The Creator
At the heart of our faith, whether we are Christian or Muslim, stands God, the Creator of all things. Unfortunately there exists a tendency in Britain to conflate ethnicity and religious identity, which leads to confusion as to what it is that the followers of Islam worship; some confuse us with Hindus, since the majority of Muslims in this country hail from South Asia. When clarifying what he meant by his use of the term ‘Islams’ one individual found that the description of the Hindu elephant god Ganesh best marked out the group of people he had in mind.
When talking about the beliefs of Muslims, it is quite common to hear people refer to Allah as if He were some handmade deity quite separate from what we conventionally refer to as God. For the Muslim who has in mind the One who created all things, this level of ignorance is quite perturbing. Allah is simply a proper noun in the Arabic language used to describe what English speakers refer to as God:
Allah! There is no god but He—the Ever-Living, the Sustainer of all existence. Neither drowsiness overtakes Him, nor sleep. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. Who is it that can intercede with Him except by His permission? He knows what is presently before them and what will be after them, and they encompass not a thing of His knowledge except for what He wills. His throne extends over the heavens and the earth, and their preservation tires Him not. And He is the Most High, the Most Great.Qur’an 2:255. This verse, known as Ayat al-Kursi, was reportedly described by the Prophet Muhammad as the greatest in the Qur’an.
We would not say that because French speakers use the word Dieu, or Spanish speakers Dios, that they worshipped a different god; the same is true of the Hebrew names YHWH and Elohim. The word Allah is used by Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians as well as Muslims and appears in Arabic translations of the Bible. Indeed, a Turkish copy of the gospels on my bookshelf uses the word Allah consistently throughout.
It is not language that separates us, but theology. While we may agree that our Creator is the central object of our devotion and worship, our descriptions of God inevitably lead us to reject the other’s. One cannot believe that God is both a perichoresis of three persons and completely separate from His creation at the same time; the two approaches are incompatible, which naturally leads us to the conclusion that we worship different gods, even if we agree that the focus of our devotion is our Creator. Orthodox Christianity and Islam are both defined by their clear and uncompromising descriptions of God, each presenting an obstacle to the other. The Trinity and tawhid appear to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. If this is a problem, it need not be. The request for understanding is not a demand for the other to believe as we do: merely a simple plea for honesty.
There were more than five years of agnosticism before I reaffirmed my belief in God with the faith of a believer. Looking back, it seems ironic that the first thing I did after rejecting belief on my return from Iona was to start pondering what the universe was all about, for today it is its beauty and its expanse through space and time that strengthens my faith in God. A common refrain of the Muslim is Allahu Akbar—God is greater than all things—the meaning of which seems to be perfectly clear once we understand what He has done.
According to contemporary scientists, the universe probably came into being around 13.7 billion years ago. High energy physics describes the evolution of the universe in the period that followed, explaining how the first protons, electrons and neutrons formed. Scientists talk of the formation of the first nuclei, then the formation of atoms and of neutral hydrogen. A third period describes the formation of structure: matter coming together to form stars, quasars, galaxies, galaxy clusters and super clusters.
Some of the most beautiful images that I hold dear are those showing deep space as observed via the Hubble Space Telescope. Those images always warm my soul, reminding me of the grandeur of our Creator, putting everything into perspective. One of the most exciting developments of recent times was the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, which was derived from data accumulated over a few months in 2003 and 2004. Although this has been described as covering a small region of space, it is estimated to contain 10,000 galaxies. As the deepest image of the universe ever taken using the visible spectrum, it takes us back in time more than 13 billion years, showing us how the universe looked in the early stelliferous age.
While the images of deep space in themselves are always heart-warming, their significance is also profoundly felt when one considers the words of the Qur’an about God’s creation. One verse fails to provide us with a woolly, open description that the post-enlightenment age has taught us to expect from scripture. Far from it: Hubble’s image of the Eagle Nebula M16 could be used to illustrate this verse, which the non-Muslim, Arthur J Arberry, translated as follows in 1964:
Then He lifted Himself to heaven when it was smoke, and said to it and to the earth, ‘Come willingly, or unwillingly!’ They said, ‘We come willingly.’AJ Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (Oxford University Press, 1964), p.491, with reference to Qur’an 41:11.
