A Christian View of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
A talk for the Leicester Christian-Muslim dialogue group, 2010
I begin my repeating my assigned title — A Christian View of the Prophet Muhammad (sall’allahu aleyhi wasalaam) — I am happy to adopt the Islamic attribution of respect for the Prophet and highlight my poor Arabic pronunciation. I will not however, be using this marker of respect throughout my talk for a number of reasons, which indeed is why I have been asked to talk on this subject. No doubt you will add your own respects whenever I mention the Prophet or merely, respectfully, Muhammad.
‘There is an issue that disturbs Muslims more than any other in their approach to Christians. It is the silence and reserve of Christians regarding Muhammad’ (p. ix, Cragg, ‘Muhammad’)
‘The question of Muhammad for Christians need not be answered because it cannot properly be put. Or, differently stated, the only feasible answer is to refuse one’ (p. 2,3, ‘Muhammad’)
One of the things that I have learnt from Jesus, not the only thing I hope, is answering a question with another question. So, a question for Muslim friends — ‘Do you celebrate Mawlid?’, or do you agree with Allama Mahmud Alloosi’s statement that Muhammad is the root and the world is the branch? There are different Muslim answers to these and there are different Christian views on Muhammad, and even Jesus.
I remember several years ago talking to my friend and colleague Ataullah Siddiqui as I began this work. One of the issues that he flagged up as critical in current Christian-Muslim relations was negative Christian attitudes to the Prophet Muhammad, this was before I had read any lives of the Prophet, so I can’t say that I was particularly clued up about Muhammad. However, having no personal antipathy to the Prophet, despite critical theological differences, when I wrote up my notes of the meeting, including Ataullah’s references to offensive remarks about Muhammad, I added PBUH after his name to distance myself from the accusations. My Christian colleagues pointed out that it was unwise for a Christian to do this as it could cause concerns amongst fellow-Christians about giving inappropriate status to Muhammad and lead Muslims to think that the writer had converted to Islam. There was no conversation about how Muslims might feel about Christians not showing respect to Muhammad. Perhaps it is a case of, to use a theologically inappropriate saying, ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t!’
So, here I am now, and I want to give a good answer to what is almost an impossible question. I stand, in spirit, with Muslim friends and colleagues every day, in my work, Christian devotions and study and in the church community and wonder how a Muslim would react to this Bible text, hymn and sermon, this news item or statement on the Christian Muslim Forum website. I can scarcely recall thinking of Muslims as ‘other’. I am painfully honest when with my Christian ‘family’ and my Muslim ‘family’ and fight the safe urge to keep quiet. As I often say when I am in uncomfortable Christian-only spaces that can’t see why the Muslims should be there if we are talking about them, or even trying to talk for them ‘the Muslims are here with me’. I want to be in this uncomfortable, risky, impossible place which illustrates the Kingdom of God.
As I was telling one of our Pentecostal Christian volunteers recently, there is a narrow middle ground for radical real appreciation and valuing of each other and each other’s tradition, scripture, spirituality and even theology. A space where we place side by side what is best and most meaningful in each tradition, like ‘incarnation’ and ‘jihad’, emphasing both commonality and critical, dividing difference and build on these things together. We need to follow the radical risk-taking examples of Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad, we create the unnecessary difficulties around us because we pull back from being their radical followers and radical thinkers too. Religion and theology are supposed to be radical!
So, what of a Christian view of the Prophet Muhammad. I can easily share a range of Christian views, though I think you may be interested to hear my own view. I cannot speak on behalf of Christians generally or even any other Christian.
A useful paper has been produced by Keith Ward in ‘Abraham’s Children: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Conversation’ (2005). He opens with this useful introduction — ‘The history of Christian assessments of Muhammad is, I regret to say, largely one of calumny and misrepresentation. The reasons for this are not far to seek. The Qur’an forbids Muslims to speak of a ‘Son of God’, or to say that ‘God is (one of) three’. Since these themes are central to Christian belief, it has seemed to many Christians that the revelation to Muhammad must have been false, and therefore that the Prophet must have been deluded, if not actually wilfully opposed to Christian belief.
‘In consequence, there has not been much effort to attempt a positive appreciation of the Prophet, which catches something of the Muslim reverence for him, or of the ideal of human life that he represents for Muslims. The general approach has rather been one of depicting him as a heretic [or worse].’ He concludes this part of his paper thus, ‘… it is too embarrassing to continue with records of such attempts to demonize Muhammad. They exist, and Christians must repent and ask forgiveness for their own stupidity and spitefulness.’ I agree wholeheartedly, as neighbours and friends of Muslims we need to do better.
