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This will probably do little or no good.

This will probably do little or no good.

Last updated on: December 14, 2024 at 3:44 pm by Dan Peterson

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This will probably do little or no good. 2024-12-14T15:44:07-07:00 Dan Peterson

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The Abu Dhabi Stake Center in the United Arab Emirates (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

For the better part of the past week, several places in social media have been enflamed with controversy regarding a photograph showing a group of Muslims praying in what is obviously a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse. On the wall in the background, what appears to be a painting (perhaps a painting of Jesus, but perhaps not) has been covered over (perhaps by the Muslims or perhaps by their Latter-day Saint hosts).

Frankly, I’ve been discouraged and disheartened by some of the responses to the issue. Many have been supportive of the idea of permitting others to pray in one of our buildings. (This has actually happened many times, in many locations, over many years.) But some have been concerned, and a few have been vehemently opposed. What I’ve found most depressing has been the militant ignorance of some of the opponents. (I confess, though, that it’s amusing to be told by a few of them that I need to read the Qur’an and learn something about Islam; I’ve read the Qur’an and taught the Qur’an — in both English translation and Arabic — more times than I can count, and I’ve taught and written about Islam for decades. This article in the Ensign was specifically requested by the First Presidency, which ought to suggest at least something of how the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regard Islam and choose to approach the topic.)

I’ve read some astonishing claims that have been advanced with absolute assurance. Here are some of them, and I’m only picking a few of the more obviously crazy declarations:

Muslims worship Muhammad.
Muslims are commanded to kill Christians.
Allah is the name of a false god, like Apollo or Zeus.
Islam is to be imposed by force.
The prominent philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians of the Islamic golden age were mostly Jews and Christians.
Jews and Christians have always been suppressed by Islamic rule.
Islam has always smothered progress and Islamic civilization has contributed nothing to the world.
Christians are forbidden to worship in many Islamic countries.
Lebanon was a wonderful place until Muslims began to move into it (which apparently occurred fairly recently).
Islam despises Jesus.
Islam means “submission,” which means submission to a Muslim ruler.

Like an alcoholic walking by the swinging doors of a tavern, I find it almost irresistibly tempting to respond to some of this.

One fellow, imagining himself to be delivering the death blow against me, demanded whether I was seriously arguing that Jesus and Allah are the same person. I responded that, yes, that was precisely what I was arguing — I’m leaving aside, for the moment, the distinction between Father and Son — and that I was doing so on the basis of the first verse of the Gospel of John, where “the Word” is almost universally understood by Christians as a reference to Jesus Christ. I provide the passage here first in the King James translation, and then in a standard Arabic rendering:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

1 فِي البَدْءِ كَانَ الكَلِمَةُ
وَكَانَ الكَلِمَةُ مَعَ اللهِ،
وَكَانَ الكَلِمَةُ هُوَ اللهَ.

Now, I “merge” them:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God [Allah], and the Word was God [Allah]. (John 1:1)

QED.

Of course, we can do similar things with other biblical passages, to say nothing of the other Standard Works. In Genesis 1:1, who created the heavens and the earth? The Arabic versions of the Bible all make it perfectly clear that it was Allah who created the heavens and the earth. Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians all worship Allah, just as the German-speakers who still worship at all worship Gott, and French-speakers worship Dieu and Spanish-speakers worship Dios.

As to the claim that Christians aren’t allowed to worship in many Islamic nations, I want to add an additional comment: Maybe Taliban-ruled Afghanistan comes closest to being an officially Christian-free Islamic State. But it’s an exceptionally extreme and toxic place in every regard. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has organized units — wards and stakes as well as branches and districts — that meet on the Arabian Peninsula (including Saudi Arabia), in Lebanon, Pakistan, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Malaysia, and etc. I’ve worshiped in several of them myself. Temples have been announced for the United Arab Emirates and for Jakarta, Indonesia. And I like the design of the stake center in Abu Dhabi, shown above. It’s unique and, I think, quite beautiful.

“Innocence,” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (d. 1905)
Wikimedia Commons public domain image

Five years ago, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints produced an eighteen-minute video of the Christmas nativity story. It is very, very well done. A minor thing: I like the fact that the people in it actually look like natives of the Middle East rather than like Swedes. I like the unglamorized look of the Middle East as the film depicts its setting. And, unsentimental and hard-hearted though I am, near the conclusion of the video I find the emotional look on the adoring face of the “lead” Wise Man deeply moving.

There is nothing specifically Latter-day Saint about this video. I hope that, sometime between now and the close of Christmas Day, you’ll take the opportunity to watch it — perhaps with your family — and possible even to share it with others, or to call attention to it, online. It’s a good way of reminding ourselves what Christmas is really about.

For today’s piece of Christmas music, I offer something wonderfully beautiful from one of the most amazing singers that I’ve ever heard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqm-hf1LDV4

The lyrics vary. (Actually, the song was originally written in French. So part of that is simply variation in translations.) But here’s one version:

Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away,
never the like did come a-blowing,
Shepherds, in flow’ry fields of May,
Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away.

What is that light so brilliant, breaking
Here in the night across our eyes.
Never so bright, the day-star waking,
Started to climb the morning skies!
What is that light so brilliant, breaking,
Here in the night across our eyes.

Bethlehem! there in manger lying,
Find your Redeemer haste away,
Run ye with eager footsteps vieing!
Worship the Saviour born today.
Bethlehem! there in manger lying,
Find your Redeemer haste away.

Posted from Newport Beach, California

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