Catholic Theological Perspectives on Islam at the Second Vatican Council

On 20 October 1965, the Second Vatican Council (October. 1962 — December 1965), after many long discussions and emendations of the original text, promulgated a declaration on the relations of the Church with non-Christian religion. A part of the declaration was dedicated to Islam, marking the first time in history that the Church Magisterium had formulated an official position toward Islam as a major religion.¹ The texts of Vatican II concerning Islam consist of a single sentence in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, and a full paragraph in the Declaration on the Relations of the Church with Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate. Several fundamental theological principles are said to be underlying the Church's approach to other religions: the universality of God's salvific will and the sacramental nature of the Church; and a third principle, lying between these two and connecting them, namely the necessary mediation of Jesus Christ.

The Origins of Statement on Islam at Vatican II

During the second session of the Council, the project of a text about Judaism was presented, the Catholic Oriental patriarchs and bishops living in Muslim countries asked for ‘balance’, in other words, that justice should be done not only to the reality of Judaism but also to Islam. Here the origins of Nostra Aetate are complex and still an open historical question. John XIII died on 3 June 1963 he was succeeded by the Archbishop of Milan, Giovanni Battista Montini as Paul VI. The new pope had for a long time expressed an interest in ameliorating relations between Catholics and Jews, and so in 1960 he gave the task of preparing an initial document on Judaism to Augustin Cardinal Bea, a German Jesuit who had been at one time the rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute and also the confessor of Pope Pius XII, and so a commission under the Secretariat for Unity was set up specifically to deal with this sensitive subject. In 1961 Cardinal Bea, while being interviewed by a journalist, mentioned that his secretariat was preparing a document which would have an end result of improving Catholic-Jewish relations.

In the era of difficult relations between the Arab and Islamic world and Judaism and the state of Israel, concerns began to be voiced in the Middle East that this state of affairs might possibly lead to a formal recognition of the Jewish state by the Vatican or that a reassessment of Zionism might be afoot. Observers at the time understood that this negative reaction in the Arab world, and especially some of the Eastern Catholic Patriarchs and some within the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, had a strong effect upon many within the curia and as a result the future of a major document on the Church's relationship to Judaism was very much in jeopardy.² At the same time controversy arose in connection with the projected document of the Catholic Church's relationship with Judaism, the commission became more and more aware that there was also a serious theological question involved, concerning where mention of the Jewish people or Judaism should actually be made; it seemed obvious that it could not be appropriately included in the Decree on Ecumenism, since the relationship of Catholicism to Judaism was fundamentally different from that which the Roman Church had with other Christian bodies. This was the argument of the Syrian Catholic Patriarch, Cardinal Tappouni, echoed by Stefanos I, the Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria, and Maximos IV, the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch.

Other Council fathers brought up the point that if the question of the church's relationship to Judaism was taken up then its relationship with other non-Christian religions should necessarily be discussed as well. It was clear that a definite impasse was arising between those who believed that the Jewish religion should have a unique position in a document all by itself and those who regarded a treatment of Judaism in an official conciliar document as inopportune and detrimental to the apostolate and presence of the Church in the Muslim world.³ Between the founding of the commission to draft a document in 1960 and its completion as a separate conciliar decree in 1964, there was a constant struggle not just over the details of the document but also over its very existence. When it finally appeared and was approved in November 1964, it included not only material on the Church's relationship with Judaism but also, albeit much shorter, sections on the Church's relationship to Islam and two other major world religions, Buddhism and Hinduism.

However, it would be too negative an evaluation to suggest that Nostra Aetate emerged solely in relation to a controversy over a document on the Catholic Church's relationship with Judaism. The theology which informed and grounded the conciliar document had been developing in the mind of Catholic thinkers for some decades, especially in such groups as the Cercle du Saint Jean-Bapiste and in the thought of Louis Massignon, Jean Daniélou SJ, and Jules Monchanin.⁴

It is well recording here, that the Council's concern with Islam arose incidentally, out of a desire for a declaration concerning the Jewish people. There was no intention of providing a full discussion of Islamic beliefs and practices, nor for that matter, of those of any other religion. Thus it is often been commented that the Second Vatican Council spoke about Muslims but not about Islam. This is true insofar as the Council did not intend to give a full description of Islam, entering into a comprehensive theological assessment of the tradition, for that the Council Fathers left open for a future consideration of the Church.

