Christianity and Islam

by Carl Heinrich Becker

Muhammedan dogmatic theology is concerned only with three main questions, the problem of free-will, the being and attributes of God, and the eternal uncreated nature of God's word. The mere mention of these problems will recall the great dogmatic struggles of early Christianity. At no time have the problems of free-will and the nature of God, been subjects of fiercer dispute than during the Christological and subsequent discussions. Upholders of freedom or of determinism could alike find much to support their theories in the Qoran: Muhammed was no dogmatist and for him the ideas of man's responsibility and of God's almighty and universal power were not mutually exclusive. The statement of the problem was adopted from Christianity as also was the dialectical subtlety by which a solution was reached, and which, while admitting the almighty power of God, left man responsible for his deeds by regarding him as free to accept or refuse the admonitions of God. Thus the thinkers and their demands for justice and righteous dealing were reconciled to the blind fatalism of the masses, which again was not a native Muhammedan product, but is the outcome of the religious spirit of the East.

The problem of reconciling the attributes of God with the dogma of His unity was solved with no less subtlety. The mere idea that a multiplicity of attributes was incompatible with absolute unity was only possible in a school which had spent centuries in the desperate attempt to reconcile the inference of a divine Trinity with the conception of absolute divine unity.

Finally, the third question, "Was the Qoran, the word of God, created or not?" is an obvious counterpart of the Logos problem, of the struggle to secure recognition of the Logos as eternal and uncreated together with God. Islam solved the question by distinguishing the eternal and uncreated Qoran from the revealed and created. The eternal nature of the Qoran was a dogma entirely alien to the strict monotheism of Islam: but this fact was never realised, any more than the fact that the acceptance of the dogma was a triumph for Graeco-Christian dialectic. There can be no more striking proof of the strength of Christian influence: it was able to undermine the fundamental dogma of Islam, and the Muhammedans never realised the fact.

In our review of these dogmatic questions, we have met with a novel tendency, that to metaphysical speculation and dialectic. It was from Christendom, not directly from the Greek world, that this spirit reached Islam: the first attitude of Muhammedanism towards it was that which Christianity adopted towards all non-religious systems of thought. Islam took it up as a useful weapon for the struggle against heresy. But it soon became a favourite and trusted implement and eventually its influence upon Muhammedan philosophy became paramount. Here we meet with a further Christian influence, which, when once accepted, very largely contributed to secure a similar development of mediaeval Christian and Muhammedan thought. This was Scholasticism, which was the natural and inevitable consequence of the study of Greek dialectic and philosophy. It is not necessary to sketch the growth of scholasticism, with its barrenness of results in spite of its keen intellectual power, upon ground already fertilised by ecclesiastical pioneers. It will suffice to state the fact that these developments of the Greek spirit were predominant here as in the West: in either case important philosophies rise upon this basis, for the most part professedly ecclesiastical, even when they occasionally struck at the roots of the religious system to which they belonged. In this department, Islam repaid part of its debt to Christianity, for the Arabs became the intellectual leaders of the middle ages.

Thus we come to the concluding section of this treatise; before we enter upon it, two preliminary questions remain for consideration. If Islam was ready to learn from Christianity in every department of religious life, what was the cause of the sudden superiority of Muhammedanism to the rising force of Christianity a few centuries later? And secondly, in view of the traditional antagonism between the Christian and Muhammedan worlds, how was Christianity able to adopt so large and essential a portion of Muhammedan thought?

The answer in the second case will be clear to any one who has followed our argument with attention. The intellectual and religious outlook was so similar in both religions and the problem requiring solution so far identical that nothing existed to impede the adoption of ideas originally Christian which had been developed in the East. The fact that the West could accept philosophical and theological ideas from Islam and that an actual interchange of thought could proceed in this direction, is the best of proofs for the soundness of our argument that the roots of Muhammedanism are to be sought in Christianity. Islam was able to borrow from Christianity for the reason that Muhammed's ideas were derived from that source: similarly Christianity was able to turn Arab thought to its own purposes because that thought was founded upon Christian principles. The sources of both religions lie in the East and in Oriental thought.

