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9 comments:
Dear Brother Hamza,
Assalamualaikum,
Very interesting podcast and blog. As regards the Trinity, I'd appreciate your comments on the following passage from Frithjof Schuon's book "Understanding Islam". As you may know, Mr Schuon was also known as Shaikh Isa Nuruddin and his "Perennialist" school and disciples such as Martin Lings and SH Nasr have a considerable influence over certain intellectual Muslims. The passage reads as follows (my own comments are in square brackets):
"When the Quran affirms that the Messiah is not God it means that he is not "a god" other than God [so he is-naudhibillah-God Himself???], or that he is not God qua the earthly Messiah; and when the Quran rejects the dogma of the Trinity it means that there is no triad in "God as such," that is, in the Absolute, which is beyond all distinctions [so there is a triad in the "non-Absolute/relative God"???]. Finally, when the Quran appears to deny the death of Christ, it can be understood to mean that in reality Christ vanquished death, whereas the Jews believed they had killed the Christ in his very essence; here the truth of the symbol prevails over the truth of the fact [so the Quran's denial of Jesus' crucifiction is not a fact???] in the sense that a spiritual negation takes the form of a material negation."
To me, the above seems to be a negation of all orthodox Muslim belief about the the (non) divinity of Jesus (a.s.), the Trinity and his (non) crucifiction. However, as you are better informed about the nuances of this issue, your comments would be appreciated.
Also, as a general point, have you studied the Perennilaist writings and their acceptability within traditional Islam? Although some Muslims assert that they express profound truths about the highest aspects of Islam, my feeling is that they relegate Islam and its doctrines below the doctrines/beliefs of Hinduism/Christianity/Neoplatonism.
Part 2:
The Qur'anic verses regarding the divinity of Jesus are as follows:
And they say: the Beneficent hath taken unto Himself a Son. Assuredly ye utter a disastrous thing, whereby almost the heavens are torn, and the earth is split asunder and the mountains fall to ruins, that ye ascribe to the Beneficent a son, when it is not meet for (the Majesty of) the Beneficent that He should chose a son. There is none in the heavens and the earth but cometh unto the Beneficent as a slave. (Qur’an 19:88-93)
This shows that God did not beget a Son, this is further cemented by Surah Ikhlas.
"Christ, the son of Mary, was no more than a messenger; many were the messengers that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They had both to eat their (daily) food. See how God makes His signs clear to them; yet see in what ways they are deluded away from the truth!" (5:75).
The Qur'an were clearly addressing the Docetist collyrhidian sect of Christianity in Arabia at the time. Collyrhidians, as docestists believed that Jesus and Mary were in a trinity with God the Father, and that they were spirits and not bodies, and that their bodies were illusions, so God in the Qur'an refutes this belief simply by saying:
They had both to eat their (daily) food.
By saying this, God is also emphasising his Majesty. He is Far Exalted from eating, the Islamic God is a God that is free of need.
See how God gives his signs, the evidence of the resurrection actually leads one to investigate if Islam is true or not because Islam makes a theological claim in regards to the crucifixion event.
In response to the view of the resurrection. Islam can accomodate for various interpretations.
a. Jesus was put on the cross but did not die. This view can be accurately deduced from the Arabic itself within Surah 4:157 It was thus made to appear as though he had died, but he was kept alive by God. "It was made to appear to them" as the Qur'an says - thus this shows that God miraculously kept him alive. If you actually look into history, there are plenty of reasons why it is reasonable to say that Jesus didn't die on the cross.
For example, the spear thrust is noted by a lot of Christian scholars to be a fable, even the early church fathers rejected this. Dr. Raymond Brown in his two volume work The Death of the Messiah has stated that this was a later insertion to prove the docetists wrong.
Scholars who say that he died do so based on what the historical evidence shows. The earliest strada of evidence attesting to Jesus' death on the cross was 5 years after the Crucifixion event. So you must ask, how will they know? The cause of Jesus' death is unknown.
