ages, but that has wormed its way deeply into Western culture, hearts and minds, including yours. I emphasized the Muslim philosophical heritage, but today I will point out another but related segment of culture where Islam has also left its mark on the West, a segment very closely related the philosophical. Sorry, I just can’t run away from that abstract world in you. But remember what I wrote in Post 17: This stuff is part of you and you cannot escape it even if you wanted to.

The topic of today is the influence of sharia or Muslim law on Western law, including British law that, in turn, has given shape to the laws of former British colonies, including Nigeria and Kenya. I find it very interesting to see how Christians in Nigeria and Kenya as well as leaders of some Christian organizations like the UK-based Barnabas Aid strongly oppose attempts to impose sharia, Muslim law, on Christians. Note that it is the how or the reason for their resistance that I find interesting. I understand their resistance as well as their reasons, but, in distinction of the resistance itself, I find their reasons for it partially wrong. For a very detailed example of that resistance I point you to volumes 7 and 8 of my series Studies in Christian-Muslim Relations, where I show the Nigerian Christian resistance. Though I fully sympathize with their resistance, I am advising them to change the parameters of the foundation on which they resist. They resist Muslim law in favour of colonial law they inherited from the British on basis of secular thinking that regards British law as neutral, objective and non-religious. I need to devote a post to that subject one of these days.

The issue here is that scholars tell us that Western law in its early beginning was influenced by the same Muslim philosophy referred to in the last post, the philosophy of Islam in general but especially the Andalusian or Spanish branch. How do you like that for an interesting twist? Joseph Schacht (1902-1969), a British-German orientalist scholar whom Muslims do not regard as their friend, is regarded by some as an important if not the most important Western authority of his day on sharia or Muslim law. In other words, he was a man you cannot ignore in the context of this issue. He regarded sharia or Muslim law as “one of the most important bequests which Islam has transmitted to the civilized world. It is a phenomenon so different from other forms of law that its study is indispensable….” Then he went on about its far-reaching influence on various non-Muslim peoples and cultures:

Several of its institutions were transmitted across the Mediterranean to medieval Europe and became incorporated in the law…. Another significant influence occurred in Islamic Spain. At the opposite end of the Mediterranean, Islamic law has exerted a deep influence on all branches of law of Georgia. There is finally the effect of Islamic law on the laws of the tolerated religions, the Jewish and the Christian. It is certain that the two great branches of the Oriental Christian Church, the Monophysites and the Nestorians, did not hesitate to draw freely on the rules of Islamic law

Schacht thus asserted a far-reaching influence of sharia in medieval Europe, where strands of it were incorporated into the culture and legal systems. Various branches of the ancient church drew freely on the rules of Islamic law. A more contemporary Nigerian Muslim scholar, Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa of Kano, came away from a conference in the UK making a similar claim. He wrote about “the earliest Islamic influences dating back to King Henry, who imported Islamic law from Muslim Spain and modified it into English Common Law.” (See my vol. 6, pp. 66-67, 121--note 33; vol. 8, pp. 351-352, 466-467, note29).

Sorry once again for the scholarly sound of the above, but the claim that Western law in its infancy was influenced by Muslim law and even incorporated aspects of Muslim law will be so startling to most Western and most Christian readers anywhere that it needs the support of serious scholars. This claim is not just picked up out of the clear blue sky; it has authoritative support we cannot ignore.

So, another aspect of the Muslim in you. There is more to come, but for the next week or so I do not have the time for the necessary research. So, for now this is it on this subject. Just realize that there is considerably more of Islam in you than touched upon so far and hopefully I will get back to the subject in due time.

Muslim Canadian Congress and Secularism

Post 12

This current discussion started some posts ago and has dwelt on the issue of violence. The discussion continues in this post, but violence now takes a back seat.

I mentioned in Post 11 that there is a contradiction in MCC’s rejection of violence and its embrace of secularism. It uses a secular perspective to reject violence. This stance stands in sharp contradiction to that of millions of other Muslims. I have written an 8-volume work on Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria, where violence has erupted time and again against secularism. Nigeria is by no means the only country where this is the case. It is more common among Muslims throughout the world to regard secularism as their enemy than as an inspiration for tolerance and non-violence.

This is not to say that all Muslims opposed to secularism are violent. I, a Christian, am also opposed to secularism, but I am not violent and do not intend ever to engage in it. The same is true by far for most anti-secularist Muslims, though it may be fair to say that all militant Muslims are anti-secularist, with perhaps a few unusual exceptions. That MCC is at odds with that other Canadian national Muslim organization, Canadian Islamic Congress, does not surprise me, even though at this point I am not sure of the exact nature of their friction. I do need to look into that one of these days.

So, the stance of MCC contradicts that of the world’s Muslim majority.

There is an additional contradiction in the stance of MCC. They are a Canadian organization that has adopted a liberal and secular stance in the Canadian context. They want to contribute to that context in a positive way, an admirable goal that can only be lauded. Their embrace of the alleged Canadian secular ethos is part of that programme. That’s the way to get accepted by the Canadian establishment. A Muslim organization embracing such values is sure to get plenty of kudos from the Canadian populace and media. Wonderful!

However, the Canadian secular establishment really amounts to the establishment of one worldview called “secular” at the expense of other equally Canadian worldviews, especially if these other Canadian worldviews are of an overt religious nature. They may actually have deeper and longer roots in Canadian history, but the upstart liberal-secular establishment has managed to upstage it and assign it a small niche best described as comprising of church, family and the personal. As long as the groups with other worldviews agree to that assigned restrictive place, they are considered good boys and girls. But once they object to that assigned position, you will have the media on your neck and you run the great risk of having all the powers of human right commissions firing their canons of political correctness at you in ways that can legitimately be described as legal violence. You may even be described as, mother of all horrors, a vile stooge of American fundamentalism, surely the worst of all possible Canadian castigations!

MCC, by having adopted this establishment perspective, has in fact allied itself with a very intolerant worldview that may not shoot with the gun but with the weapons of scorn and political correctness that guide the dubious legal interpretations of human rights commissions. Though that establishment uses such great words like “liberal,” “tolerant,” etc., those words hardly catch the venomous spirit with which it operates.

I have let one of my cats out of the bag in this post. I have not defended my allegations, but I will do so as time allows in succeeding posts, though not necessarily in succession to each other. So, if you want to pursue my line of reasoning or have become curious about my Calvinistic-Kuyperian worldview, you’re just gonna have to stick with me for a while. Good luck—a very unCalvinistic parting!