Muslim belief as presented in Lumen Gentium

The demand for the inclusion of Islam in the conciliar documents issued in two relatively short but important and decisive texts. Although they are primarily concerned with the Catholics' practical attitude towards Muslims, they imply elements of a fresh Catholic theological view of Islam. Number 16 of the ‘Dogmatic constitution on the Church’Lumen Gentium declares:

‘But the plan of salvation also embraces those who acknowledge the Creator, and among these the Muslims are first; they profess to hold the faith of Abraham and along with us they worship the one merciful God who will judge humanity on the last day.’⁵

The study of the proceedings of the Council makes it clear that it did not want to state an objective link between Islam, Ishmael and the biblical revelation. The reference to Abraham is put on the subjective level: ‘they profess…’.

Some decades before the Council there were influential currents in Catholic thought which attempted to reconcile Islam and Abraham in Christian theology. Louis Massignon (1883-1962), Islamicist who having recovered his own Christian faith through contact with Islam devoted his life to presenting the faith of Islam to the West. He was no theologian and never systematized his thought but presented it in flashes of an intuitive nature.⁶ His position has been summarized as:

“Islam, according to Massignon, is the heir of Hagar and Ishmael, the ‘excluded’, driven into the desert but enjoying a special blessing (Gen. 16: 11-20; 21: 17-20; 25: 12-18). Muhammad receives this blessing of Ishmael ‘at the providential and symbolic hour’: exiled from his homeland, Mecca, like Abraham from Ur and Ishmael driven into the desert, he claims inheritance of Abraham against Israel (the Jewish people) unfaithful to their Covenant and against the Christians unfaithful to Jesus”.⁷

Islam's role is thus, as it were, to goad Jews and Christians to return to the correct understanding of their own religions. It could be considered almost as an:

“Abrahamic schism, prior to the Ten Commandments, the foundation of Judaism and to Pentecost, the foundation of Christianity”.⁸

According to Louis Massignon's ‘theological’ vision, Muhammad possessed the faith of Abraham, he did not experience mystic union, for the night when he was transported from Mecca to Jerusalem and thence to heaven he stopped short of the Lotus of the Limit (Q 17:1; 53: 9-17). By abstaining from crossing the threshold and not daring to intercede for all sinners, he excluded himself from understanding the inner workings of the divine life. Hence the quranic denials of the Incarnation and Christ's death on the cross, Muslim faith, although authentic, therefore need to be completed by Christian charity. Nevertheless, in Massignon's view, it is evident from the live of Muslim saints the Holy Spirit is at work bringing about this completion from within Islam. This is nowhere more apparent than in the case of al-Hallâj.⁹ Massignon maintains that al- Hallâj death, in ecstatic participation in the Christ, summons Islam to admit the truth of the crucifixion. The rift between the three faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, will not finally be healed until Christ returns and, as Muslims themselves believe, Jerusalem once more becomes the direction of prayer (in early Islam, the qiblah, was towards Jerusalem). In the meantime, the Qur'an may be regarded as a truncated Arab Bible, the scriptural rule of the ‘Abrahamic schism’, and given the conditional authority conceded to the decisions of the antipopes.¹⁰

Massignon, who died shortly before the opening of the Second Vatican Council, certainly helped to bring about a new vision of Islam in Catholic circles though his own position, was not adopted by the conciliar texts.¹¹

The figure of Abraham is a controversial figure in the encounter for Christianity and Islam. ¹² Some two hundred and forty-five verses in twenty-five sûras of the Qur'an make reference to Abraham (Ibrâhîm), the progenitor of the nation of Israel. Among the biblical figures, only Moses¹³ receives more attention in the Qur'an. Abraham and Moses are the sole prophets explicitly identified as bearers of scriptures (Q. 53: 36-7; 87: 18-9). Although the Islamic Abraham shares many characteristics with the figure in the Bible and later Jewish exegetical literature, the Qur'an especially emphasizes his rôle as a precursor of Muhammad and the establisher of the pilgrimage rites in Mecca.¹⁴

For Jews Abraham's special covenantal relationship with God established him as the authenticator and founder of Judaism. It was natural that when Christianity established itself as related but independent of Judaism, Christians would associate with the figure of Abraham (Rom. 4:9-25; 9:7-9; Ga 421-31).¹⁵ Similarly, Abraham's role in the Qur'an includes a related but more polemical aspect as he appears as neither a Jew nor a Christian but as a Hanif muslim (Q 3:65-70). Like the New Testament citations, the Qur'an stipulates that the divine covenant established with Abraham does not automatically include all his progeny (Q 2:124; 4:54-5; 37: 113; 57:26). In as much as the religion of Muhammad is the religion of Abraham (Q 22:78), those Jews who reject Muhammad and the religion he brings are, in fact, rejecting their own religion. The Jews further deny the religious sanctity of Mecca, despite Abraham's intimate association with it (Q 3:95-8) as outlined in the Islamic tradition.