You will then look into the gospels that describe the event of Jesus' crucifixion, and you will see that there is an evolution in the gospels, from Mark to John, Mark being actually written 35 YEARS after Jesus' crucifixion, and John around 75 YEARS after Jesus' crucifixion, when you look into the gospel account of Mark, you cannot be 100% convinced that Jesus did die - Pilate was shocked that he had died so soon, there was no death blow done on Jesus like there was with every other crucified person (breaking of the legs and spear thrust). Jesus was only on the cross for 3 hours, however, the work of two christian scholars Arav and someone else, Roosle or something, have shown that it actually takes 3-7 days for someone to physically die on the cross. This does make you raise doubts, which the Qur'an has confirmed. Raymond Brown (by the way, he's according to Christian Scholars themselves such as William Lane Craig, one of the best N.T scholars of our present time), believes that the writers of the gospels after Mark (Mark is used as a source for all of the other gospels by the way), had tried to remove the doubts that could arise from the reader, the same doubts that Pilate the experienced person had.
b. The traditional view that someone was made to look like Jesus.
c. The Qur'an is not denying the idea that Jesus actually died, or even resurrected from the dead for that matter, the passage is just denying the fact that the Jews say that THEY had crucified him, because it was actually the Romans who crucified him. This interpretation is supported by Dr. Kenneth Cragg, Dr. Timothy Winter (Abdal Hakim Murad of Cambridge University) and others.
So yes, the quotation you have cited is plausible.
d. Jesus died in the body but not in the spirit, the spirit was assumed into heaven and the body of Jesus was misplaced in the wrong tomb or eaten by birds and wolves like other crucified bodies.
Brian,
Thank you for your comments and for providing some interesting references.
As regards F Schuon's views on these issues, in another book, "The fullness of Christ: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity", he is much more explicit. For example, he states that it is a "historical fact[s]" that Jesus had both a divine and human nature. In addition to this, we read: "Divinity: Christ is really God. In Him, through His Name, Deification is effected."
In the view of Schuon, there are two levels of God: the Absolute (Beyond being) and the "relatively Absolute". This so-called "lesser" Absolute coincides with the "Personal God" who sends Revelations and it is also at this level which he situates the Christian Trinity (which - as can been seen from the above quotes and his other writings- he fully subscribes to and defends). How-and if- this notion of God can be reconciled with the Islamic Tawhid is a valid question.
The fact that Schuon and his Perennialist disciples seem to enjoy a certain prestige among Western Muslims due to their promotion of traditional Islam and their philosphical/intellectual approach, a proper review of Perennialist premises and their implications for Muslims would seem to be a worthy exercise.
It is a historical fact that he had a both human nature and divine nature?
Brother, they have a good way of 'fashioning' their view of Jesus' divinity, they are calling it a fact based on history, as if it is historically certain and unarguable that Jesus had a divine and human nature.
Many people can argue with that 'fact' which is nothing more than a personal attestation based on his own understanding and interpretation of this issue. It is a historical fact...according to HIM.
This is where Adnan Rashid's work will be useful. Is Schuon's claims for real? Unitarian Christians will disagree with Schuon, Unitarian Messianic Jews will disagree, in fact, even atheists will disagree with the interpretations that he puts forwards to be a 'fact'.
"In the view of Schuon, there are two levels of God: the Absolute (Beyond being) and the "relatively Absolute". This so-called "lesser" Absolute coincides with the "Personal God" who sends Revelations and it is also at this level which he situates the Christian Trinity "
Reply: I think it is important to differentiate philosophy based on certain theological attestations which can be explained in a logical MANNER, and what God says about Himself. Schuon's view is a philosophy based on the premise: God is a trinity, now I am going to philosophically explain this.
