Islam and Grace
by Rania Hafez and Julian Bond
Christians often characterise Christianity as a religion of grace and Islam as a religion of law and works. This kind of spiritual oneupmanship does not play out well in encounters between followers of both religions — who wants to be looked down on? It annoys me too, I wonder how much those who make this accusing assessment know of Islam, whether they have had their own deep encounter with it, meaningful conversations with Muslims, or have taken the trouble to witness Muslim spiritual practices. At these times I do what I always do, talk to Muslim friends and think about how, together, we might set the record straight. I have covered, briefly, this ground before in this article for the Christian Muslim Forum - ‘Islam a Religion of Law or Grace?’
What follows is just part of what my friend Rania (Senior Lecturer at the University of Greenwich) told me when we met up.
Perhaps Christians can be forgiven (we are in a forgiving mood) for seeing Islam as a religion of law, as it is the legal aspects of religion which are visible — head coverings, halal food markings, avoidance of alcohol. This contaminates perceptions and understandings of Islam, both within and outside the Muslim communities. There are too many people who relax when they meet a Muslim woman who does not wear a headscarf — she must be liberal, modern, Westernised, secular — when they know nothing about her. Would it occur to people that the Muslim woman who chooses to cover her hair is liberal, inclusive, has her own opinions and spends her time with friends of other religions? Yet, this is what happens. Having constructed the idea that Islam is all about law, then those who follow it properly must be all about law, and those who think for themselves are rulebreakers. At no point in this chain of thought are people asking themselves — I wonder what Islam is really about under the surface, what are the religious experiences and outlooks of Muslims?
Much thinking about Islam, as you may now have realised, is not sophisticated. A lack of sophistication is inherent in public conversations and attitudes, add a bit of ‘foreignness’, alternative worldviews, and people who are not like ‘us’ and it is a wonder that anything positive emerges. So, the first point worth making is — don’t confuse Islam and Muslims. It may be that you see Muslims around you but, for various reasons, you do not, or cannot, see Islam. Islam is in the heart, not on the street, not in a beard or hijab, or the halal sign on the fried chicken shop. So, beware of thinking, when you see a hijabi in the street — yes, I know what Islam is, it forces women to cover their hair, it teaches them to be standoffish and not integrate, it’s a problem, a threat, a danger to society. This is not Islam. If this is what you see, then it is not Islam that you are seeing. If you choose to see this in religious terms, to make a negative religious assessment of Islam, then you are part of the problem, and if you are a Christian thinking in this way then you may be projecting your own ungraciousness onto believers, lovers of God, in another tradition.
Rania is originally from Lebanon, a religiously mixed country where Christians and Muslims have been living alongside one another since almost the beginning of Islam. Christians and Muslims, Christianity and Islam, are deeply entwined with each other. It is no surprise that Rania attended a Catholic school, the Lebanese share in each other’s religious festivals and are comfortable with each other, though more recent wars and terrorism have challenged this deep coexistence. Moving to the UK some years ago, Rania found that Islam was strange, not part of the furniture, not familiar at all, this was before 9/11 or Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’. She had to educate her fellow students, beginning with the Bible, about the connectedness of Islam with Judaism and Christianity. If you think about this it is a staggering gap in understanding, no wonder people might not appreciate at all what Islam is about if they have no idea where it fits. Where Rania began was with the story of Abraham, a key Biblical figure in the book of Genesis, who is central in the Qur’an as the prophet who wrestled with the twin challenges of monotheism and following the call of God. Next there is Moses who dominates the next four books of the Bible, appearing in the same way in the Qur’an as the deliverer of the message from God, revealed through the burning bush and who liberates his people. If this is where Islam begins (check out the first chapters of the Qur’an) then naturally we would expect it (though of course there are some significant differences from Christianity) to share some themes and to have a common outlook.
The link between repentance and forgiveness is at the heart of Christianity, it is also at the heart of Islam, and God’s forgiveness in Islam is rooted in the grace of God. Rania shared with me how there is a tradition/hadith qudsi which has God saying — ‘however much you sin I will still forgive you’. The more Christians and Muslims talk about forgiveness the more they discover about the commonality of outlook, of faith, in God’s grace and love. In fact, in Islam, human beings are one of the signs of God’s grace, creation begins with God’s breath bringing life to the first human beings, all of humanity is suffused with God’s grace through our divine souls.
There is a common idea outside Islam that the religion is all about the balancing of good and bad deeds on the Day of Judgement and that this kind of bean-counting approach is what Muslims need to be delivered from. In fact any amount of good deeds piled up on the scales are irrelevant when considered alongside treatment of other people. Islam is deeply focused on the need to seek forgiveness from those that the believer has wronged. This mirrors the words in the famous prayer of grace, the Lord’s Prayer in Christianity — ‘forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us’ — Islam has exactly the same sentiment.
You will have heard the phrase ‘Islam is a religion of peace’, either as a positive message from Muslims and friends of Islam, or as a deeply contested statement being argued against by those who have a problem with Islam. At its heart and in its own space this is exactly what Islam is and how it speaks of itself. However, in a difficult space, where extremism and terrorism are setting the agenda, this vital message does not have the power that it should. Sadly, it has been drowned out. The response of faith when challenged in this way should be based on grace, even if there is a lack of grace in some attitudes towards Muslims. Thus, the grace of God, which is at the heart of Islam, can be emphasised by talking more about Islam as a religion of love. If we say that Islam is a religion of love then we are rooting it in God’s love, and grace.
