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The Prophet Muhammad and Earlier
Religions, Especially Judaism and Christianity
By:
Dr. Ahmad Shafaat
(January 2003)
It is often
said that Islam is an off-shoot of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Sometimes it is even said that Islam is a Judeo-Christian heresy.
Another form of this type of view attacks the very person of the
Prophet of Islam. It is alleged that the Prophet Muhammad took most
of his teachings from the Bible or from other Jewish/Christian
sources. In particular, he borrowed from the Jews the central belief
of his teaching – a strict monotheism and rejection of idol worship.
The implication is that if most of what the Prophet taught,
including the central proclamation of Islam, was found in earlier
Judeo-Christian tradition, his teachings could not be from direct
divine revelation. The fact that Qur`anic versions of older Jewish
or Christian traditions can often have radically different elements
is attributed to ignorance or misunderstanding or distortion of
earlier sources on the part of the Prophet Muhammad or his
“informers”.
A closer look
at Islam and the Judeo-Christian traditions shows such views to be
grossly mistaken. Both the Biblical and Islamic traditions agree
that Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac and that both became
ancestors of nations. If so, then it is to be expected that both
nations possessed some of Abraham's heritage without any one of them
being a borrower from the other. For while one brother may in some
ways influence the other they both independently inherit knowledge
and some character traits from their father and then pass these on
to their descendants.
Independent forms of the Abrahamic
heritage
This is
confirmed by the fact that as the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac
moved to different lands they gave independent forms to the
Abrahamic heritage. Among the Ishmaelites the Abrahamic heritage was
preserved mainly in the form of some system of regular prayer and
charity and some hajj rites which commemorate stories connected with
Abraham, Ishmael and Hagar. These rites which predate the writing of
the Torah as we have it today have no parallel in the Israelite
tradition. Also, most of the traditions enacted in the hajj rites
are not told in the Bible, e.g., the running of Hagar between the
hills of Safa and Marwa, the (re)building or
purification of the shrine in Makkah, the stoning of the devil as he
tries to tempt Abraham from doing the will of God, and the sacrifice
of an animal to commemorate Abraham's sacrifice of his son for whom
God provided a ransom. This establishes that the Ishmaelites
preserved the Abrahamic heritage quite independently of the
Israelites and makes it probable that at least some elements common
to Islam and Judaism may also be the result of the two nations
separately preserving that heritage without anyone borrowing from
the other. This is probably the case with monotheism. The Qur`an
traces its monotheistic message first and foremost to Abrahamic
religion (millah; 2:135, 3:95, 4:126, 6:161, 19:123, 22:78)1
and not any Israelite prophet.
All prophets use
earlier traditions
The
discrediting of Islam and its Prophet by explaining it in terms of
simple borrowing from Judeo-Christian tradition also ignores the
fact that extensive use of earlier traditions has also been
established by critical scholarship in case of Judaism and
Christianity and their founding figures. Thus:
n
Many of the stories in the Old Testament, other than
some of those that deal specifically with Israeli history, have been
traced to Sumerian, Babylonian and Canaanite traditions. For
example, the story of Adam and his expulsion from the Garden has
been linked to similar Sumerian stories later adopted in the story
of Gilgamesh in the Babylonian tradition. The Biblical story of
Noah’s flood is also very similar, both in structure and details, to
earlier Sumerian and Babylonian traditions. The story about Abraham
and earlier ancient ancestors of humanity are also probably of
non-Israelite non-Biblical origin.
n
The Law of Moses has close precedents in the Code of
Hammurabi (the king of Babylon from 1792 to 1750 BCE, about five
centuries before Moses, who lived in the 13th century
BCE). The
first recorded monotheistic system
arose in Egypt during the rule of Akhenaten (1353-1337 BCE)
who promulaged his monotheistic system a generation before Moses
(died 1245 BCE?) and may have in some way influenced the Jewish
community in Egypt around the time of Moses. Even if we accept a
more tradtional dating of Moses that places him before Akhenaten,
the fact remains that Akhenaten’s monotheism is documented many
centuries before that of Moses.
n
The institution of kingship, which later became the
basis of influential messianic prophecy, was borrowed from other
nations. According to 1 Sam 8:20, when people ask Samuel to appoint
a king over them, they do so in order that they “also may be like
other nations”. There are many parallels that have been pointed out
by scholars between the kingship ideology of the Israelites and
those of the nations around them2. This should hardly be
surprising, since if the Israelites wanted a king to be like other
nations, they could hardly have done otherwise than to pattern their
kingdom on those that existed around them.
n
Some beliefs found in the Biblical and other
influential Jewish books such as the Apocrypha have also been traced
to non-Jewish origins. For example, the belief in the resurrection,
later affirmed by both Christianity and Islam, has been traced to
Persia.
n
The Talmud contains many ideas taken from Greek and
Christian sources.
n
As for Christianity, there is hardly anything that
Jesus said which the Jewish prophets and rabbis or cynic sages had
not said before, including the golden rule and the saying about the
love of enemy, of which Christians are so proud.
n
Paul, after declaring that the Jewish law was nailed
to the cross, had to give to his Churches some rules of conduct and
ethical principles of his own. But many of these principles have
close parallels to the lists of vices and virtues found in Greek
tradition, not to talk of the parallels that Paul’s central
proclamation of a dying and rising Lord has with the dying and
rising gods of the pagan mystery cults.