This need not come as a surprise for the Muslim who believes that the Qur’an is the Word of God. Of course the Creator can describe His creation in truthful terms. From His throne, He is witness to all things. For the disbeliever who considers the Qur’an to be the 1,400-year-old work of man, however, it is something to marvel: it would even be so had it originated in 1964, twenty-nine years before Hubble was operational. Surely God is magnificent.
For me, the sight of deep space or simply the stars above me on a dark night is a reminder of what we really mean when we say God is great. Indeed, in these days of conflict it is necessary to remind ourselves of these things; if we set our short lives beside the 14 billion years of God’s creation that we are aware of, it helps put everything into perspective, reminding us of our place. It reminds us why we are here and our part in the great scheme of things. That same Arabist translated another verse:
Have not the unbelievers then beheld that the heavens and the earth were a mass all sewn up, then We unstitched them and of water fashioned every living thing? Will they not believe?Ibid, p.325, with reference to Qur’an 21:30.
Yes, I believe: God is truly magnificent. In reality, of course, we need not rely on high technology to witness the signs of creation. The signs of God surround us. Whether in the rolling forested hills of Dorking or in the sheets of coal mined from deep underground, His creation is awe-inspiring. The evolutionary processes discerned in the creation of a coal field pales into insignificance when we begin to consider our own existence. We have travelled far from the formation of the first amino acids that scientists believe were polymerised billions of years ago to where we are today, with complex systems that provide us with sight, smell, taste and touch. ‘Or were they created from nothing,’ asks the Qur’an, ‘Or did they create themselves? Or were they the creators of the heavens and the earth? Nay! They have no certain knowledge.’Qur’an 52:35.
The signs are self-evident in our creation, but they also reveal themselves throughout the passage of our lives. Some years back, my wife and I were told that we would never be able to have children of our own, the news broken by a locum doctor while our GP was on her summer holidays. Dealing with the sudden emotional burden of this shattering news, my wife and I cancelled our own travels that August and shed plenty of tears between us. Sometimes we would sit and read scriptures, making the supplications of Zachariah who cried to his Lord for a child until He answered that prayer. As time went by, however, I began to come to terms with this news and accept it as the absolute truth; while my wife prayed for a child daily, my prayer became occasional, for the doctors had convinced me of its futility despite my knowledge that He who created me only needs to say ‘Be’ for new life to emerge anew. Every time my old friends from university announced that they were now parents, my mind told me to be happy, but instead I felt sad. With every visit from my niece I had to hold back tears.
It was a pain like mourning; like losing someone. It was a loss, but others did not seem to understand, driving life on as normal. It was the pain of knowing that you have reached the end of the line, that you will be an ancestor for no one, that you will never have grandchildren who will ask you about your youth. Even if my family worried that I would raise my children in accordance with my faith, not theirs, it was a dream of mine that they could trace their Muslim ancestry, that the English Muslim would not forever be viewed as the queer aberration that comes and goes with every conversion and death. Instead there was this crushing anguish.
Not long before we received this news, I had a dream one night which troubled me. My wife often has what I would call spiritual dreams, but mine are mostly nondescript meanderings of the mind. Yet this particular dream stood out and bothered me. A huge flood was overcoming me, its waves menacing and fierce, my resting place submerged. Somehow it prepared me for some devastating news and a difficult test. Without a doubt, those first few years were hard, but we came to terms with it all the same.
From where does one find the strength when he learns that perhaps things are not as clear cut as he was told? In England we were advised that there was no hope for us at all, but in Turkey research has advanced apace to help people in our situation have children of their own. Thus the strain returned as we embarked on a new course of treatment; there was now a possibility that we could have a child, but also the possibility that we would again be disappointed. The treatment running beyond our agreed leave, the strain grew again, the two of us fearing what would happen to our jobs. The financial and emotional burden grew, and we wondered from where our strength would come.
