Islam: Mirror of Christendom, Part II

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:45 pm by Peter Leithart

Islam: Mirror of Christendom, Part II 2017-09-06T23:45:15+06:00 Peter Leithart

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In this section, I explore two biblical perspectives that throw light on the rise and persistence of Islam. First, Scripture indicates that the Lord judged Israel by raising up parodic versions of Israel to plague Israel. When Yahweh wanted to call Israel to repentance, He held up a pseudo-Israel as a mirror, and by examining herself in the mirror, Israel was supposed to see her blemishes and learn how to go about amending herself.

A key example comes in 1 Kings 11. At the height of his power, riches, and wisdom, Solomon fell into sin. Like Adam, he had been placed on an exalted throne, ruling over the kings of the earth, the lions subdued before him (cf. 1 Kgs. 10:18-20). Also like Adam, he grasped for forbidden fruit, taking wives and concubines from the nations that turned him from Yahweh to other gods (1 Kgs. 11:1-13). Solomon?s sins determined the history of Israel for several centuries, but in the short term, Yahweh punished Solomon by raising up a series of adversaries, what the Hebrew Bible calls ?satans?E(11:14, 23): Hadad the Edomite; Rezon who became king of Aram; and Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who eventually ruled ten of Israel?s tribes.

Scripture provides brief biographical portraits of each of these ?satans,?Eand each biography is strikingly familiar. Hadad was driven into Egypt during David?s conquest of Edom, and there he gained the favor of Pharaoh, who gave him a land and a bride. As soon as he learned that David was dead, Hadad (rather brusquely) demanded that Pharaoh let him go, and he (presumably) returned to Edom, where he was an adversary to Solomon (11:14-22). Jeroboam?s story runs along similar lines: Driven out of the land because of Solomon?s hostility, Jeroboam fled to Egypt, where he remained until Solomon?s death. Upon his return, he led a delegation that asked Rehoboam, Solomon?s successor, to lighten the burden of labor on the population of Israel. When Rehoboam refused, ten tribes seceded from the house of David and made Jeroboam their first king. He quickly built shrines at Dan and Bethel, where Yahweh was worshiped through golden calves (11:26-12:33). In both of these cases, the story of the ?satan?Eis a repetition of the story of Israel. Hadad and Jeroboam both fled to Egypt, both were welcomed by Pharaoh, both eventually made an ?exodus?Efrom Egypt. Jeroboam eventually became a king, and even built a temple.

Hovering behind the biographies Rezon and Jeroboam is another narrative familiar to the original readers of 1 Kings. Rezon was opposed by his master, Hadadezer of Zobah, and fled his homeland. While in exile, he gathered a band of marauders and eventually marched into Damascus, where he began to rule over the Arameans (1 Kgs. 11:23-25). Rezon?s story, clearly, is a replication of the story of David, who fled from Saul into the wilderness, gathered the disaffected of the land to him, and eventually established a capital city in Jerusalem. Jeroboam?s story is similar: His promising career was cut short when Solomon learned about Ahijah?s prophecy and sought to put Jeroboam to death (11:26-28, 40), and Jeroboam?s scene with Ahijah is reminiscent of Samuel?s prediction that Saul would yield his place to ?your neighbor who is better than you?E(1 Kgs. 11:29-39; cf. 1 Sam. 15:24-33). There is even an explicit parallel: Yahweh told Jeroboam that his royal house had the potential to be as long-lasting as the house of David (1 Kgs. 11:38).

In part, the point of these parallels is to pass implicit judgment on the sins of Solomon and Rehoboam. If Jeroboam?s move from Egypt to Israel was an exodus and conquest, that casts Solomon and Rehoboam in the role of Canaanite kings ?Enot surprisingly, since they had begun to worship like Canaanites (1 Kgs. 11:1-8; 14:21-24). But the text also gives some insight into the ironic justice of God?s judgments. When the house of David fell into idolatry, Yahweh raised up another ?David?Eand promised to establish his house. We may generalize: Still today, one of the ways Yahweh judges His people is by raising up a pseudo-people as a parody and mirror.