To be sure
that there are many differences between the Judeo-Christian
traditions and their earlier Sumerian, Babylonian, Canaanite,
Persian, and Greek forms, but why should these differences be not
explained by ignorance or misunderstanding or distortion on the part
of Biblical and other Jewish and Christian writers or their
“informers”?
It is better
to admit the fact every religion has adopted ideas and traditions
found earlier and then turn to the question: Must we conclude that a
religion cannot be of divine origin simply because the ideas and
traditions it contains existed earlier? The answer to this question
is in the negative. For, there are two possibilities:
1)
The earlier ideas and traditions used by the religion are
revealed by God himself. In this case, God himself may be using his
earlier revelations in a new communication, e.g. to make them more
effective and relevant in a new situation. This is hardly
problematic.
2)
The earlier ideas and traditions are of human origin. Again
there is no problem, for, if divine revelation can use human
language, why can’t it also use some human ideas?
The truth is
that prophets of God like other leaders who want to change people’s
thinking and conduct must build on what is already there. They
cannot bring completely unfamiliar ideas and achieve much with
people. Moreover, since the prophetic revelation deals with basic
issues of human existence and salvation, it is only to be expected
that people everywhere have thought about these issues and come up
with answers, of which some are similar or even identical.
Thus despite
some very close parallels between what Moses, Jesus, Muhammad (God
bless them all) had to say and what was said before them, they can
be true prophets of God bringing genuine divine revelation.
It should be
noted that even if no new ideas are introduced by a prophet there
may be something very new in his words. This something new may be a
new expression of the older ideas, an expression that makes it more
effective and relevant to a new situation. It may consist of
decisions as to which of several interpretations of earlier ideas
and traditions are the correct ones. Or, it may be new emphases put
on the various ideas and a new way of fitting them into the whole.
The post-Mosaic biblical prophets all say very similar things and
yet each one of them has something very new.
Sometimes
something new can be added without any change in the outward form of
an existing idea. Take a joke. Two people tell the joke in exactly
the same words. One produces yawns and the other laughter. Two
conductors conduct the same musical piece with exactly the same
notes in exactly the same sequence. One delights the audience, the
other disappoints them. In case of the Biblical prophets, the mere
freshness of their experience with the divine adds something new to
their words, even if the intellectual content of those words may
seem very similar.
The unique role of the Prophet of
Islam
The Qur`an by
being based on a fresh experience with the divine, by transforming
earlier stories and/or telling them in a new spirit, and by stating
earlier ideas differently and changing their relative value in the
overall system has created something very new and powerful which
first transformed the Arab nation and subsequently started a process
of transforming the whole world which still continues and, according
to Islamic belief, will continue till the end of history.
It is
interesting that the Qur`an itself addresses in many verses the
relationship of Islam with earlier religious traditions. Thus it
tells us that the Prophet of Islam did not come to introduce any
innovation in religion (46:9) but teaches the same religion that was
taught by earlier prophets (42:13) and that is based on unchanging
fitrah or true nature of human beings (30:30). In
earlier times prophets were raised among all nations (16:36).
The similarity
of the teachings of the true prophets of God concerns its essence
but not all the details. The essence of all true religions is a
relationship with the one transcendent and holy God, a moral life,
and good deeds, with implicit or explicit belief in the hereafter
and future judgment (5:69, 98:5). This does not change, but details
of ritual procedures and regulations/conventions for organizing
community life may differ from religion to religion (5:48, 22:67,
45:17). The true prophets of God also differ in the roles they
perform in history. Some play a more foundational role, others more
reforming or supporting role.
The role of
the Prophet Muhammad is mainly defined by the following functions:
n
Providing a universal expression to the religious
truth. In many different chapters of the Qur`an, coming from
different periods, the Prophet is presented as a messenger of God to
all humankind and all people of the world are explicitly addressed
(6:90, 7:158,
10:57, 12:104,
21:107, 25:1,
38:87, 68:52, 81:27, 98:1-3).
n
Providing resolutions of important differences that
existed earlier. Thus in reference to the Jews the Qur`an says:
This Qur`an indeed relates to
the children of Israel most of what they differ in. And it is surely
guidance and mercy to the believers (27:76-77)
Many ideas in
Judaism and Christianity oppose each other and while some diversity
is positive and inevitably exists in all traditions, in other cases
we want to know the truth. One may say that we should simply leave
people to choose which of the opposing ideas are true. But if people
were so smart why is there any need of divine revelation at all? If
there is God and he communicates with humanity through revelation,
then we should expect that at least in some important matters such
as whether there is resurrection or not, he would provide some
guidance.
