Accad Martin - Sacred misinterpretation : reaching across the Christian-Muslim divide

Martin Accads is a voice to be heeded by anyone concerned about Christian-Muslim relations. This book offers an important model of how the historical study of long-standing theological debates can inform and inspire fruitful models for theology and practice.

IDA GLASER,
University of Oxford

Full of important information for Christians looking for a theological framework to engage with Islam. The book is an invaluable contribution to a Christian understanding of Islam. It is written with a rare mix of critical scholarly attention, practical wisdom, and a deep commitment to reaching across the theological divide between Muslims and Christians. While there are several works addressing various theological themes in Islam from a Christian perspective, Sacred Misinterpretation is among the first to offer a thoughtful and comprehensive theological engagement with Islam. I highly recommend it to Christian theological students and specialists interested in Christian-Muslim dialogue.

JOHN AZUMAH,
Columbia Theological Seminary

An extraordinarily thorough and useful survey of the complex history of Muslim-Christian theological misunderstandings. The book is built on Accads research into the history of Muslim use of the Bible, a history that has been far richer and more varied than even well-informed contemporary Muslims or Christians usually assume. Accad also addresses Christian understandings of the Quran, which are often entirely oblivious to the sophisticated Muslim exegetical tradition. His approach is unapologetically theological, and therefore extraordinarily practical, thoroughly surveying every major point of theological interaction between Muslims and Christians. In the end, Sacred Misinterpretation is an optimistic and hope-filled book. Informed by his own experience growing up in postcivil war Lebanon and a family history rich with experience of Muslim-Christian interaction, Accad makes the case that removing the roadblocks to mutual understanding is both imperative and attainable.

DANIEL BROWN,
Institute for the Study of Religion in the Middle East

Martin Accad has succeeded admirably in his attempt to write a book respectful enough of Islam that Muslims will want to read it. He draws upon his impressive familiarity with the Islamic sources and his fascinating personal history to propose a new model for interfaith relations. His concept of metadialogue provides a solid framework upon which creative religious discourse can be established. Because it is attentive to the theological sensitivities of each side, this is a work that just might provide a blueprint for moving beyond the stalemate that has usually been the result of even the best-intentioned attempts at conversations between Christians and Muslims.

JOHN KALTNER,
author of Islam

In the field of Islamic Studies, where Catholics and Orthodox in the Middle East have been active for generations, here is the first substantial contribution from a scholar who is an Arab and an evangelical Protestant. Because he can access centuries of literature in Syriac and Arabic, he is able to understand how Christians and Muslims have engaged in dialogue over many centuries and can appreciate how historical contexts have shaped the gradual development of theological controversies. Being rooted in the Lebanese context and having lived through intense conflict, he understands well the relationship between religion and politics and can see the role that Christian and Muslim leaders should be able to playeven in the conflicts that rage across the Middle East at the present time. This book will challenge the ignorance, fears, and prejudices of many Christians, because it really does stretch the boundaries and force them to rethink their assumptions.

COLIN CHAPMAN,
visiting lecturer at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary

Sacred Misinterpretation

Reaching across the Christian-Muslim Divide

Martin Accad

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

2019 Martin Accad

All rights reserved

Published 2019

252423222120191234567

ISBN 978-0-8028-7414-6

eISBN 978-1-4674-5631-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Accad, Martin, 1972- author.

Title: Sacred misinterpretation : reaching across the Christian-Muslim divide / Martin Accad.

Description: Grand Rapids : Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018060809 | ISBN 9780802874146 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: IslamRelationsChristianity. | Christianity and other religionsIslam.

Classification: LCC BP172 .A273 2019 | DDC 297.2/83dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018060809

To the people of Syriathe women, children, and men who continue to be victims of the horrors of religious fanaticism, fueled by political egoism, social injustice, and global economic disparity.

May this book contribute healing to the world.

To Jesus, my paradigm of love, compassion, and peace,

I owe all inspiration.

To God be the glory!

Contents

. The SEKAP Spectrum of Christian-Muslim Interaction

. The Hermeneutical Emergence and Development of Islamic Jurisprudence (Fiqh)

. The Hermeneutical Emergence and Development of Christian Thought and Praxis

. Interpretation and Misinterpretation

. Mecca and Medina

In his Biography of the Messenger of God, Ibn Isq (died 767) speaks of sixty Christian riders who came to visit the prophet Muhammad from the southern Arabian oasis town of Najrn. The leader of these riders was Abu ritha , who was famous for building churches (with the help of Byzantine subsidies) in South Arabia. According to Ibn Isq , Abu ritha knew in his heart that Muhammad was a prophet. He refrained from becoming a Muslim only because of the way the Byzantine Christians supported him and his people. Ibn Isq also notes that during the visit of Abu ritha and his companions to Muhammads city of Medina (in modern day Saudi Arabia), their time of prayer arrived, and Muhammad graciously allowed his Christian guests to pray inside his mosque.

Notably (and rather improbably) Ibn Isq relates that the Christian delegation was divided over Christ. Some in the group said that Christ is God, others that he is the son of God, and still others that he is the third person of the Trinity. Each group among them developed certain arguments to defend their Christology. He writes:

They argue that he is God because he used to raise the dead, and heal the sick, and declare the unseen; and make clay birds and then breathe into them so that they flew away.... They argue that he is the son of God in that they say he had no known father; and he spoke in the cradle and this is something that no child of Adam has ever done. They argue that he is the third of three in that God says: We have done, We have commanded, We have created and We have decreed.

All of these supposed arguments are in fact reflections of Quranic allusions to Jesus and to his miracles. Even the idea that the Christians would differ among themselves over Christ (when in fact South Arabian Christians of the time were almost all Monophysites or Jacobites) probably reflects the influence of the Quran (al-Mida 5:14 makes discord among Christians a divine punishment).

Ibn Isq goes on to describe the conversation of this group of Christians with Muhammad:

The apostle said to them, Submit yourselves. They said, We have submitted. He said: You have not submitted, so submit. They said, Nay, but we submitted before you. He said, You lie. Your assertion that God has a son, your worship of the cross, and your eating pork hold you back from submission.