Following the Church of England’s declaration that is ‘right to convert unbelievers’ (pdf) to their faith, The Grauniad set up a new series on whether religions should compete with one another.
Mehdi Hasan argues that Muslims should not compete in the ‘marketplace of religions’:
We know about Christian and Muslim variants of creationism. But what of the other great monotheistic tradition, Judaism?
Is there such a thing as ‘Jewish creationism’? If not, why not?
Hmm…I thought creationism is part of old testament, no?
(As an aside, the “Old Testament” is a Christian book. The Torah, Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible are Jewish books. The words in them are similar, though not the same. More importantly, the tradition of “how to read” them is very different, so that some of the passages mean very, very different things to each group. “An eye for an eye” is a classic example, which in Christianity is about vengeance – and bolsters a Christian belief that Jews are vengeful – but in Judaism is actually about lenience.)
You just saved me typing the same thing!
The text itself isn’t the whole tradition. ‘Reading’ the text and practice are just as important.
Thanks. It makes sense. I was only referring to the six-days creation story which I believe has its roots in Judaism? (and I wouldn’t even be surprised if the roots go prior to monotheism altogether).
The story is in Exodus, which is part of the Hebrew Bible and also included in the Old Testament. Of course, the Jewish tradition for reading the text is very nuanced and complicated, since that’s the personality of Judaism — which says that the text is very complicated and difficult to understand. My own belief is, though there obviously is “fundamentalism” among Jews, that Judaism doesn’t lend itself well to fundamentalism.
You’re right, though, that similar stories do exist in many religions from the same area. And less similar stories that are still pretty similar exist in all sorts of religions. One of the basic functions of religion is to answer the question, “Why are we here?” There’s a Hindu story of the gods churning the milky ocean.
To continue asides, Judaism predates monotheism. Originally, there was one higher G-d and many lesser gods. Over time, the other gods disappeared from the stories we tell and the Jewish G-d, orignially one of the lesser gods, became the G-d of all. In 5,000 years, of course, change happens.
The creation story is in Genesis/Bereshith.
Totally agree. But I am not clear on the hierarchy the term lessor/higher implies. If G-d is transcendent and if other gods symbolize that transcendent G-d (as in Hinduism) than that doesn’t really make the transcendent G-d any higher (he’s already declared as such, the One above all else).
Anyways, in Ismaili Muslim theology and according to the Nasir Kusraw tradition, as per Shafique Virani….”genesis of the cosmos, shared by the Abrahamic faiths, does not concern the creation of the physical universe. Rather, the tradition refers to the genesis of a spiritual cosmos governed by God’s emissaries. This creation commenced with Adam, who represented the first day…and continued with Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus….The cycles of creation were brought to their completion by Muhammad”
Just sharing one of the many interpretations, in case if you’re not aware.
D’uh! Genesis. Yeah. The one I meant. Thanks
Matt, what are your experiences on this question? I’m less interested in the validity of either side of the argument (though feel free to debate it in here), more on how different religious groups respond to certain issues — in this case evolution.
Of course, there are different ways of reading the bible not just between Jews and Christians but between different trends within both Judaism and Christianity.
Oh, of course. Protestantism and Catholicism are pretty different. Catholicism is a religion for “deep thinkers” interested in stuff like precedent in theological writing. Jesuit schools where they believe in creationism also teach evolution, because they’d rather have people with strong faith than a brainwashed flock. Protestants (though Protestant sects are more diverse than the unitary Catholic Church, so I’m more hesitant to make crude generalizations) are mostly into personal revelation. (Strikes me as “truthiness,” but I don’t judge.) And when you look at Reform versus Orthodox Judaism, well, Reform views the Bible as the creation of humanity with a bunch of good ideas in it. So they’re very different there. But I think it’s safe to say that only the fringiest of Jews reject that the Oral Law, together with study and debate, is necessary to understand the Written Law. I’m sure that goes back way before the Talmuds, but that stuff was certainly codified in the Talmud by at least 300 AD.
But, as far as my experience, thabet, I can really only cite very broadly shared theology in Judaism (and some historical context). I can even confuse Genesis and Exodus from time to time. My experience was being raised a deeply assimilated Jew and growing up to realize there was very basic stuff about me I never thought about, as if I’d never looked in a mirror. Today I practice Buddhism. I just don’t like seeing Judaism folded into Christianity. It’s a form of erasure, making us invisible, which is kinda how I got to where I am.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “creationism” here Thabet. Do you just mean rejection of evolution as commonly understood in the scientific community or something broader. There is opposition to evolution among many Orthodox Jewish scholars (less so among Conservative and Reform Jews for obvious reasons). Although some Modern Orthodox or other individual thinkers have tried to advocate for theistic understanding of evolution along with non-literal readings of Genesis. Here’s Wikipedia on Jewish views of evolution.
