Review: "The Good Shepherd: Jesus Christ in Islam" by Bilal Muhammad
Spoiler Alert: Buy This Book Immediately
The best form of worship is to worship God for his own sake. Having hope for Paradise and having fear of Hell is good, but these are instinctual impulses of one who has not reached full spiritual maturity. The believer knows that God is wise, merciful, and just, and thus, he puts his full trust in God’s judgment. None will be wronged on the Day of Judgment.
The believer simply worships God because He alone has the right to be worshiped — this is the best way to live.
Bilal Muhammad, The Good Shepherd: Jesus Christ in Islam
For those who have never opened a history book: there’s a long history of conflict between Islam and Christianity. For those who haven’t kept up with current events: there has been growing tensions between native citizens and Muslim immigrants throughout Europe. Given all this, it’s not entirely surprising that many Christians assume Muslims hate them and their faith.
We’ve certainly had our disagreements, but there has also been a great deal of trade, learning, and mutual respect between Islam and Christianity. St. Thomas Aquinas helped kickstart the Renaissance thanks to Latin translations of Arabic translations of Aristotle. Saladin and Richard the Lionhearted became warm friends despite being on opposite sides of the war. One of the main reasons Ahnaf and I started our podcast was as an effort to encourage Muslim-Christian dialogue.
Our friend Bilal Muhammad recently appeared on Eurabiamania in one of our best episodes to date, so I was really looking forward to his book on Jesus in Islam. While Christendom and the Ummah frequently found themselves at odds over territory, they share many common spiritual beliefs. In an effort to build bridges between our faiths, Bilal has written The Good Shepherd: Jesus Christ in Islam.
The Middle East was home to the earliest Christian communities, and even today you’ll find descendants of those Christians living throughout the Ummah. But outside of the Syriac, Assyrian, and Coptic churches those writings, and their contribution to Christianity’s growth and development, are largely forgotten. The Good Shepherd has cross-referenced the Gospels and apocryphal works like the Syriac Infancy Gospel and the Apocalypse of Peter and compared and contrasted them to Islamic sources.
For one example: my particular field of interest is pre-Nicene and early Nicene Christianity. Before Nicene Christianity became the Roman Empire’s official religion, there were many different takes on Christology. Many (not all) Muslims believe that only an illusion of Jesus was crucified. Catholics would call this the Docetist heresy: it was rooted in the Gnostic idea that the Logos would not imprison itself in matter and suffer death and humiliation.
Bilal also rightly notes that many early Christians identified as Jews and considered Jesus a teacher and Prophet. These believers rejected Pauline theology — and there’s some textual evidence suggesting tensions between St. Peter (whom Muslims and even some Jews consider to be a righteous rabbi) and St. Paul. Several competing visions of Christ were largely wiped out once Christianity became an official state religion. Many of these ideas survived in the East as minority traditions, notably Nestorianism.
The first step in building dialogue between communities is establishing our boundaries. One of the biggest differences between Islam and Christianity is our understanding of redemption. For Christians, the Crucifixion served as an atonement for our sinful nature which has been with us since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. As Bilal explains the Muslim position:
Muslims believe that they will bear the consequences of their own sins, unless forgiven by God. The sin of Adam is not inherited by those who did not commit it. Presumably, those between Adam and John the Baptist were simply expected to worship God and live an ethical life, and Muslim see no need for this to change with Jesus. The idea of a human sacrifice absolving the past and future sins of humanity is simply contrary to what the Quran teaches. Putting an innocent man to death, rather than simply forgiving mankind out of divine grace, goes against the sensibilities of Muslims.
For us the Crucifixion is a defining world event and Jesus Christ is both 100% human and 100% divine. For Muslims — and, to be fair, most liberal Western Christians — Jesus is a great man sent by God with a message. In fact, Muslims are actually more devout than those liberal Christians. They believe Jesus was born of a Virgin and performed miracles, and they are also willing to defend Isa’s honor with violence. Muslims honor Jesus as the greatest Prophet before Muhammad, and the Quran has an entire Surah dedicated to Mary.
It’s important to note that while both Christianity and Islam believe that Hell exists, both also believe that God is loving and forgiving. Contrary to many uninformed rumors. God is no sadist cackling with glee as He throws sinners into eternal torment. For both Muslims and Christians, God wants very much for us to be happy and to attain the fruits of paradise. We both agree that He sent many Prophets to bring us His message. Our unbelief and unrighteousness is entirely due to our stubbornness, not to His will. We condemn ourselves to perdition by our acts and words.
The word “Islam” literally means submission. Both Muslims and Christians submit to God and His teachings. This has made both traditions increasingly unpopular in a secular world that privileges individual freedom and self-expression. But to center existence in humanity is to center the eternal in the temporal. Instead of moving us closer to the eternal Source, this worldview traps us in a prison of self.
Muslims have received criticism for advocating violence toward blasphemers. But if you would strike those who insult your loved ones, why would you not strike those who insult your Faith? King St. Louis famously said that “A Christian should argue with a blasphemer only by running his sword through his bowels as far as it will go.” It’s also telling that many who criticize violence in the name of God celebrate violence in the name of their favorite political causes. They wish to neuter religion not out of any moral convictions, but because they fear being judged.
I should also note that both Islam and Christianity condemn what Catholicism calls Indifferentism. Many would like to think that all religions are pathways to the same God and that one faith is as good as another so long as you are a decent human being. Ultimately this line of thinking leads to secularism and atheism. It’s a short step from “all religions are true” to “all religions are false.”
Bilal believes the fullness of Truth is found in Islam. I believe it is found in Apostolic Christianity, particularly Latin Catholicism. If Bilal agreed with me, he would be a Catholic. If I agreed with Bilal, I would be a Muslim. That does not mean that we cannot recognize similarities between our traditions, nor find new insights when we compare and contrast our beliefs. A devout Muslim who honors Jesus as a Prophet is closer to Christianity than a lukewarm secularist who thinks that Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are all very nice men who said very nice things.
I am sure I will receive some pushback for this review. To my critics, all I can say is “take it up with the Pope.”
The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.
Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.
Even as a "pagan" I think Jesus was 100% divine, which is more Christian than most liberal Christians.
India was invaded by Muslims in the 10th and 11th centuries. They tried to suppress Hinduism, which had allowed both Christians and Jews to live in peace since the 1st century. Their rulers were intermittently brutish, repressive or benignly corrupt. They brought nothing culturally valuable to India as far as I can tell other than a few Masjids (mosques) and tombs like the Taj Mahal and some poems, but destroyed many more indigenous works of art as being offensive to Allah. Aurangzeb, in particular, was especially brutal; while his father, Akbar was tolerant towards Hindus.
The British easily defeated a chaotic collection of rajputs, some Muslim some Hindu, that could be played against one another, populated by helots unwilling to fight.