Ward holds up Bishop Kenneth Cragg as a good example — ‘he accepts Muhammad as a true prophet of the unity, sovereignty, demand and judgement of God.’ He goes on ‘Christians can see [Muhammad] as truly inspired by God, as called to proclaim a strict monotheistic faith, and as chosen by God for that purpose. In seeing him thus, they can place him on the same level as all the prophets of Israel and the apostles of the early Christian Church … In other words, a Christian can see Muhammad as inspired in just the same sense as Jewish and Christian prophets, and thus accord him the highest honour as a true prophet. Nevertheless, they would still fall short of the Muslim perception [or rather confession] that Muhammad was uniquely chosen to utter the definitive and unquestionable words of God’s own self. (p. 127)’ He repeats the expression ‘highest honour’ in concluding his discussion of Christian views, adding that Christians can ‘see in him a specific human ideal.’ (my emphasis). I also agree with him that ‘we have to admit a genuine and irreducible difference of belief [regarding our distinctive beliefs about Jesus and Muhammad] (p.131)’
He concludes very appropriately, ‘A contemporary Christian assessment of Muhammad can, I suggest, honour him as a true prophet and as a wise, courageous and compassionate leader, an ideal for those who seek to guide and rule society. Christian loyalty to the self-renouncing love seen in Jesus will remain the fundamental guide for Christian living and Christians will revere and worship Jesus, as the one who, they believe, embodies the image of God in human form. But it might actually expand Christian wisdom to embrace also, to respect and revere, the ideal of the fully socially engaged Prophet who submits every detail of life to the divine will, and calls all men and women to affirm that there is no god but God … A proper Christian appreciation of Muhammad may deepen the understanding Christians have of their own faith and, as long as people can accept genuine, conscientious differences in matters of faith, encourage friendship and understanding between Christians and Muslims. (p.131).’
There are some very useful and similar statements in two books written by Dr Clinton Bennett:
‘I am not persuaded that attributing validity to aspects of Muhammad’s sunnah reduces Christ to anything less than Christians have traditionally believed him to be … To say that aspects of Muhammad’s sunnah have a validity for me which equals Christ’s teaching is to say no more than that these aspects are wholly consistent with what I know of God in Christ’ (p. 238, ‘Search’)
‘As a Christian, I affirm that Muhammad was God’s instrument through which revelation was channelled. I have less difficulty than Jomier in calling Muhammad a prophet, because as long as it remains clear that my primary loyalty is to Jesus I do not think that Muslims will assume that I have converted’ (‘Understanding, p. 217)
I think that Ward and Bennett have probably put it better than I could and I agree with them. Their observations were the high-point of my brief research, all I can add to this is a personal statement.
Three years ago, just before Eid I spent nearly two days on ihtikaf at my friend Musharraf Hussain’s masjid. After the isha prayer, followed by tarawih and then the reciting of the final sixth of the Qur’an there was a time of singing and praise of Muhammad, the sabiha I think, I may have got the name wrong. It was very moving to be in the middle of a tight circle of men singing so devoutly of their love for Muhammad and praise to God for sending him. I can only compare this to Christian devotion to Jesus and think of Muhammad in a similar way, not to criticise Muhammad for not being Jesus but to see something very similar. For Muslims who follow the Sunnah they live according to the gracious example of their Prophet and I can only assume that following in the way of the Prophet, with God’s grace, has had a transforming effect on their lives, which I appreciate so much. My hope is that through sharing together and expressing appreciation of each others’ ‘Prophet’, and not denying differences, we become able to recognise the grace of God and the workings of the Spirit in all who seek to serve God and that God is not limited to one religion and has many Prophets.
In closing, last week I visited my friend Musharraf’s masjid again in the closing hours of Ramadan. I had some dialogue with Musharraf and the other brothers who were on ihtikaf in the As-Shifa masjid. As I explained the talk that I was giving and the difficulties with Muhammad from a Christian perspective Musharraf responded gently and humorously that Muhammad couldn’t be a problem because Christians accept lots of prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures, so Muhammad was no big deal! This highlighted that the crux of this question is not about prophethood but risalah — messengership. So a Christian answer to the question of Muhammad is that for Christians he can be nabi (prophet) but not rasul (messenger, bringer of a book of revelation), it felt good to engage with the Islamic categories and make this humble and respectful statement of difference in the masjid.
We can accept that revelation came through Muhammad, as with other prophets, but we do not accept him as the final rasul. So even for the most positive Christian appreciation there is no question of us echoing the shahadah in any way. We can take up a great challenge, as you have been doing month on month for the last ten years or so, by comparing our parallel confessions, pondering on the deep issues they raise and putting just as much effort into deepening our relationship of similarity and difference.
Thank you, and thanks be to God for God’s mercy to us all.
Originally posted on Facebook in January 2011
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Quote
‘… although ambiguous, [Charles] Forster’s [1787–1871, ‘Mahometanism Unveiled, 1829] ‘Muhammad’ was in some sense a divinely guided ‘Prophet’ … Forster represents an early attempt by someone who did not want to ‘remove God’s hand from history’ to understand what had motivated Muhammad religiously.’ (p. 107, ‘Search’)
Bibliography
Kenneth Cragg, ‘ Muhammad and the Christian, A Question of Response’, DLT, 1984
Clinton Bennett, ‘In Search of Muhammad’, Cassell, 1998
Clinton Bennett, ‘Understanding Christian-Muslim Relations, Past and Present’, Continuum, 2008
Keith Ward, ‘Muhammad from a Christian Perspective’ in ‘Abraham’s Children: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Conversation’, Continuum, 2005