There had been so many times that I had read the phrase, ‘There is no strength except with Allah,’ but sometimes we have to put advice into practice before we see the truth of something. To rely solely on your Creator is one of the most beautiful aspects of faith. Sleepless for four nights, wandering silently through the streets of Istanbul, anxious about all of this, I did not know from where I would find my strength. Like so many times before, I lamented that I was not strong enough for this, but instead, finding myself in beautiful mosques, I prayed. Suddenly the situation altered, relief had come. Our employers were sympathetic, our financial situation okay, the high emotions lessened. It was true: there is no strength except with God, the Creator of us all. His signs reveal themselves throughout the passage of our lives, but too often we do not see them.
Everything that we do depends on God. Although the various Christian denominations disagree about the nature of divine decree—and it is largely Roman Catholics who use the phrase, ‘God willing’—all true believers recognise their dependence on the One who created them. The Muslim who litters his spoken plans with the phrase, Insha’Allah—if God wills—is not alone:
Now a word with all who say, ‘Today or the next day we will go off to such and such a town and spend a year there trading and making money.’ Yet you have no idea what tomorrow will bring. What is your life after all? You are no more than a mist, seen for a little while and then disappearing. What you ought to say is: ‘If it be the Lord’s will, we shall live to do so and so.’The Letter of James 4:13-17.
This passage from the Letter of James reminds us that we are not self-sufficient; whether we live or die is purely the will of God. The words ‘God willing’ are not code for a lazy ‘whatever’, but signify our reliance and trust in Him. Whilst some might place their life in God’s care only for a moment when faced with disaster, we recognise that it is infinitely better for us if we ask for His help in all of our affairs. ‘Call upon Me,’ says God, ‘I will answer you.’
Muslim and Christian theology does not always sit side by side so comfortably, however. Christian authors often allege that the Qur’an misunderstands the Trinity: Christians do not worship three gods as Muslims claim, they argue, but one God made up of three co-equal parts. Meanwhile the Muslim counters that this argument is itself based on a misunderstanding of Islam’s teaching on the unity of God. Islam teaches that the only thing that is worthy of worship is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. Anything that is worshipped beside God is described as ‘a god’. It does not make any difference whether it is an idol, a tree, a river or a person; if an individual takes it as an object of worship, it is then for that person a god. The Christian retort, of course, is that Jesus is God. They recognise that God is One and that to worship other than God is unacceptable: ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.’Deuteronomy 5:7. This, the Christian argues, is what the Muslim fails to understand; Jesus is not a separate god, but God Himself.
Yet this remains a misunderstanding of the Islamic perspective. There are three world religions that acknowledge the life of Jesus: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. While Judaism implicitly denies that he was the Messiah, Muslims acknowledge Jesus as a messenger of God, believe in his miracles and consider his mother the best woman of all creation. Islam does emphasise, however, that Jesus was not God, insisting instead that he was a prophet sent to the House of Israel.
Thus it does not make any difference if a person brings philosophical arguments to say that he was God; the Qur’an’s position stays the same. In teaching that Jesus is other than God, the fact that Christians worship him means that he is a god worshipped alongside the Creator. Let us suppose that the leader of the opposition, despairing at the party’s election prospects, suddenly started claiming that he is God. Naturally we would all agree that he is not and so, even if he told us that he was one in essence with Him, we still would not accept it. The mere presence of an argument does not prove anything.
Still, theologians, learned and wise, and far more erudite than I, will no doubt continue to argue this point for years to come, for in the case of both traditions it is the crux of faith. The belief in the Trinity as expressed in the Nicene Creed was not arrived at overnight, but came about after a great deal of debate and disagreement. Everyone has heard of Arius who believed that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were entirely different, sharing neither nature nor essence, but there were hundreds of others who held different beliefs. Having gone to such lengths to establish what constitutes orthodoxy in the Christian tradition, a meeting of minds between Christian and Muslim obviously remains unlikely. Even so, both traditions agree that our Lord is forgiving and merciful.