Here’s an interesting article which relates a survey taken of those who identified as orthodox Jews who were found sitting in a Kosher section of a New York city public college cafeteria.
The survey found Creationist belief to be extremely widespread among this population. Also, as the author points out, this survey would not have included the most ‘conservative’ aspects of the Orthodox population which would shun secular education altogether or at least reserve the daytime for Talmud study.
Thanks, this is more what I was interested in: the reception amongst Jewish groups to evolution and the surrounding baggage; and whether they had developed a response (e.g. the creationist ‘movements’ amongst Muslims and Christians).
By the way, I think there’s a lot of information in the article I linked to relevant to Thabet’s question but no doubt the source is biased and intends to cast doubt upon orthodox belief and practice of religion by showing it is not compatible with science, which to the authors of the magazine is obviously the highest truth.
I obviously reject their attempts to do so and even more so the tone with which they do it, regardless of my own views on evolution.
I agree, abunoor, about the bias of the article. Saying that “By definition Jews who accept evolution are not Orthodox.” is simply wrong. What he’s saying can be applied to ultra-orthodox Jews, but definitely not to orthodox ones.
Creationism does exist in Judaism in various forms. I think it’s not widely talked about because the majority of Jews in the US and in general are not orthodox and hence see no conflict between evolution and a book that was created by humans with limited knowledge, as Matt mentioned.
As for those who do see a conflict (orthodox and ultra-orthodox) there are three major trends, as far as I see it. Both of these communities accept the Torah as the word of God, yet none interpret it literally as Evangelical Christians do. It is accepted that some of the things written in the Torah are allegorical, including the creation of the world (Ramban, Maimonides and others accepted this centuries ago).
The more extreme way of dealing with evolution is to dismiss it outright, forbid teaching it and look at it as a sinful secular doctrine. This is an approach taken by some ultra-Orthodox rabbis, which is evident in ultra-orthodox schools in Israel (don’t know about the US), which don’t teach science at all. Another approach is to deal with the arguments of evolution and try to disprove them, often relying on criticism by gentiles (creationists or not) and even post-modernists.
The third approach, which I find the most interesting, is an attempt to use the latitude in interpreting the Torah to try and combine some elements of evolution into the biblical description of creation. However, all those who seek to combine them state that the basic proposition of evolution that the world was created with a big bang in a random fashion is incompatible with the Jewish doctrine (God created the world for a purpose) and often use the argument from design to make their point. The people who wish to make evolution (and science in general) compatible with Judaism state that while evolution is just a theory that has many holes in it, the proven scientific facts about mutations of genes and selection do not go against the scripture and some even go as far as to state that they’re hinted to in the scripture.
Many thanks, Elizabeth.
Shukran, Elizabeth that was interesting.
The third approach seems sort of ghazalian.
A grievous crime indeed against religion has been committed by the man who imagines that Islam is defended by the denial of the mathematical sciences, seeing that there is nothing in revealed truth opposed to these sciences by way of either negation or affirmation, and nothing in these sciences opposed to the truth of religion.
Ghazali’s many worlds model arose as a refutation of the Aristotelian eternal universe.
I agree, shams. Very nice quote, and as you know Maimonides (among others) was greatly influenced by al-Ghazali.
Does anyone know of any good books, articles, etc on how the Chinese empires of yesteryear viewed both Islam and Christianity? Specifically, I am interested in how they understood the differences between the two, and if they were familiar with the sectarian differences within the two traditions.
Thanks.
this is waaaaaay outside anything i am competent to answer, but, if i personally were trying to answer such a question, i would start with Sam Moffet’s History of Christianity in Asia and see where that led me.
Don’t have any good source. But this one gives some indication that they were very much seen as different:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MING/PHIL.HTM
In fact it reads as if there was no understanding that they are part of related traditions.
we should ask Wang Daiyu about this…
Shams al-Nahar, 
thabet, 
AA, and 4 others are discussing. 
Elizabeth, 
Hitch, and 
Shams al-Nahar 5:23 pm on July 3, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
yes dawa by example.
da is poison, dawa is the cure.
i<3 thabet….for the moment.
thabet 5:27 pm on July 3, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I was pretty much always taught “God guides whom He wills”.
That’s why ‘evangelizing’ and ‘missionary’ (and modern ‘dawa‘) type of work seems alien to me.
Shams al-Nahar 5:30 pm on July 3, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Sufis don’t proselytize. it is forbidden.
Neither do jews.