There is a keen-edged justice to this, but Jeroboam?s rise was also an object lesson for the house of David. Jeroboam proved himself a false David; he was not ?complete with Yahweh?Eas David had been. Instead, Jeroboam established an unauthorized system of worship, an unauthorized priesthood, and an unauthorized festival calendar (1 Kgs. 12:25-33). His rebellion, however, should have alerted Rehoboam to his own failings. Not only did Rehoboam promote a more flagrant idolatry than Jeroboam, but he pursued religious policies that were as damaging as Jeroboam?s, if not more so. Jeroboam, after all, saw that Israel had to be united in worship (1 Kgs. 12:26-27), and he accordingly established central sanctuaries and centralized worship. By contrast, Rehoboam, following his father?s lead, promoted liturgical chaos (1 Kgs. 14:21-24), which could only lead to social and political fragmentation. Examining himself in the mirror that was Jeroboam, Rehoboam was supposed to learn, on the one hand, that he should reject Jeroboam?s example of idolatry, and that, on the other hand, he should see the wisdom of Jeroboam?s policies.

And so we come to the first perspective on Islam: The Lord raised up Islam as a parody or mirror of Christianity, which is designed to expose our failings and to call us to faithfulness. Indeed, Mohammed?s life strikingly recapitulates the history of Israel. Called (so he claimed) by Allah, Mohammed led his people out of Mecca to Medina, established his rule in Medina, and then conquered a promised land, which included his original hometown of Mecca. Within a century after his death, the promised land has expanded to imperial proportions, including Persia, Iraq, and North Africa. In the sixth century, Yahweh tore the robe that was Eastern Christendom, and gave a large swath to Mohammed. Mohammed is wearing it still.

Before we examine more fully how Islam is a parody of Christianity and of Christendom, and what we can learn by examining ourselves in this mirror, we need to explore a second biblical perspective on Islam, namely, that Islam is a global and systematic form of Judaizing. This is not just to say that Islam was shaped by Mohammed?s contact with Judaism, though that it is true enough that Islam?s debt to the Judaism of the Talmud is profound and fundamental. Judaism had had a marked presence in the Arabian Peninsula for centuries before Mohammed, and there was even a Jewish state among the Himyarites in Southwestern Arabia. Further, the Elkasite movement of the second century A.D. combined Jewish and Christian elements into a proto-Islamic system, though there appears to be no evidence of any direct link with Islam. Scholars who have investigated the sources of the Qur?an have noted similarities between its accounts and Talmudic and apocryphal renditions of biblical events.

What unites Islam is not doctrine so much as ritual, and ritually, Islam has a number of affinities with the ancient Israelite religion and with later Judaism. Though circumcision is not prescribed by the Qur?an, Muslims practice it, and the high point of the hajj (pilgrimage) is the ?Great Sacrifice?E(?Id-al-adha), which occurs annually and requires every Muslim male to sacrifice a goat (on sacrifice, cf. Sura 5.97; 22:33-34). The Qur?an, further, proscribes certain meats (?Forbidden you is carrion and blood, and the flesh of the swine, and whatsoever has been killed in the name of some other God,?ESura 5.3; cf. Sura 23.51; Lev. 11), and prescribes ritual washings before worship (?O believers, when you stand up for the service of prayer wash your face and hands up to the elbows, and also wipe your heads, and wash your feet up to the ankles. If you are in a state of seminal pollution, then bathe and purify yourself well,?ESura 5.6; cf. Lev. 15). M. E. Combs-Schilling description of the ritual life of early Islam is worthy of full quotation:

Early Madinan [i.e., in Medina] preachings and ritual enactments stressed

the lines of unity between Islam and the other monotheisms. For instance, Muhammed instituted a fast for Muslims on ?Ashura?E the tenth day of Muharram, in echo of the Jewish fast celebrated on the Day of Atonement, the tenth of Tishri. In Makka [Mecca], Muslims had prayed only twice a day, but in Madina, Muhammed instituted another prayer, so that Muslims prayed three times a day, as did Jews . . . . And, at first, Muhammed enjoined Muslims to conduct these prayers like Jews, facing Jerusalem, a city all three monotheisms regard as holy.

