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How not Islam?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Kenneth Cragg
Kenneth Cragg
Affiliation:
Reader in Religious Studies, University of Sussex: Assistant Bishop of Chichester
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Extract

A decent interval has elapsed since the publication, in Religious Studies, Vol. 11 (1975), pp. 167–79, of Professor R. C. Zaehner's article: ‘Why Not Islam?’ The question, an intriguing one, was answered there with such ambivalence that a cynic might be forgiven for thinking he was being trifled with, while a well-wisher could easily be lost in confusion. The Professor commended Islam from the angle least worthy to command credence or to merit acceptance. His case for Islam had about it an air of almost perverse pleading, identifying Islam's main asset as an authoritarian simplicity suited to simple minds. The writer appeared to be withholding his own position by the very form of his advocacy. The article could equally be read as a subtle dissuasive. ’Sadly, debate cannot now be joined. For the piece must have been among the very last the author published. Death, as with Dickens and the mystery of Edwin Drood, silences inquiry about the puzzle of his intentions. It would be unseemly to have pressed the issues too sharply or too soon. But, at this distance of time, it may be possible to wonder in print about what Professor Zaehner's purpose really was. ’Why not…?’ is a question which it is always well for us to ask about alternatives within the human, or the religious, scene. Negative questions, as the Latin grammarians have it, expect the answer Yes. ’Why not X,’ however, when it comes to grips, has to pass into reasons why in the affirmative. It is in doing so that Zaehner offers what, on many counts, would seem to be dubious, even un-Islamic, reasons for his pleas.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , December 1977 , pp. 387 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

page 389 note 1 The Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldün, trans. Rosenthal, F. (New York, 1958), 1, 192.Google Scholar

page 391 note 1 Rahman, Fazlur, Islam (London, 1961), p. 15.Google Scholar

page 392 note 1 In an unpublished paper at the Conference of Muslims and Christians, July 1972.

page 392 note 2 Al Itqān fī-‘Ulūm al-Qur’ān (Cairo, 1941), 1, 29.Google Scholar It is noteworthy that, though in some quarters the non-chronological arrangement of the Qur'ān had been adduced as evidence that it is meant to be taken as outside history, the same point can be invoked in the contrary sense. The fact that the reader, or the exegete, is bound to search out for himself the immediate time-and-place context of a passage, just because it is not otherwise clear, makes the sense of historical locale, and condition, all the more alert and emphatic. But, either way, the argument will depend upon the presuppositions one brings, and it is the which are our concern here.

page 394 note 1 In an address in All Saints' Cathedral, Cairo. See further discussion in Islamochristiana, Pontificio Istituto Di Studi Arabi, Rome, vol. 3, 1977. Dr Nuwaihy's view of the verse as meaning this divine yearning over humanity in evil is by no means generally shared by the commentators. It could well be that, in his reading of the verse, there is an element of ‘coming toward’ his Christian audience. But is not this part of the spiritual potential of ‘dialogue’? There may be ‘meaning for’ before there is ’meaning of’. Or, rather, to say: ’I see that this is truth you cherish’ is to be on the way to saying: ‘From your treasuring of it I find myself responding to it too.’