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God and Man in Contemporary Islamic Thought

 Introduction by Charles Malik

   The question raised here is precisely the possibility of a dialogue between Christianity and Islam-a genuine dialogue in which   nothing is covered up or evaded. A Muslim even in the heart of the desert or in the most inaccessible place of Afghanistan or Africa will in a hundred or a thousand years find himself challenged and disturbed; the beauty of his simplicity is definitely going to be upset. We are not therefore thinking of "every" Muslim today; many are going to live the simplicity of their conviction undisturbed in the slightest; eye are thinking of educated Muslims who are challenged and disturbed concerning their faith. Is a real dialogue possible with them?

   Moreover, when it is a matter of truth, the injunction "do not disturb the beauty of the simple" no longer applies. The more Muslims see and know and come in contact with the world, including the Christians, the more they will reflect on themselves and the more the world, including the Christians, will reflect on them. From this twofold process of reflection Islam will gradually clarify itself unto itself. In this way its truth will in time be fully revealed to itself.

   You love the beauty of the simple and you hate to disturb him: you are torn between wanting him not to change and yet knowing that he is bound to change. The question, change to what? becomes then decisive. In so far as he makes no claims on you, you may wish to leave him alone; you then enjoy the beauty of his simplicity and you know that he is enjoying it himself. But what do you do when he puts forward fundamental ontological propositions about you and asserts that you are this and that and thus and so? If these propositions were true, there would be no problem; but if they do not agree with what you know to be the truth, then you must correct him. It happens that Islam commits itself on Christianity. Either then you do not answer it at all in the order of argument and reason, or you try, from sheer love, as well as from self-defense, to correct it. Of course "to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven," as the author of Ecclesiastes would say, "a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing... a time to keep silence, and a time to speak." Thus you do not argue or bring in the correction of reason at any time. Maybe love, service, silence, distance, no "wrangling"; whatever, is the best policy. But at some point reason and argument will have to come in; at some point reason becomes absolutely crucial, and questions of truth and falsehood the most burning issues. At that point you will have to be very frank, but frankness then will not only do no good unless con­ducted in the spirit of love-it will in fact cause lots of harm. Love can never be conjured up or artificially engendered-Love is the pure gift of God. Without the holy spirit of God dominating the situation love is im­possible. This love hears and believes and corrects everything. The Christian knows it is the grace of Jesus Christ. But when the devil energizes in Chris­tian-Muslim relations, he vitiates every good will and every love. One then falls back upon silence and distance; one takes refuge in total respect; one pays and suffers alone; and yet it is possible that despite everything the devil will have his way.

There are two distinct problems; the justification of missionary work towards the neutral-the Indians, the Chinese, etc., who put forward no ontological propositions about you, at least not explicitly and directly; and the necessity, when it arises, to correct those, like the Muslims, who make direct ontological judgments about you. There is suffering love in all cases; there is the commandment of Jesus to baptize all nations, there are the inexorable demands of truth and falsehood; there is your love for Christ and your knowledge that he is the answer to all human problems; there is the certainty that as people continue and deepen their contacts with one another they are bound to ask fundamental questions and to change; and there is always legitimate self-defense.

It is crucial to be absolutely clear about the ultimate criteria of judgment. I believe these criteria are five.

(I) The nature of ultimate reality. I believe ultimate reality is not of the character of ideas or ideals but of the character of distinct, individual, unique, existing substances, in which ideas or ideals inhere and without which they could not exist. And since man is the highest being in the visible creation of God, ultimate reality in the visible order is of the character of human persons. Moreover, if analogy is to hold between the visible and the invisible, then God can be conceived far more analogously to human persons than to any other visible thing, though of course whatever inheres in Him is infinitely superior to and other than anything that inheres in human persons. But it is from living persons that we abstract attributes which, when raised to infinity, we apply to God. Behind everything I search, not for ideas and ideals, not for intentions and meanings, not for beautiful words of wisdom, not for plans and aspirations, certainly not for "systems,"but for existing, individual persons. And in these persons I seek their spirit-is it the spirit of love or the spirit of hatred; is it the spirit of trust and openness or the spirit of suspicion and fear; is it the spirit of tolerance or the spirit of intolerance; is it the spirit of light and transparency or the spirit of darkness and opaqueness; is it the spirit that admits diversity or the spirit that excludes it; is it the spirit that welcomes respectful argument according to agreed rules or the spirit that slams the door on argument even before it begins; is it the spirit that argues, respectfully, with a view to reaching the truth on which everybody agrees, or the spirit that argues for the sake of argument, either from despair of the truth or from a dogmatic position that it has a monopoly of the truth; is it the spirit of the free, dancing with joy, or the spirit of the slave, cringing with fear; is it the spirit that comes out of itself in perfect confidence and trust, or the spirit that snugly crawls into itself, unsure of itself and dreading the ^world? I see only existing individual human persons with their own existing individual spirits. Therefore, spirits, ideas, ideals, hopes, "systems," do not exist in mid-air, in a separate realm by themselves, as Plato would say; they must be incarnate in individual existing beings, as Aristotle would insist.