Is that why we are both so hated?
thabet 5:35 pm on July 3, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Beyond a few fringe fanatics, I don’t think people really ‘hate’ Sufis. Even ‘Wahhabis’ will now recognise bit and pieces of Sufi works and texts, especially of the conservative sufi ulama.
(Sadly, I do know a lot of pathetic people who hate Jews.)
Shams al-Nahar 5:39 pm on July 3, 2010 Permalink
The Taliban hate us. Historically conservative fundamentalist muslims have always burned sufi schools. I think the Taliban are like american conservatives. you just know the teabaggers would kill intellectuals and liberal elites and burn down liberal universities if they could.
abunoor 1:20 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink
Shams, the term “sufi” is too broad in meaning to make this discussion really make sense. Many of the Taliban are sufis, maybe not sufis like you but sufis. Also, many sufis are conservative fundamentalist musims.
thabet 4:41 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink
Shams, what Abu Noor says is very true.
shams 7:52 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink
but….calling themselves sufi is like al-Q killers calling themselves muslim.
they simply aren’t.
what does it mean to be Sufi then?
how can one be a conservative fundamentalist and follow the Caravan, or murder innocents and host the garden amid the flames?
not possible.
callin’ oneself a sufi does not mean one is a sufi.
shams 7:58 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink
and the Taliban proselytize by the sword.
they cannot even a one of them be a sufi.
thabet 9:41 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink
There are loads of conservative sufis, Shams, all over the Middle East, the Subcontinent and SE Asia.
aziz 10:27 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink
exactly. the word “sufi” is a broad term. The Taliban have many naqshabandi among them, for example.
saying someone isnt sufi because they dont conform to your idealized vision of sufism is not that removed from salafist declaratiuons that shia arent muslim. A matter of degree.
ultimately what makes a sufi is a desire to be closer to god – and varying sufi sects take that to varying degrees, from meditative to th ephysical (the dervishes).
the ultimate symbol of Sufism is the circle with a dot at teh center. Sufism is the search for the radial line. the dot is Allah, the circle is human existence; can we bridge the gap? In generic sufism, the key to doing so is love. it sounds cliche but there is a reason there are many tales of unrequited love told by sufis – these are metaphors for the human and divine.
some sufis bear arms and others drink wine. Its not for any of them to judge another.
shams 11:20 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink
But how can someone declare themselves a sufi without embracing the garden amid the flames and wahdat al wujud?
the love of Allah MUST extend to all creation.
conservative sufi or taliban sufi is an oxymoron.
it cannot be.
shams 1:36 pm on July 4, 2010 Permalink
And one meaning of Sufi is seeker….how can a fundamentalist or a conservative be a seeker?
aziz 9:58 am on July 5, 2010 Permalink
these “how can..?” questions are reductive and simplistic. Faith is defined by axioms, not intuition.
shams 1:51 pm on July 5, 2010 Permalink
meh.
im like the Elephant’s Child of this blog.
when i ax questions you all scold me.
salafist declarations that shia arent muslim are not supportable.
shia practice islam. by definition they are muslim.
“a desire to be closer to god” or a “balanced life” are not definitions.
How can one get closer to Allah by slaughtering innocents? Did Rabi’a al-Adiwyya live a balanced life?
im going to go ax the Crocodile what he has dinner now.
>:(
thabet 2:08 pm on July 5, 2010 Permalink
You’d need to take that up with all those Sufis who take seriously the need for their fiqh and aqidah to be grounded within the tradition.
shams 9:53 pm on July 5, 2010 Permalink
i think we must have different operational definitions of “conservative” and “taliban” brother thatbet.
thabet 1:24 pm on July 6, 2010 Permalink
I agree, it looks like!
shams 3:09 pm on July 6, 2010 Permalink
For conservative, im goin’ wid teh biology.
The Taliban are definitely conservatives.
abunoor 1:26 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thabet, the concept that God guides whom he wills does not negate doing da’wah. In fact, the implications of such a notion would be quite serious. The fact that Allah is in control of results (not just in da’wah but in everything) is supposed to give us comfort in our hearts after we make the best effort we can, it is not to make us say, well it is in Allah’s hands so we don’t make effort…this is the cartoonish negative stereotype of the muslim fatalist.
I think the discussion around this issue is confused by semantic issues. It is clear in the texts that da’wah is an obligation…but the means of da’wah are not narrowly specified and there is room for people to do da’wah in different ways.
thabet 4:38 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I am not saying it negates it, only that I did not grow up with the attitude of ‘aggressively’ preaching to the unconverted and that this was something which not part of Islam as taught to me and my peers — and we all grew up stereotypical strict and conservative Muslim households.
abunoor 6:40 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink
Did you grow up in UK? Anyways, it is clear that the Prophet (saw) preached the message quite frequently (‘aggressive’) is hard to pin down here.
