More on loving one’s (Muslim) neighbour
The Common Word letter proposes that love for the neighbour forms part of Islam’s common ground with Christianity. However, in my Notes for Christians I explained that the sources cited by A Common Word to show that Islam teaches love for the neighbour, in fact teach love for one’s fellow Muslim. The purpose of this post is to give further support for this view.
1. A highly-regarded commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, known as Fath al-Bari, explains that it is fellow-Muslims who should be loved: ‘... according to Ismaili through Roh from Husain: “until he loves for his Muslim brother what he loves for himself of goodness,” explaining the meaning of brotherhood and pointing the direction for love.’ [i.e. that the love is towards other Muslims] This source can be found here.
2. The Sahih Muslim, as pointed out in my Notes for Christians, also makes clear that this tradition refers to fellow Muslims. Furthermore, Al-Nawawi, in his commentary Al Minhaj bi Sharh Sahih Muslim, states that the hadith variant with ‘neighbour’ is of doubtful reliability, and ‘brother’ is the reliable version. This source can be found here. Most Arabs will understand the difference between neighbour and brother. In Islam a ‘brother’ is understood to mean a fellow Muslim, whereas ‘neighbour’ (jar) refers to someone who is geographically close by.
3. A Common Word’s citation from Muslim censors the original text of the hadith. The English version of A Common Word reports the hadith to be ‘None of you has faith until you love for your neighbour what you love for yourself.’ However what the Arabic actually says – and this is accurately cited in the Arabic version of the Common Word – is: ‘None of you has faith until you love for your brother – or he said for his neighbour – what he loves for himself.’ The English version of the letter obscures the fact that the main focus of the hadith from the Sahih Muslim is upon loving one’s brother, i.e. one’s brother-in-Islam.
The scholars who wrote A Common Word used the heading ‘Love of the Neighbour in Islam’, but what their content takes the reader to is love for one’s fellow Muslim. It is misleading to say one thing in a heading, and another in the sub-text. The impression which the scholars are seeking to convey is that there is an equivalence between the teachings of Muhammad and Christ on this issue, but their sources prove otherwise.
To teach that only people of a particular faith are to be loved will seem repugnant to most Christians. How can an Islamic tradition which calls Muslims to love other Muslims, be seriously proposed as part of the common ground between Islam, Judaism and Christianity? Surely what the world urgently needs is love between people of different faiths, not just between people of the same faith!
12 comments:
With all due respect, do you seriously mean to imply that the very same quibbling doesn't apply to, say, St. Paul's definition of "brotherhood"? Or the Church Fathers? Or Augustine? Etc.
The presumption of systematic, unconditional humanism that we now take as a hallmark of enlightenment is a very new development in human history, and certainly hasn't been evident in premodern Christian history, frankly. (Or any other religious community's history, for that matter.)
Yes, I do seriously state - I do not imply, but state quite clearly - that Islam's teaching on loving others is worlds apart from the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. This is a matter of the record.
You're entitled to your opinion. There are obvious and inevitable differences between the traditions, but though I certainly find the Gospels inspiring I think you read contemporary values into the past here, as people often do when looking at the history of their own religion. Of course, it all depends on the details, but I don't think many scholars of intellectual history would support the categorical distinctions you seem to assert to be a matter of record. And even if one accepts your reading of Gospels it sure took a while for Christians to notice this supposedly self-evidently universalistic message in their scripture.
In any case, I always wonder what contribution people who strive to refute Muslim claims that their religion permits them to also subscribe to universal values think they're making to the world's problems.
For most people's purposes, "Islam" is to a great extent simply whatever Muslims believe it to be at a given time. If prominent Muslim leaders seem to sincerely believe Islam to permit (or even support) modern Western civic values, why this need to prove them wrong? Why not welcome their statements--whatever you think of their historical grounding--as signs of welcome changes in Muslim belief?