Abraham in Islam also has a defining rôle in the abrogation (naskh) of Judaism and Christianity. Muslim tradition maintains that diversity of religions has been the hallmark of human society for a very long time, but it had not been its primordial condition.¹⁶ We can learn from this that according to the Islamic tradition Islam is not only the historical religion and institutional framework, which was brought into existence by the Muslim prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, but also the primordial religion of mankind, revealed to Adam at the time of his creation. This is intimately related to the conception that Adam was a prophet, and to the notion that Abraham/Ibrâhîm was a Muslim in a metahistorical sense. At a certain stage in their development, however, Judaism and Christianity deviated from their pristine condition and became hopelessly corrupt (Tahrif), especially in the scriptural transmission. A prophetic mission would have been required to ameliorate this situation. However, no prophets were sent to accomplish this task between the missions of Jesus and Muhammad and, consequently, true religion ceased to exist. Only with the emergence of Islam in the seventh century, the situation was transformed.

Thus throughout the centuries since the rise of Islam, Muslim/Christian relations have revolved around this double axis of familiar, biblical appeal and strenuous, religious critique. It was against this background that the Church Fathers at the Second Vatican Council sought to give account of Islam.

Both texts of Vatican II link Islamic faith with Abraham. Lumen Gentium says that Muslims ‘profess to hold the faith of Abraham’. Nostra Aetate states that Muslims submit to God ‘just as Abraham submitted himself to God's plan, to whose faith Muslims eagerly link their own’. It must be admitted that these references to Abraham remain somewhat vague. Abraham's faith is recognized, but it is not said how he exemplified this faith. Muslims see Abraham as a champion of monotheism and attribute to him the rebuilding of the Ka'ba, the shrine in Mecca that has become the direction of Muslims' prayer. Christians insist on Abraham's response to God's call to leave his country for a promised land. By both religions Abraham is given as a model of submission to God's mysterious decrees. There is silence above all on the question of descent from Abraham. Quite apart from the historical question of the descent of the Arabs from Abraham through Ishmael, a question which remains disputed, the silence on this point is quite consistent with the Christian position with regard to Abraham. Physical descent is unimportant; it is faith that counts. ¹⁷ As long as there is a readiness to respect the different interpretations, the figure of Abraham provides common ground for the followers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which can be called with some justification ‘Abrahamic religions’, though this term does not describe them very adequately or completely, and in some circumstances misleading.¹⁸

Islam in the conciliar declaration Nostra Aetate

The second text of the Council is longer and more substantial. It constitutes paragraph three of the ‘Declaration of the Church's relation to the non-Christian religions’Nostra Aetate in which were put together the schemata about Judaism, Islam and the other religions. The declaration begins with the assurance that the Catholic Church regards her Muslim brothers ‘with esteem’. It proceeds to detail the essential elements of Islamic doctrine, stressing those features that are common to the two religions; for example, Muslims are conceded to ‘adore the one God, living and enduring, merciful and all-powerful, Maker of heaven and earth’. Further, without actually accepting the revealed character of the Qur'an the declaration observes that Muslims recognize that God ‘has spoken to men’, and affirms that Muslims are anxious to submit themselves with all their souls to God's decrees even though the decrees be hidden, just as Abraham, ‘with whom the Muslim faith is pleased to associate itself’, submitted himself to them.

A radical divergence, however, is Christ: ‘They [Muslims] venerate Jesus as a prophet, even though they do not acknowledge him as God’. Reference is made to the exalted place occupied by Mary in Muslim doctrine: ‘They honour his virgin mother Mary and even sometimes devoutly call on her’. Concerning the last things, eschatology: ‘They await the day of judgment when God will require all people back to life’. A brief allusion is made to Muslim morality: ‘They have regard for the moral life and worship God especially in prayer, almsgiving, and fasting’. The radical novelty of the declaration is obvious.