Obviously many of the techniques that some modern groups that say they are doing da’wah seem modelled on Christians or others…which is my point I think Islamically it is clear that da’wah is an obligation but the methodology is open to different views and ideas.
But what happens to be the prevailing view among most people in most muslim communties is probably more a function of other factors about the community and the society around it then about Islamic teaching.
Allah knows best.
thabet 7:19 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink
Quite, but I don’t think the two are so easily separated.
Yes, I grew up in the UK. I only encountered people proselytizing for the faith at university. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this sort of thing in a Muslim country I’ve worked in, but then I concede I wasn’t looking (and religion is also controlled by the state).
shams 7:56 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink
but….if muslims proselytize….what exactly are they proselytizing?
Don’t the people of the Book have the exact same Allah?
i guess muslims could proselytize to atheists or pagans….
are muslims supposed to proselytize AGAINST the Jesus godhead?
Abu Noor 9:27 am on July 5, 2010 Permalink
Shams, again not sure what you mean by proselytize..it is a word with a negative connotation, perhaps deservedly so. But yes, Muslims should invite people to worship the one God and Muslims should attempt to convince people that shirk is wrong. There are many many verses in the Qur’an where the command is given by Allah Say: and a message/invitation is given to the people.
People should be invited to accept the Qur’an and the Prophet (saw). He (saw) was a prophet for all of humanity. The Qur’an was a revelation for all of humanity.
Again, specific techniques are not ordered so one does not have to engage in behavior that is counterproductive or will create resentment but one should “invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful admonition/preaching” and “who could be better in speech than the one who invites to Allah and says I am one of the Muslims”
shams 1:54 pm on July 5, 2010 Permalink
But Abu how can you invite someone to Allah when they already believe in the same Allah? Don’t the People of Book have the same Allah we do?
AA 12:34 pm on July 4, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Isn’t this as same as saying Americans have rights to own firearm? Well, where is the context in this debate? The right to hold guns does not work in city like Chicago because apparently it is more injurious than it is satisfying the clause in constitution. So no, it is not obligatory if there is no context.
Abu Noor 9:32 am on July 5, 2010 Permalink
AA, I have stated repeatedly that I agree da’wah should be done in the best of ways and that will vary by context. But I think people are quick to wave away the requirement without thinking seriousl about the context. Was the open, public invitation to the message in Makkah by the Prophet (saw) welcomed by the powers that be? Did everyone love it? Or did it in fact make some people angry? Did people want him (as) to shut up ?
I am just saying the mere fact that public preaching will not be accepted by everyone or will not be liked by everyone does not automaticall mean it does not have a role to play.
We have to think more seriously and intelligently about such issues, rather than just hand out pamphlets on the street corner as if that is the only “da’wah” or never once communicate the teachings of Islam to those who may not know them because that is more comfortable for us.
AA 1:58 pm on July 5, 2010 Permalink
Abu Noor, I can respect your opinions; however, I am of the opinion that in current times and age, the dawah by action is more appropriate than dawah by words. One can be a best Muslim with his/her actions and deeds and you won’t even need a personal intention to convert anyone or preach. The best of action and deeds is the Muslim dawah.
plimfix 9:26 pm on July 3, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
If Muslims want to do dawa, then it’s up to them – after all, if you think Islam is objectively the ultimate truth, surely you’d want people to be part of that? And don’t people get individualist materialist consumerism dawa-ed down their throat? – we should endeavour to compete with that nonsense if nothing else. Personally, I agree with Terry Pratchett who apparently once said the best way to educate people is to build a library and then open the doors. Just make sure some decent books about Islam are on the shelves. And on schools’ bookshelves, too.
thabet 4:47 am on July 4, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Nothing wrong with preaching if that’s your thing. Not only religious groups preach, of course: many leftists are quite good at it too
I stuck up the link to get some discussion going on here.
Even Hasan doesn’t say no to ‘dawa’: he seems to be arguing for a different kind of dawa, one of practice, rather than pamphlets and stalls.
Lawrence of Arabia 8:41 pm on July 4, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
the whole discussion reminds me of St. Francis’ famous dictum:
“Preach the Gospel always; if necessary, use words.”
Abu Noor 9:36 am on July 5, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Excellent advice. By the way, I have never once in my life gone up to a stranger or even a friend or family member and started telling them about Islam unsolicited. This is just to say I understand the concerns about what people usually think of as da’wah.
Alhamdulillah, being someone who is visibly Muslim, and a convert and who speaks in various interfaith or other educational programs, people will often ask me questions which allow me to talk about Islam.