Let no man philosophize therefore before putting all his cards on the table as regards his own conception of individuals, persons, essence and existence. For you have no idea how much depends on being precise precisely on this point.

(2) The nature of the truth and its relation to the mind. I believe in the certainty of the truth, in every field, even in the most complex and delicate and difficult, such as politics, history, philosophy and theology, and in the certainty of our knowledge of it. Thus the truth is there, in every field, from the simplest propositions of mathematics to the nature of God, and if I seek it hard enough and sincerely enough, and keep on seeking it in the faith that it is there, I will find it. Minds are divided into those who despair of the truth and those who believe in it; and those who believe in it are further divided into those who believe in its objective given's quite independently of the mind, and those who believe that they create or cons­titute it themselves. I believe in the objective given ness of the truth and in its accessibility to the human mind. Let no man philosophize therefore before putting all his cards on the table as regards his own conception of the truth and its relation to the mind. For you have no idea how much depends on being precise precisely on this point.

(3) The character and importance of freedom. I believe in freedom and that it is the end of all human endeavor, so that whatever we do or aim at, it is always with a view to becoming free, and so that anything whatever that does not conduce to freedom has something the matter with it. Freedom is a state of being in which man is wholly himself, wholly above everything below him, wholly respectful of the freedom of others with whom he is in free and thoroughgoing communion, wholly and knowingly and respectfully below that which is above him, wholly joyful and creative and in touch with the sources of creativity in the temporal order and beyond. Let no man philosophize therefore. Before laying all his cards on the table as regards his own conception of freedom. For you have no idea how much depends on being precise precisely on this point.

(4) Who the highest existing man is. Man is the thing and the free man the end, and the highest man is the highest thing and the end of ends, so that when I am not in the presence of man and indeed of the highest man I am to that extent in the presence of something false. As a Christian I believe in Jesus Christ as the supreme man and the supreme reality, the freest man who is wholly "above," and in his presence, whether directly in prayer and contemplation, .specially in meditating on the Bible, or in communion with others who love him, or indirectly through his effects and reflections in the faces of others or throughout all historical and existing spiritual manifestations, I tend to be whole, human, creative and free. Let no man philosophize therefore before frankly laying all his cards on the table as regards the man whom h. regards the highest and freest he has ever known. For you have no idea how much depends on being precise precisely on this point.

(5) The living tradition from which one speaks. I believe that the Graeco­Roman-Judaeo-Christian tradition, with all its rich inner manifold and and even contradictions, is the greatest and deepest and truest living histo­rical fact in existence-I mean the living tradition of Homer, Sophocles, Pericles, Plato and Aristotle, of Cicero, Virgil, Dante and the stoics, of the Old Testament, of the New Testament, of the Church and the saints, and of the creative thinkers and artists and lawgivers within this total cumulative tradition. You have her. a creative synthesis, a whole civiliza­tion, with something like five or six millennia of continuous history, the like of which exists nowhere else in the world, so far as richness and depth and achievements are concerned. It is a synthesis that judges everything else, whereas nothing, neither the Chinese, nor the Indians, nor the Marxists, nor the Muslims, in so far as they lie outside it, are capable of judging it. For it is a fact that in the Graeco-Roman-Judaeo-Christian synthesis there has been far greater curiosity, interest and study of these other peoples and cultures than these peoples and cultures have ever manifested towards it. The present Symposium is an instance in point. It is conceivable that a Buddhist or Confucian or Marxist or Muslim institution of higher learning (say, al-Azhar, or a national Muslim university) would hold a symposium on God and Man in Contemporary Christian Thought, to which it would invite competent scholars and thinkers from the Christian world to cover the whole gamut of Christian interests in perfect freedom? It was possible for the American University of Beirut to sponsor the Islamic Symposium, in part because this University is rooted in the university tradition of the West where the mind's interests are coextensive with the whole of being. These other points of view treat Christianity either as nonexisting or as dangerous or as of no concern to them; whereas nothing is outside the range of interests of the mind in the Graeco-Roman-Judaeo-Christian cumulative tradition. At great universities in Europe and America there are whole institutes-or at least whole departments-dedicated to the study of other religions, cultures and civilizations; whereas I doubt that there is an Islamic or Buddhist or Marxist great university which includes a separate institute or department for the study of Christianity, in which scholars who really know Christianity from within would teach in freedom. And if such institutes existed I doubt that there would be public interest in them or that the authorities would encourage the development of such interest. There is thus a marked difference between the insatiable universal interests in all being on the part of the Graeco-Roman-Judaeco-Christian civilization, and. the relatively limited interest in things in all other civili­zations. The ultimate grounds for the Graeco-Roman-Judaeo-Christian interest in all being is the Christian doctrine of the Divine Logos and the twofold Aristotelian principle that the human mind is by nature adequate to all being and that scientific knowledge is of the universal. Let no man philosophize therefore before laying all his cards on the table as regards the cumulative, cultural synthesis that serves as the ultimate springboard for all his judgments. For you have no idea how much depends on being precise precisely on this point.