It is
noteworthy that, as shown by the word “most” in the above verse, the
Qur`an does not aim to settle all differences. Elsewhere it says
that some differences between people will only be settled in the
hereafter (22:17).
n
Providing complete and balanced teaching. Human beings
can come up with very good ideas but they often get carried away
with their good ideas and cannot hold them in balance with other
good ideas. Mercy and compassion are a very good idea but so are
justice and law of retaliation. How to hold the two in balance?
Having a law is a very good idea but so is the idea that there is a
spirituality that transcends the law and without which law can
indeed cease to be a life giving force. How to balance the two ideas
so that the law is not rejected as a curse nor does it become a
curse? Pluralism is good but so is making a distinction between
truth and falsehood, right and wrong. How to see truth and goodness
in other traditions and at the same time take these distinctions
seriously? Universal view of religious truth is a great idea but for
religious truth to be manifested and advanced, it has to be
experienced by some individuals and communities at particular times
and places. How to maintain a universal outlook on religious truth
without reducing it to a set of abstract, intellectually satisfying
ideas and how to define it in terms of the individuals, communities
or circumstances in relation to which its manifestation takes place
without getting lost in those individuals, communities, or
circumstances? Muslims believe that the Qur`an strikes the necessary
balance, even if they themselves cannot often maintain it. One
Christian who converted to Islam gave his reason for conversion as
follows: Islam is like a perfect building, where there is everything
and everything is where it should be.
n
Providing more focus on what is really important and
necessary.
Jewish
tradition, being the work of many individuals over many centuries,
is so vast that you can find almost every religious idea somewhere
in the Bible, the apocrypha, and the rabbinical writings in the
Talmud etc. This has one advantage: anything a follower of another
religion says, the Jews can point to some of their sources and say:
“the idea is found in our religion and so we do not have to listen
to you, much less follow you.” The situation is somewhat similar in
Christianity, although in that religion a few trinitarian and
redemptive dogmas and talk (but not so much the practice) of love
tend to push everything else aside. But the vast and tremendous
diversity of ideas also has a disadvantage: important religious
ideas and spiritual and moral principles get diluted and confused,
if not buried under the massive weight of tradition. The emphasis
then shifts towards something other than the essential religious,
spiritual, and moral principles. In Judaism the emphasis gets put on
nation while in Christianity focus is on the person of Christ.
Neither Moses nor Jesus taught any such emphasis.
From another
angle the situation can be described thus: In his/her spiritual and
moral journey a Jew travels with a lot of heavy baggage while a
Christian (by concentrating on the messianic prophecy and doing away
with other elements of earlier traditions including the law) travels
with an insufficient amount of luggage. God Most High in his mercy
sent the Prophet Muhammad to provide spiritual and moral seekers
just the right amount and type of baggage for their
important journey.
Notes
1. Here one may
raise two objections:
a)
Abraham was not a monotheist, since the Torah suggests that his
grandson Jacob had figurines of gods in his house (Gen 31:30-35).
But, since the writing of Torah was not completed until around 450
BCE, almost 15 centuries after Abraham, we cannot reject Abraham’s
monotheism on the basis of polytheistic tendencies in the existing
Torah. Just think of the case of another figure who is known to be a
monotheist: Jesus. Most of the traditions about Jesus were formed
and written down within about 150 years after his departure. Yet, on
the basis of those traditions Jesus himself has become God the Son,
separate in person from God the Father. Imagine if those traditions
were written a thousand years after him!!! A strong argument in
favor of Abraham’s monotheism or at least very strong monotheistic
tendency is that two religious traditions that adopted monotheism
with the greatest seriousness and persistence --- Islam and Judaism
– both trace their origin to Abraham. That is, Islam and Judaism are
like two independent and hence reliable witnesses to the monotheism
of Abraham.
b)
By the time Islam came on the scene the descendents of Ishmael had
become pagans, so Islam’s monotheistic teachings must have been
derived from Judaism and Christianity. In connection with this
objection, it may be admitted that paganism was indeed the dominant
religion in Arabia at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. But this
does not mean that monotheistic ideas had ceased to exist. Once
again the example of Christianity illustrates the point. Although in
Christianity trinitarian view of God became dominant in the fourth
century, a strict monotheism had always existed within Christianity,
sometimes as an undercurrent and sometimes as separate organized
churches. When the Qur`an calls the pagan Arabs to the monotheistic
heritage of Abraham, they do not object by saying that Abraham was
not a monotheist. They do not tell Muhammad that the idols they
worshipped were also worshipped by Abraham and Ishmael.
2. Thus
Babylonian, Assyrian, and Egyptian kings are said to be sons of God
or gods who bring comfort and joy to the downtrodden, defeat the
oppressors, and bring blessings, peace and prosperity; they are
chosen by the gods to make right shine in the country; they defeat
the enemies and rule from sea to sea and are lords of the whole
world (Helmut Ringgren, The Messiah in the Old Testament, SCM
Press, London, 1956). Very similar things are said of the Israelite
kings in the Old Testament (Psalms 72: 1-9, 89:27, 110: 1-2,
132:10-12, 1 Chronicles 22:10). |