Durie wrote, "The scholars who wrote A Common Word used the heading ‘Love of the Neighbour in Islam’, but what their content takes the reader to is love for one’s fellow Muslim. It is misleading to say one thing in a heading, and another in the sub-text. The impression which the scholars are seeking to convey is that there is an equivalence between the teachings of Muhammad and Christ on this issue, but their sources prove otherwise."
Therefore what is the intention of the authors and Muslim promoters of and ascribers to "A Common Word"?
The official website explains that the statement forms an 'ijma' (an Islamic technical term for consensus) so even if we allow that some pre-modern Muslims did hold more exclusivist readings, it doesn't take away that this large group of Muslim world leaders and scholars interpret the meaning as love for one's neighbor regardless of whether they are Muslim or not.
It beggers believe to think that such a large group of famous and intelligent scholars who have devoted their lives to understanding and implementing Islam could be either:
a) wrong
b) lying
The much simpler explanation (fulfilling Occam's Razor) is that the individual Mark Durie is wrong.
Dear Umm Yasmin,
I don't think the scholars are wrong or lying. Rather what they said has to be read carefully. It needs to be interpreted. It does NOT say that they "interpret the meaning as love for one's neighbor regardless of whether they are Muslim or not", as you put it. This is your interpretation, not what Common Word statement says. I would have been much happier if they had said that, but they didn't.
"So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us. Let us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works. Let us respect each other, be fair, just and kind to another and live in sincere peace, harmony and mutual goodwill."
Hard to imagine that this can be read in any other nefarious way Mark.
This passage is an appeal to Christians and Muslims to live together with each other in one world in goodwill and harmony, to be peacemakers, and not as warmongerers. This interpretation is not nefarious, nor hard to imagine, but quite clear.
This is the punchline of the whole letter, not an explanation of the hadith quoted earlier about one's neighbour.
Dear Johnabdi - sorry it took so long to moderate your comment. It got lost in my emails. You ask:
'Therefore what is the intention of the authors and Muslim promoters of and ascribers to "A Common Word"?'
I think they have a few intentions.
One is to reduce conflict. They seem very concerned about civilizational conflict.
Another is to present Islam favourably to the Christian world - the practice dawa. I don't criticize them for that - it's their faith, so of course they will want to promote it. This is clear and natural.
It beggers believe to think that such a large group of famous and intelligent scholars who have devoted their lives to understanding and implementing Islam could be either:
a) wrong
b) lying
Yasmin, the scholars are simply practising Taqqiya, an allowed form of deception in order to prevent harm to Islam.
Reading between the lines of this scholars' letter, it becomes obvious that they are deeply afraid that Islam is threatened. They are almost begging Christians to not criticise Islam.
Emphasising a few similarities has not made the problem go away. Islam is being critiqued even more than it was.
Mark, I think you've got this wrong. Imam Nawawi says clearly in his commentary on the 40 Hadith, and I'm pretty sure in the commentary on Sahih Muslim also, under "until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself," that this includes "loving faith for his polytheist brother," i.e. brother is much wider than "Muslim" in this hadith, and applies to all of humanity.
On neighbours, the Prophet (pbuh) taught that we must honour our neighbours, and transmitted the teaching of Gabriel that neighbours are so important that they are almost inheritors, i.e. family. This includes neighbours of any faith, as many hadiths mention the Prophet's Jewish neighbour about whom he used to ask out of concern.
Usama Hasan - the commentary on this hadith by Nawawi that I have consulted clearly states that this means love for one's Muslim neighbour. ("And some of the 'Ulamaa have said based upon this Hadeeth that the believer with another believer is like a single soul, and so it is desired that he loves for him that which he loves for himself, since they are as though a single soul. And similar to this has come in another hadeeth : "The Believers are like a single body; if a single limb feels pain, then the whole body along with it suffers with fever and sleeplessness.") What is your source (publication, date, page number). I would be most grateful to be better informed.
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