Christians may differ among themselves, always of course within limits, as to their ultimate criteria of judgment, but the point is unless one were clear in his own mind as to his own criteria, and unless one laid them all on the table explicitly in advance, dialogue then would turn out to be a kind of monologue (the dialogue of the deaf) or a fabric of hypocrisy and equivocation. It is perfectly obvious to me that these five criteria which I have just set forth determine everything about the man or the culture or religion engaged in dialogue. Be perfectly clear in your own mind-and with others-on where you stand concerning the nature of ultimate reality-- is it an unknown, a thing, a generality, an idea, or a living, existing person; concerning the status of the truth and its accessibility to the inquiring human mind; concerning the reality, nature and importance of freedom; concerning Jesus Christ; and concerning the kind of integral civilization from within which you speak and through which you seek and judge things .Be perfectly clear first on these five things, and then you are in a position to enter into constructive dialogue with others. And nothing in your stand should be arbitrary or dogmatic-everything should be arguable, everything subject to discussion and proof. Thus in my own case, I believe I am in a position to "prove" every one of my own criteria, in the only sense in which"proof" in these matters is possible, namely, by setting forth in simplicity and detail the 'Kind of reasons which appear to me to be overwhelminglyconvincing as regards the validity of each one of the criteria. This is of course not the place nor the occasion to carry out this demonstration. 

When Islam and Christianity first determine and express their ultimate criteria of judgment-and I believe whatever criteria they use, they must include among them the five I have just enumrated-then a dialogue between them could be most fruitful. But one thing must be added to the criteria of judgment, and that is the spirit and the atmosphere in which the dialogue is conducted. It is quite clear that the spirit must be one of love and forbearance, one of patience and mutual respect; it must include a real, outreaching desire to understand the other's point of view, and the determination that even if no understanding or agreement whatever were reached, people would still part from one another as friends, trusting one another's integrity and good faith. Questions of atmosphere and spirit are most subtle-they submit to ineffable rules of their own. 

Can authoritative representatives of Christianity and Islam ever meet and spend a month or a year together in the sincere attempt to understand each other's religion? I am not thinking of individual Muslims and Chris­tians, or even individual Muslim and Christian thinkers, meeting in con­ferences or under the aegis of some institute or university; this is possible and has happened, although I doubt that any good came out of it. I am thinking of the Sheikh of al-Azhar and the highest Muslim authorities in Iran and Pakistan, for instance, meeting for a whole month or year with the Pope, the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the highest authority in Lutheranism, among other Christian authori­ties, with a view to holding a most humble and open dialogue between them. This thought appears preposterous and fantastic, but the mere consideration of why it appears preposterous should be most instructive. I do not believe such a summit meeting is possible for a long time to come-maybe not for a thousand years; in fact it may never be possible. But there are definite truths, certainly known by God, as to the precise relations that obtain between Islam and Christianity; is it sacrilege to seek to know what God already knows about these relations ? Why should such a quest be sacrilege? Everybody knows that Islam is rooted in Judaism and Christianity; should we not bring the best and deepest scholarship, together with the best good will, to bear upon ascertaining these roots exactly as they are in themselves, namely, exactly as known and realized by God? If a meeting for a creative dialogue under the holy spirit of God is impossible in the course of history between the highest authorities in Christianity and Islam, certainly such a meeting is possible in eternity, where, I suppose, all secrets will be revealed and all hearts are pure. What is the agenda for such a meeting whether held in time or in eternity?

I believe the agenda for the deepest dialogue between Christianity and Islam must include the following items: 

1.  Each religion first makes known in full explicitness its own criteria of judgment 

2.  How the Bible and the Koran were each formed. 

3.  The intention of the Bible and the intention of the Koran.  

4.  The contents of the two Scriptures. 

5.  The nature of revelation according to the Bible and Christian teaching and according to the Koran and Islamic teaching. 

6.  The nature of prophecy according to the Bible and Christian teaching and    according to the Koran and Islamic teaching.  