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When my Christian friend Julian Bond asked if we could meet to talk about the differences between Islam and Christianity, and in particular Christian perceptions of Islam, I already knew it would be an interesting discussion and that there would be much we would agree on. You see being Lebanese and having been schooled in a Catholic convent, and also having members of my family who are Christian, I had experienced a lived Christianity and understood what the two faiths had I common, but I also had an appreciation and acceptance of the theological and practical differences between them. What surprised me though was that Julian had repeatedly faced the characterisation of Islam by Christians as a religion of laws and rules and little ‘grace’. It was that topic in particular Julian wanted us to discuss.
When I first arrived in Britain thirty-five years ago I was surprised at how little people knew about Islam. Having grown up in a multi-faith community in Lebanon and the Arabian Gulf, I was au fait with the tenets of both Christianity and Islam, and several of their sub-sects. Yet here in Britain few were aware of the Abrahamic roots of Islam, or its close connection with Judaism and Christianity. To face such widespread ignorance was a challenge, and I took it upon myself to try, as much as I could, to set the record straight on the many misconceptions people held, in good faith (pardon the pun). Thirty-five years down the line people are more familiar with Islam, albeit in a negative way. Beside the negative narrative of fundamentalism and extremism plaguing the religion, there are also misconceptions of the lived aspect of the faith. Regrettably fellow Brits have to come to develop negative associations with Islam, and even those who see themselves as accepting of a multi-faith Britain, still harbour some fundamental misunderstandings about Islam in particular. My discussion with Julian was going to explore some of these.
To say that Christianity and Islam have key theological differences would be to state the blindingly obvious. It is clear that practice between the two religions is starkly different in form and content. However the fact that we have a great deal in common is simply lost in translation. Let’s take the concept of ‘grace’. Grace is an absolute common thread that ties all three Abrahamic faiths, and their tributaries. In Islam grace is in the essence of God and creation. The two divine attributes Muslims always couple to the divine name are ‘Al-Rahman’ and ‘Al-Raheem’, commonly translated as ‘the most merciful’ and ‘the most compassionate’, and both words originating from the root noun ‘rahm’ Arabic for ‘womb’. How exquisite and telling that the Creator associates His most important attributes, compassion and mercy, with the female womb. Therein is the ultimate grace. And in a hadith (saying of the prophet Muhammad) God reiterates the connection between faith and the mother by asserting that: “The womb (meaning the bond to the mother) is connected to God’s Throne and it says ‘Whoever cherishes me then Allah will cherish him’”.
So God takes on Himself the compassion associated with motherhood, and in creating humanity, He goes even further in His mercy. The Quran tells us of the creation of the first human. God fashioned the human, presented him to the angels, and instructed them: “When I breathe into him of my soul, then prostrate yourself to him” (Quran 38:72). Our very being as humans was sealed with a divine kiss from the beginning of creation. The divine breath sweeps through each and every one of us. Recognising this and living it is where we meet grace. The sadness is how many fail to live up to that beautiful divinity of the soul.
Of course what others see as the public face of Islam, the dietary laws, the clothing practices and in particular the head-cover (hijab), and the stringent worship: five daily prayers and a month long fast, does give the correct impression of a religious practice religiously regulated, but sadly fails to show the inherent grace in these practices. Take the five daily prayers, they punctuate the day with time for reflection and connection with the divine. Muslims are literally ‘called to prayer’ five times a day. That in itself is a beautiful grace. Hearing the Adhan (call to prayer) is like receiving a personal invitation to visit with the King of Kings. Can you imagine how excited you would be to receive an invitation for one of the Queen’s tea parties? Now imagine the privilege to be invited to an audience with the ultimate monarch. So when Muslims request a prayer room, it is not just a matter of obeying a rule, but creating some space and time for prayer.
Another aspect of Islam that gives the impression of a religion of commands is our dietary rules. For those on the ‘outside’ they may seem like rather archaic, especially when it comes to halal slaughter. But if people had a closer look they would realise that they are primarily about kindness and mercy to animals and nature. It is an acceptance of our human privilege in being given dominion over nature, allied with the responsibility of gentle guardianship. The rules about food are not many, but they instil grace in us in requiring us to treat our environment with respect and gentleness.
Moving on from culinary rules, perhaps the most ubiquitous of Islamic laws are the sartorial ones, in particular the vexed issue of the female Hijab — there are also rules governing male clothing but few people notice those. The hijab itself, the female covering of the hair, is by no means uniform across the different Muslim communities. Its status as mandatory is debatable, with modern scholars increasingly challenging strict interpretations. But scholarly arguments aside, the hijab is only meant as an outward display of a desire for modesty, not the only manifestation of piety. And, as the Quran reminds us, the clothing of the heart in piety is far more important than any outward displays.
Islam may be a religion of rules, but these, when lived genuinely with devotion are a manifestation of God’s grace in giving us a route map to virtue and goodness. Ultimately though faith itself is grace. It is the opportunity for individuals to tame an ego and relate to an eternal spiritual truth. Muslims may do it differently to Christians in practice, but it is inherently at the heart of the connection with the divine, even if we arrive at that connection via different paths. Perhaps in time as we talk and share more we will come to appreciate and celebrate both our differences and our similarities as in themselves a manifestation of the grace of God.
“Oh People, We have created you from a male and female, and have made you into nations and tribes so that you may get to know each other; Verily the most honourable among you in the sight of God is the most pious; God is All-knowing and All-aware.” (Quran 49:13)
