The Study Of Midle East
That the seminal insights and realizations of Islamic faith when pursued to their ultimate level of significance, prove to be congruent with the Christian understanding of Cod and the world, and man's relation to them. Further, these insights find a more adequate and profound expression in Christian than in Muslim terms. Jan riled, he declares that Muslims arc in reality Christians who have never pursued ? heir religious experience far enough to recognize that fact, and his effort is to achieve such recognition on both sides of the Muslim - Christian religious boundary. Thus in the final analysis Crag's purpose remains evangelical, for in spite of his insight into the Muslim soul and his genuine appreciation for the urges that move there, Crag ultimately believes that Muslims . should be Christians and that only in becoming so will they be Muslim in the fullest sense.
Crag has penned some of the most evocative and appealing work on Islam as a religion that has ever been done in English. His contribution is especially valuable as a means of combating the negative view of Islamic faith so prevalent among the generality of Westerners. Nonetheless there is, from the scholarly standpoint, a fundamental flaw in his efforts. Cragg’s argument is developed by deliberately seeking and finding Christian meanings in Islamic experiences and doctrines both his interpretation of the nature and structure of Islam and the foundations of the "dialogue** with Muslims that he seeks arc achieved by Christianizing the Islamic, by insisting that the Islamic religious tradition means not what Muslims have always thought it to mean, but something else that Christians are in a better position to understand. Such a manner of reasoning docs extreme violence to the historical reality of the Islamic tradition by forcing it into categories of interpretation and meaning drawn from a different historical stream of piety and experience. That which Cragg describes is in the final analysis not Islam but the product of his own wishful, though doubtless sincere, religious striving. No matter how thorough or how clever the effort to find congruities between Muslim doctrines and views and those of Christians may be, the stubborn fact remains that Muslims arc not Christians. As a way of looking at the world and at the nature and significance of human existence, Islam has a peculiar character of its own. The uniqueness of the Islamic world view is somewhat obscured by the fact that Muslims use terms and concepts in common with Christians and Jews, but the place which these notions find in the total structure of Islamic piety is often radically different from that which they occupy in the competing religious perspectives Of paramount importance to students of religion is the meaning of Islam for Muslims, and that meaning will be seen, it may be suggested, only by considering the Islamic tradition in its own terms as an integral whole.
A second branch of the movement that has broken the link with evangelical motives completely is exemplified in the work of W.G. Smith. Perhaps the most relevant of his works in this connection is the booklet The Faith of Other Men (Smith, I9G2), and his essay "Comparative religion, whither and why?" (Smith, 1959). In Smith's eyes it is arrogance supreme to call upon the Muslim (or anyone else) to redirect his faith and thus to fail to appreciate that the divine communicates itself to Muslims through the symbols and forms of Islamic piety, just as it communicates itself to ethers through their respective symbols and forms. His concern is to understand the faith of other men, not to transform it, but this concern itself a religious matter and a moral duty. Thus there is a strong clement of theological interest, though not evangelical motivation, running through Smith's writing.
Taking note of the fact that religious diversity Is characteristic of the human race as a whole and religious exclusiveness is characteristic of that segment of mankind who have been affected by the se-called prophetic religions, Smith holds that three different types of questions arc to be asked about this diversity. The first is a scientific question, to ask in what the diversity consists, and how and why it has come to be. The second is a theological question, to ask how each religious group accounts to itself in its own normative framework for the fact that others do not share. its faith. Finally, there is a moral question, to ask how one should behave toward those of different faith. It is the last that most occupies Smith's attention, for underlying all his work in comparative religion is the drive toward world community and preoccupation with the means of achieving it. Smith holds that the precondition for world community is a proper sympathetic (participative?) understanding of the basic values that form the foundations of the world's cultures, and further, that these values are approached nowhere more immediately than in the study of the religious faiths of mankind. Thus the study of comparative religion, of which the study of Islam is but a part, is in his view the most compelling urgency of our lime. Such thinking ranges in its implications far beyond the relatively narrow field of Islamic, and its basic thrust is perhaps ultimately religious and theological.
In his more recent writings Smith has shown increasing interest in the broad issues that arise from the comparative study of religion, especially in their theological and religious implications, for the scholar himself, and his interest in the more technical aspects of Islamic* has accordingly declined (Smith, 1963). Nonetheless, Smith has made one of the foremost contributions to the understanding of Islam in this generation, and his influence has touched many others in both oriental and theological studies. His works that treat of trends in the contemporary Islamic world rank as standard reference volumes, impressive both for their breadth of learning and the acuteness of their analysis.
By choosing Cragg and Smith as examples of variations on the irenic approach to Islam, we do not intend to ignore the numerous others who should be classified in the same category with them. Mention might be made of Montgomery Watt, whose books (Watt, 1963, 1969) are animated by the irenic spirit, as is Geoffrey Parrinder’s study of Jesus in the Qur’an (Parrinder, 1965). The point here is only to underline the existence of this approach, which has brought about a revived interest in Islamic Religiousness, and to demonstrate some of the forms it has taken.