7.  The removal of every prejudice or misunderstanding by one religion of the other. 

8.  The significance of the fact that the Bible came down to us originally in Hebrew, Greek and Syriac, whereas the Koran came down to us originally in Arabic. 

9.   The significance of the fact that the Word of God in Christianity is a person, while in Islam it is a word. 

10. The actual origins and roots of Islam, as a religion, in Judaism and Christianity. 

11. Why Muslims never read the Bible, whereas Christianity has fully

incorporated the Old Testament in its theology, worship and liturgy?  

12. Which portions of the Koran may be singled out to show that in them

there is a closer approximation to Christianity than in others ? 

13. How the difference in the early development of the two religions stamped  their character and differentiated them from each other ?  

14.  The problem of unity (tawhid) in the three Abrahamic religions and between them.

15. The significance of the fact that Christianity and Islam spread fcr the most part among different peoples and cultures, and how these different peoples and cultures affected their respective characters.

16. The ontological differences between four kinds of relations: (a) Chris­tianity's relations to Judaism, (b) Christianity's relations to Islam, (c) Islam's relations to Judaism, and (d) Islam's relations to Christianity.

17. Christianity's obligations towards Islam as having come after it, and obligations towards Christianity as having come before it.

18. Must Muhammad's limited knowledge of Christianity be binding Islam for all eternity, or may this knowledge be further supplemented today by a full and firsthand knowledge of Christianity ?

19. Jesus Christ in Christianity and Jesus Christ in Islam. 

20. The significance of the Church. 

21. The significance of the separation between the temporal order and the spiritual order in Christianity and the absence of this separation in Islam. 

22. The significance of sufism for Islam and Christianity. 

23. Reconsideration by each religion of its own original criteria of judgment. 

Doubtless these topics can be considered-indeed they may all have been considered-by individual thinkers here and there, but my point is whether a day will ever come when authoritative representatives of Christianity and Islam will meet and discuss them in a constructive dialogue between themselves. Apart from any question of an agenda for a meeting or a dialogue with (of course a fantastic idea) the Pope and the Patriarch and the Archbishop of Canterbury, these items are a listing of so many essential problems which Islam, to be at peace with itself and the world, must at some point raise and face. They touch on more than the "relations" between the two religions, as though Islam's "relations" to Christianity were casual or external-they touch on the essence of Islam, since Islam came upon the scene of history after Christianity and since it explicitly relates itself to Christianity. Islam cannot determine them by itself but only by meeting authoritative Christian representatives and taking them up with them.

For, in general, nobody knows a religion better than that religion knows itself (and if somebody from outside knew a religion better than its adherents, then we are in the presence of an odd situation which calls for a very serious investigation), and meeting between it and another religion can only take place through authoritative representatives. Muslims and Christians can meet on every level-and in recent years they have often met-to discuss and agree on a thousand themes, and to cooperate in a thousand ways-in economic, political, scientific, developmental, literary, philoso­phical, national, international, and other matters. I have no doubt this meeting will continue fruitfully and peacefully. But I am here raising the question of the relations between Islam and Christianity as religions, namely, as self-absolutizations with respect to God, man, being and the final things. And I am assuming that these two religions are going to continue in existence, as religions, and are not going to be overwhelmed by economics, politics, and other purely secular matters. The agenda I have projected is indis­pensable for the self-knowledge of Islam, and the items on this agenda can never be settled except in a meeting between the two religions; for, I repeat, nobody, as a rule, knows a religion more than that religion knows itself. This agenda has never been raised in a meeting between Christianity and Islam on the deepest and highest level. If, as I suspect, it can never be be raised between them, then we are before a very strange thing: that which is of the essence is nevertheless incapable of being raised or resolved. The only conclusion is that, if we cannot foresee the time and the place where such a propitious meeting can take place, then the whole of history itself is the time and place where this meeting is all the time taking place. The dialogue is not deliberate and planned-the dialogue is the rough-and-tumble of history itself. Every one of these items has been in a sense an active topic of discussion throughout history; in history's own strange and indirect way of discussing it, namely, through fateful decisions on the destinies of individuals and of whole cultures and peoples. But God already fully knows the truth of these things, and I am asking whether it is all God's will that we struggling mortals could steal a glimpse into His mind. So Long as Christianity and Islam are denied the possibility of a healing fundamental dialogue between them, in which a serious attempt is made at uncovering the whole truth, then  I can only interpret this fate as serving a higher wisdom which God of course knows and wills but which I do not understand. Let history then, Under God, keep on drifting and fumbling and let each man in perfect love and good will, keep on holding fast to the best he knows.

Charles H.Malik

Rabiya,Lebanon, September 13,1971