Of course, he can philosophically explain this but again, it's important to differentiate between human philosophy and the clear statements made by God Himself. To further cement my point, we could have a heretic sect, docetist christian who explains their point rationally by inferring certain attributes to God that were not explicitely stated - i.e ' Jesus is an Illusion, he is just a being in the spirit, he's not a real human being', and then they go onto explain it by saying "Yes, Jesus ate food, but it was all an illusion, God made it look as though Jesus was a walking human when he was just a spirit". I don't believe we should infer the unknown about God, we should just listen to what is made explicit in the scriptures, and what matches the normal concept of God - a Transcendental Being.
Jesus was an orthodox Rabbi by practice, Jews are strictly monotheistic. Whether or not people go onto believe he's divine or not is not something we should hold the Holy Spirit responsible for, because it needs to be explicitely stated by Jesus.
Even if Jesus did say "I am God, Worship me" I still wouldn't feel obliged to believe because I think it is important to emphasise that we cannot be 100% certain that Jesus would have spoke those words, and will thus be relying upon the word of Man.
part 2 of the response:
The Tauhid is very explicit, the Muslim God has no partners.
We don't believe God needs to split up into three equal persons, and rightly so. Through scripture, we can deduce that the 'divine Jesus' and the Holy Spirit is NOT all-knowing because only the Father knows about the hour. This is not what I call a perfect harmony between the trinity. Sure, it could be argued that they all have different roles, but the question is if you are willing to take the view that God is deficient in intelligence when manifested, keeping the same NATURE. (one divine nature, three seperate persons). God in His nature is all-knowing however. (Try not to fall into the trap where you say, "yeah, God is all knowing, God as a WHOLE is all-knowing where all members of the trinity are included" because it raises a bigger problem, in that a trinitarian knows that 1. Divine nature of Jesus and Holy Spirit are...God. Their NATURE is God. 2. God is all knowing. 3. They are not all-knowing....therefore, we are full-on happy to say that God in a particular person but OF THE SAME NATURE, is not-all knowing.
Without Holy Spirit being All-knowing, THERE IS NO TRINITY. No logician can say that the Holy Spirit is God, the 'Father' is all-knowing only in His nature.
I was always a unitarian Christian at heart before I became a muslim (recently became one).
I'm sorry if I repeated myself a few times, trying to reconcile the trinity is forcing my mind to do triangles.
Much respect to our trinitarian Christian brothers though, they do worship an Abrahamic God and have an admirable moral inclination and inner desire to keep to the 10 commandments.
I couldn't cut God up like the way Schoun does. I totally agree with your conclusion. It is good to engage in dialogue and respect like they have, but their theological beliefs just simply cannot be 'reconciled' (as you put it) with ours.
Assalamualaikum Brian,
I think you make some excellent points, especially as regards the decisive difference between what God says about Himself and what people-even very intelligent people- say about Him. We must never lose sight of this fact.
For Muslims, obviously, the most authentic and reliable sources for learning about God are the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad (s.a.w.s).
However, the Perennialists do not distinguish between-or give precedence to- such Islamic sources and the scriptures and sayings of mystics of other religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christanity hold equal status in their eyes. The reason for this is that, for the Perennialists, all religions are basically equal and divided into an esoteric and an exoteric realm. Although there are differences at the exoteric level (such as between the Islamic Tawhid, Buddhist Void, and the Chritian Trinity), at the esoteric level, they say, the truth is the same. Hence the title of Schuon's first book "The Transcendent Unity of Religions".
Also, the ultimate source of authority for the Perennialists is the "Intellect", which they claim is a "Divine" faculty present in every individual and is equivalent, for a "realised" individual (e.g such as a Guenon and a Schuon), to what outward Revelation is for "average" believers. In effect, this amounts to claiming direct access to Divine Truth outside and independent of Revelation and the ability to have a "God's eye view" of all religions and their true meaning and purpose. This also has consequences as regards the understanding and practice of the Shari'ah (which would take too long to go into here).