That the seminal insights and realizations of Islamic faith when pursued to their ultimate level of significance, prove to be congruent with the Christian understanding of Cod and the world, and man's relation to them. Further, these insights find a more adequate and profound expression in Christian than in Muslim terms. Jan riled, he declares that Muslims arc in reality Christians who have never pursued ? heir religious experience far enough to recognize that fact, and his effort is to achieve such recognition on both sides of the Muslim - Christian religious boundary. Thus in the final analysis Crag's purpose remains evangelical, for in spite of his insight into the Muslim soul and his genuine appreciation for the urges that move there, Crag ultimately believes that Muslims . should be Christians and that only in becoming so will they be Muslim in the fullest sense.
Crag has penned some of the most evocative and appealing work on Islam as a religion that has ever been done in English. His contribution is especially valuable as a means of combating the negative view of Islamic faith so prevalent among the generality of Westerners. Nonetheless there is, from the scholarly standpoint, a fundamental flaw in his efforts. Cragg’s argument is developed by deliberately seeking and finding Christian meanings in Islamic experiences and doctrines both his interpretation of the nature and structure of Islam and the foundations of the "dialogue** with Muslims that he seeks arc achieved by Christianizing the Islamic, by insisting that the Islamic religious tradition means not what Muslims have always thought it to mean, but something else that Christians are in a better position to understand. Such a manner of reasoning docs extreme violence to the historical reality of the Islamic tradition by forcing it into categories of interpretation and meaning drawn from a different historical stream of piety and experience. That which Cragg describes is in the final analysis not Islam but the product of his own wishful, though doubtless sincere, religious striving. No matter how thorough or how clever the effort to find congruities between Muslim doctrines and views and those of Christians may be, the stubborn fact remains that Muslims arc not Christians. As a way of looking at the world and at the nature and significance of human existence, Islam has a peculiar character of its own. The uniqueness of the Islamic world view is somewhat obscured by the fact that Muslims use terms and concepts in common with Christians and Jews, but the place which these notions find in the total structure of Islamic piety is often radically different from that which they occupy in the competing religious perspectives Of paramount importance to students of religion is the meaning of Islam for Muslims, and that meaning will be seen, it may be suggested, only by considering the Islamic tradition in its own terms as an integral whole.
A second branch of the movement that has broken the link with evangelical motives completely is exemplified in the work of W.G. Smith. Perhaps the most relevant of his works in this connection is the booklet The Faith of Other Men (Smith, I9G2), and his essay "Comparative religion, whither and why?" (Smith, 1959). In Smith's eyes it is arrogance supreme to call upon the Muslim (or anyone else) to redirect his faith and thus to fail to appreciate that the divine communicates itself to Muslims through the symbols and forms of Islamic piety, just as it communicates itself to ethers through their respective symbols and forms. His concern is to understand the faith of other men, not to transform it, but this concern itself a religious matter and a moral duty. Thus there is a strong clement of theological interest, though not evangelical motivation, running through Smith's writing.
Taking note of the fact that religious diversity Is characteristic of the human race as a whole and religious exclusiveness is characteristic of that segment of mankind who have been affected by the se-called prophetic religions, Smith holds that three different types of questions arc to be asked about this diversity. The first is a scientific question, to ask in what the diversity consists, and how and why it has come to be. The second is a theological question, to ask how each religious group accounts to itself in its own normative framework for the fact that others do not share. its faith. Finally, there is a moral question, to ask how one should behave toward those of different faith. It is the last that most occupies Smith's attention, for underlying all his work in comparative religion is the drive toward world community and preoccupation with the means of achieving it. Smith holds that the precondition for world community is a proper sympathetic (participative?) understanding of the basic values that form the foundations of the world's cultures, and further, that these values are approached nowhere more immediately than in the study of the religious faiths of mankind. Thus the study of comparative religion, of which the study of Islam is but a part, is in his view the most compelling urgency of our lime. Such thinking ranges in its implications far beyond the relatively narrow field of Islamic, and its basic thrust is perhaps ultimately religious and theological.
In his more recent writings Smith has shown increasing interest in the broad issues that arise from the comparative study of religion, especially in their theological and religious implications, for the scholar himself, and his interest in the more technical aspects of Islamic* has accordingly declined (Smith, 1963). Nonetheless, Smith has made one of the foremost contributions to the understanding of Islam in this generation, and his influence has touched many others in both oriental and theological studies. His works that treat of trends in the contemporary Islamic world rank as standard reference volumes, impressive both for their breadth of learning and the acuteness of their analysis.
By choosing Cragg and Smith as examples of variations on the irenic approach to Islam, we do not intend to ignore the numerous others who should be classified in the same category with them. Mention might be made of Montgomery Watt, whose books (Watt, 1963, 1969) are animated by the irenic spirit, as is Geoffrey Parrinder’s study of Jesus in the Qur’an (Parrinder, 1965). The point here is only to underline the existence of this approach, which has brought about a revived interest in Islamic Religiousness, and to demonstrate some of the forms it has taken.
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