Yet when it became clear that there were not going to be mass conversions of Jews and Christians, Muhammed began to use rituals to distinguish Islam, to mark off its sacred boundaries. He dramatically altered the direction of prayer, calling upon Muslims to turn around, to no longer face Jerusalem, which lay to Madina?s north, but rather to pray facing Makka, a city which lay in the opposite direction, to Madina?s south. Makka was a city that was distinctly Islam?s own. The number of prayers was eventually changed so that Muslims were called upon to pray five times a day rather than three. Muhammed instituted a whole month of fasting from dawn to dusk, Ramadan. He distinguished Muslims through the style of prayer. Whereas Christians were summoned by bells and Jews by trumpets, Muslims were summoned by the sound of the human voice crying out ?Allah Akbar,?EGod is great. Furthermore, Muhammed settled upon Friday as the Muslim sabbath.

Place yourself in the position of a Syrian or Egyptian Christian of the seventh century, and it will be clear that conversion to Islam would mean nothing less than a return to life in bondage under the ?elements of the world?E(Gal. 4:1-11). That is, converting to Islam meant becoming a Judaizer. Peter the Venerable was right: Islam shows itself as apostasy most clearly in its rejection of Christian rites and its embrace of archaic ?sacraments.?E

For many Protestants, first-century Judaizers are seen mainly as advocates of works-righteousness, late medieval Catholics before their time. Though ideas of meritorious righteousness were circulating in first-century Judaism (see Phil. 3:1-11), the basic thrust of Judaizers lay elsewhere. A Judaizer might be a perfectly sound Lutheran, might believe that Jesus was the eternal Son incarnate, and might believe that salvation was through the cross. What the Judaizer would not admit was that the cross and resurrection marked the beginning of a new world, a world radically different from that died on Golgotha (see Gal. 1:3-4; 5:11-16). Yes, the Judaizer would say, Jesus was the Messiah, crucified for the sins of the world; but still, we must keep Torah, avoid contamination from Gentiles, be careful about who is sitting next to us at meals, and practice circumcision. Judaizers denied the present reality of the new creation. Judaizing denied that the gospel is an eschatological message, that it is a message about an ending and a beginning.

In this sense Islam is fundamentally a Judaizing movement. To be sure, Islam teaches, far more emphatically than first-century Judaism, salvation through works (Sura 9.4: ?God loves those who take heed for themselves?E. But the most important heresy of Islam is the denial that Jesus brought in a new creation. Islam has a place for Jesus and the Qur?an even speaks of Jesus?E?gospel,?Ebut the Islamic Jesus was no more than a prophet, and after his non-crucifixion and non-resurrection, the world went trundling on as it had since creation. Even Mohammed did not bring in a new creation. He saw himself as a messenger from the one God, another in the line of prophets from Noah to Jesus, sent to call Jews and Christians from their various errors back to the monotheistic faith of Abraham (Sura 2.135). He was emphatically not the proclaimer of a new faith, much less a new creation. James Kritzeck puts it well: ?Islam was seen not as a new covenant but as an urgently needed restoration of the old.?EWhen Muslims look to Ishmael as their forebear, they are more Pauline than they realize, for Ishmael is the symbolic Judaizer (Gal. 4:21-31). Medieval Christians were strictly correct to speak of the ?heresy of the Ishmaelites?Eor the ?religion of the Hagarenes.?E

Combining the two biblical perspectives discussed above, we have these clues for understanding Islam?s place in Christian history: Islam is a parody of Christianity, and, more particularly, Islam is a Judaizing parody of Christianity. If we want to be more responsive than Rehoboam, we have to take a good look at the face in the mirror, and not ignore the warts.

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