The Council document states in full:

‘The Church also looks upon Muslims with respect. They worship the one God living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to humanity and to whose decrees, even the hidden ones, they seek to submit themselves whole-heartedly, just as Abraham, to whom the Islamic faith readily relates itself, submitted to God. They venerate Jesus as a prophet, even though they do not acknowledge him as God, and they honour his virgin mother Mary and even sometimes devoutly call upon her. Furthermore they await the day of judgement when God will require all people brought back to life. Hence they have regard for the moral life and worship God especially in prayer, almsgiving and fasting. ¹⁹

Two characteristics of this text are immediately evident: first, it highlights the common or related points between Islam and Christianity, noting at the same time the essential difference: the Christian profession of the divinity of Jesus. Second, it opens up the possibility of collaboration between the two religions, at the service of the most pressing needs of contemporary humanity.²⁰

According to the schema worked out by Emilio Platti OP, we will find out that every sentence of this text is an implicit reference to verses of the Qur'an:²¹

“…the Muslims. They worship the one God, living and subsistent…”

Q. 2, 255: “God! There is no god but He, the Living and subsistent…”;

“merciful and almighty…”

Q. 26, 9: “Verily, your Lord is the Almighty, the Merciful”;

“the Creator of heaven and earth”

Q. 6, 1: “Praise be to God, who created the heavens and the earth”;

“who has spoken to humanity”

Q. 96, 5: “(God) taught man that which he knew not…”.

“They seek to submit themselves whole heartedly”

Q. 87, 3.10: “(God) hath ordained by Decree and granted guidance (…). The admonition will be received by those who fear (God)”;

“just as Abraham, to whom the Islamic faith readily relates itself, submitted to God”

Q. 2, 131: “(Abraham), his Lord said to him: Submit (a-sl-i-m); and he said: I submitted (a-sl-a-m-tu) to the Lord of the universe”;

Q. 16, 120: “Abraham was indeed a model, obedient to God, a pure monotheist”;

“They venerate Jesus as a prophet, even though they do not acknowledge him as God”

Q. 61, 6: “And remember, Jesus, the son of Mary, said: (…) I am the Prophet (Rasûl) of God”;

“they honour his virgin mother Mary and even sometimes devoutly call upon her”

Q. 19, 20.31: “She said: How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me”…; “and He (God) hath made me blessed wheresoever I be”.

“Furthermore they await the day of judgement when God will require all people brought back to life”.

Q. 75, 1: “I call to witness the Day of the Resurrection”; Q. 1, 2.4: “Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds (…), Master of the Day of Judgment”

“Hence they have regard for the moral life and worship God especially in prayer, almsgiving and fasting”.

Q. 9, 71: “The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers (Salât), practice almsgiving and obey God and His Prophet”; Q. 2, 183: “You who believe: fasting is prescribed to you…”.

The opening sentence of the paragraph constitutes a unique statement and an absolutely new beginning insofar as it is an official declaration about Islam issued by the highest teaching authority of the Church.²² John Paul II took up this theme on 19 August 1986, when addressing young Moroccans gathered in the Casablanca stadium, he did not hesitate to tell them: “We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, the God who creates the worlds and brings the worlds to their perfection”.²³ This is an indubitable affirmation of the existence of one and the same creator God. But one also has to add that Christians and Muslims who worship the same God have very different conceptions of God's unity. One could even say that the monotheism, which is a common heritage of all children of Abraham, has at the same time divided them for centuries.²⁴ Muslims cannot accept Christian monotheism as Trinitarian monotheism, and that is a direct consequence of their rejection of the divine Sonship of Jesus. So we should remember how by its radical nature, Islamic monotheism differs from Christian monotheism, and note that in Muslim eyes the sin par excellence, that of idolatry, is committed not only by pagan polytheists but also by Christians themselves.²⁵

Muslims and Christians, whilst they adore together the one God, do not always give him the same ‘names’, nor do they give the same meaning to apparently similar ‘names’. Therefore the Council mentions explicitly some of these ‘names’, those especially important to Islam, mentioned repeatedly in the Qur'an, and common to both religions. An annotation to the text of the Council refers to the letter of Pope Gregory VII to Al-Nasir, the eleventh-century amir of Mauritania, where the Pope greets the amir as his ‘brother in Abraham’ and as a believer in God, One and Creator.²⁶

Although the Council refused to add ‘through the prophets’ to the phrase ‘who has spoken to humanity’,²⁷ because of the ambiguity of the reference to the prophets, who are not always the same, do not always have the same ‘face’ nor play the same role,²⁸ in Islam and Christianity.²⁹ This phrase is of the greatest importance as to Christian qualification of the Muslim faith: the Muslim faith does not relate to a God invented by human reason. Muslim faith relates to the transcendent God who has made himself known by his Word entrusted to humanity, to the prophets — even if this is not the same Word nor are they the same prophets as for the Christian faith.