Essentially, Perennialist "metaphysics" is derived from the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta (a school of Hinduism), which holds that Brahman (God) is True; the world is illusion (Maya); and the (individual) soul (Atma) is not different to Brahman. The Perennialists interpret all other religions through this perspective and also dub this the "Supreme Identity", which is why they have no problem accepting the "fact" of the "divine nature" of Christ. In fact, Schuon himself considers the beliefs of the Orthodox branch of Christianity the most authentic and "orthodox"(compared to Catholicism and Protestanism).
While such beliefs may be interesting in themselves(variants of the "Perennial Philosophy" have been around for centuries in Europe), what is truly strange is that Schuon entered (or as he would put it "settled into") Islam in the 1930's and many of his disciples are Muslims who have written many books on Islam from the "Perennialist" point of view.
However, the ultimate paradigm/criterion of the "Perennial Philosophy" is not Islam. Rather, Islam itself is judged by the criteria of, and then assigned a place, in the system of the Perennial Philosophy (as interpreted by Schuon). The fact that this means denying some of Islam's essential characteristics (such as Islam's universality as a message for all of mankind (Perennialists claim Islam-like other currently valid religions-is limited to a certain geography and spiritual/psychological "mentality") does not appear to concern the Perennialists.
For the above reasons, Muslim readers of Schuon and his followers need to be cognizant of what they are being presented with.
Salam brother
Perennialists from how you are describing it seem to be like those of the Bahai faith. They take aspects from every single main world religion.
Much respect to Bahai's but I think it was Bahaiullah or Gulam Mirza Ahmad who gave a challenge to mankind to try and match one word like his new holy scripture in an attempt to trump the concept of the Qur'anic challenge of one chapter..hehe. 1 word!
I am not too keen on a religion that isn't intrinsically organised, although their way of life has a beautiful meaning and emphasises that element of similarity that we all have, which is beautiful and I think all muslims should use this ethos when approaching non-muslims in interfaith dialogue.
I think that their core beliefs of the 'individual' is more problematic than unifying, in practice. It's a personal pursuit, but that's it. It's not so much a world view that is practically fit for the world as a whole.
Us muslims have a similar concept, as a Hadith Qudsi states “I was a Treasure unknown then I desired to be known so I created a creation to which I made Myself known; then they knew Me.” This could be paired up with "I am as My servant thinks I am " from Hadith Qudsi.
These verses make me want to know and and strive towards God more and more.
So what we actively come to possess is divine knowledge too, it is an individual pursuit, however a pursuit based on a fixed concept, the Tauhid. So just as their goal is the pursuit to become a realised individual, us muslims' pursuit is centred around the Tauhid. I suppose this is where we differ from them. I think that their core beliefs of the 'individual' is more problematic than unifying, in practice. It's a personal pursuit, but that's it, it's the perrenialists just follow a personal religion. It's not so much an ideology that is practically fit for the world as a whole.
So their views, although godly, are very relative to the individual and what is meant to unify actually separates in reality because the autonomy given to the thinkers of God are far too great for them to handle effectively when it comes to 'what is good for unifying the society?' This answer of course is the Shariah Law - it's constructive for sure.
The problem really happens when the philosophy turns into a theology. Which is the case with Christianity and trinitarianism along with Hinduism. This to me is a 'Living' display of the failure in their beliefs. You can see that they have no sound premise that the muslims have.
lol it seems like I have just explained your conclusion in the light of your paragraphs. I only looked at your conclusions now.
I don't really know anything about Perennial Philosophy other than what you have told me, but I think their beliefs are interesting because it does of course share a great aspect of the Spirit of Islam.
Assalaamu 'Alaikum waRahamtullaahi waBarakaatuh to all brothers
Brother Brian
Do you know the Sanad of the Hadith Qudsi of unknown treasure. I intend to ask which of the Mahdditheen have documented it in their collections with Sanad? I narrated it to a Muslim brother living in Pakistan a few days ago. It is very important to take care of Sanad.
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