The Muslim faith is essentially islâm, active submission to the Will of God, to ‘whose decrees, even the hidden ones, they seek to submit themselves whole-heartedly’. Thus is noted the ‘mysterious’ aspect which this faith comprises: reasonable without being rational, in line with the Qur'an which demands of the believer the acceptance of the will of God, even if it appears paradoxical to the eyes of reason. It is as type and model of this faith of submission that Abraham finds his true role in the Muslim faith.

Jesus and Mary are among the most venerated persons in the Qur'an. The text indicates the refusal to see in Jesus more than a great prophet. This will be taken positively by Muslims who glory in this refusal which is born from the desire to respect the transcendence of God. Mary is also respected as the virgin mother of Jesus according to Islam, which has never hesitated on this point.

Muslim eschatology is briefly indicated. The resurrection of the body and the judgement which follows it are one of the essential points of the Muslim and the Christian faith. The modalities and the criteria of this judgement can differ from one theology to the other. It remains that, according to the Qur'an as well as according to the Gospel, everyone will be judged by their actions and that, for the Christian as well as for the Muslim, ‘the world which comes from God, returns to God’, to find there its fulfillment.

They have regard for the moral life' is the phrase that remained, after the Council had discussed a proposed, fuller text: ‘for the moral life, individual as well as familial and social’. The Council refused to refer explicitly to family and social morality because of the Qur'an's passages on polygamy and repudiation and because of mainstream Islam's teaching on the essential link between the spiritual and the temporal and between religion and state.

Muslim religious practice is described by its three foremost manifestations: ritual prayer, the alms-tax and fasting. Of the profession of faith only its first part, the faith in the One God, was mentioned at the beginning of the text. The pilgrimage could have been mentioned but it is far from being practiced by all Muslims, and the Council did not intend in any way to present a complete exposition of Islam.

The document continues:

‘Although considerable dissensions and enmities between Christians and Muslims may have arisen in the course of the centuries, this synod urges all parties that, forgetting part things, they train themselves towards sincere mutual understanding and together maintain and promote social justice and moral values as well as peace and freedom for all people.’³⁰

The second part of the text concerns the present and future perspectives of understanding and collaboration between Christians and Muslims. The past of hatreds and wars must be forgotten, i.e. not ignored but overcome. Mutual understanding — objective and respectful — will require much effort and progress on both sides. But the dialogue itself must be surpassed in order to arrive at collaboration between believers towards one objective: to confront together the challenges of modern thought and civilisation, not only in order to save faith in God, especially among the young, but in order to make a sincere and committed faith contribute to saving our civilisation from the dangers accruing to it from neo-paganism and in order to construct together a better world.³¹

Conclusion

There can be no doubt that the Council's statements regarding Islam, in the light of history represent a radical novelty. However, soon after the closure of the Council, the Dominican scholar of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, George Anawati (1905-1994), in a critical analysis of these statements pointed out their remarkable silence regarding the figure of Abraham and Islam's, possible historical as well as, spiritual link with him through Ishmael and, above all, concerning Muhammad, and hence the prophetic character of Islam. In 1967, Anawati stated: ‘One can say that the Declaration summarizes with a minimum of words Muslim theodicy but not what is essential to the Muslim faith of which the belief in the mission of Muhammad is one of the most important elements’.³² The silence of the Council concerning the second part of the Muslim profession of faith (shahâda) doubtless represents the most sensitive point for the Muslims. The Council chose to deal with it by —silence.

What the Second Vatican council said on Islam can be summed up in the words of Robert Caspar:

“The Council affirms positively the minimum which is to be accepted, Islam is in the first rank of non-Christian monotheistic religions. If further studies concerning the theology of religions and in particular regarding the theological status of Islam allow one to say more, the Conciliar texts are not opposed”³³