No less is true of Judaism, a scholastic system which was excellently adapted by its international character, to become a medium of communication between Christianity and Muhammedanism during those centuries. In this connection special mention must be made of the Spanish Jews; to their work, not only as transmitting but also as originating ideas a bare reference must here suffice. But of greater importance was the direct exchange of thought, which proceeded through literary channels, by means of translations, especially by word of mouth among the Christians and Muhammedans who were living together in Southern Italy, Sicily, and Spain, and by commercial intercourse.

The other question concerns the fundamental problem of European medievalism. We see that the problems with which the middle ages in Europe were confronted and also that European ethics and metaphysics were identical with the Muhammedan system: we are moreover assured that the acceptance of Christian ideas by Islam can only have taken place in the East: and the conclusion is obvious that mediaeval Christianity was also primarily rooted in the East. The transmission of this religious philosophy to the non-Oriental peoples of the West at first produced a cessation of progress but opened a new intellectual world when these peoples awoke to life in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But throughout the intermediate period between the seventh and thirteenth centuries the East was gaining political strength and was naturally superior to the West where political organisation and culture had been shattered by the Germanic invasions; in the East again there was an organic unity of national strength and intellectual ideals, as the course of development had not been interrupted. Though special dogmatic points had been changed, the general religious theory remained unaltered throughout the nearer East. Thus the rising power of Islam, which had high faculties of self-accommodation to environment, was able to enter upon the heritage of the mixed Graeco-Oriental civilisation existing in the East; in consequence it gained an immediate advantage over the West, where Eastern ideas were acclimatised with difficulty.

The preponderance of Muhammedan influence was increased by the fact that Islam became the point of amalgamation for ancient Eastern cultures, in particular for those of Greece and Persia: in previous centuries preparation had been made for this process by the steady transformation of Hellenism to Orientalism. Persia, however, had been the main source of Eastern civilisation, at any rate since the Sassanid period: the debt of Byzantine culture to Persia is well known. Unfortunately no thorough investigation has been made of these various and important changes, but it is clear that Persian civilisation sent its influence far westward, at first directly and later through the medium of Muhammedanism. The same facts hold good with regard to the diffusion of intellectual culture from Persia. How far Persian ideas may have influenced the development of Muhammedan and even of Christian eschatology, we need not here discuss: but the influence of the great Graeco-Christian schools of Persia was enormous: they made the Arabs acquainted with the most important works in Greek and Persian literature. To this fact was due the wide influence of Islam upon Christian civilisation, which is evidenced even to-day by the numerous words of Arab origin to be found in modern European languages; it is in fact an influence the strength of which can hardly be exaggerated. Not only the commercial products of the East, but important economic methods, the ideals of our so-called European chivalry and of its love poetry, the foundations of our natural sciences, even theological and philosophical ideas of high value were then sent to us from the East. The consequences of the crusades are the best proof of the enormous superiority of the Muhammedan world, a fact which is daily becoming more obvious. Here we are concerned only with the influence exerted by Muhammedan philosophy. It would be more correct to speak of post-classical than of Muhammedan philosophy. But as above, the influence of Christianity upon Islam was considered, so now the reverse process must be outlined. In either case it was the heir to the late classical age, to the mixed Graeco-Oriental culture, which influenced Islam at first in Christian guise. Islam is often able to supplement its borrowings from Christianity at the original sources, and when they have thus been deepened and purified, these adaptations are returned to Christianity in Muhammedan form.

Christian scholasticism was first based upon fragments of Aristotle and chiefly inspired by Neo-Platonism: through the Arabs it became acquainted with almost the whole of Aristotle and also with the special methods by which the Arabs approach the problem of this philosophy. To give any detailed account of this influence would be to write a history of mediaeval philosophy in its relation to ecclesiastical doctrine, a task which I feel to be beyond my powers. I shall therefore confine myself to an abstract of the material points selected from the considerable detail which specialists upon the subject have collected: I consider that Arab influence during the first period is best explained by the new wealth of Greek thought which the Arabs appropriated and transmitted to Europe. These new discoveries were the attainments of Greece in the natural sciences and in logic: they extended the scope of dialectic and stimulated the rise of metaphysical theory: the latter, in combination with ecclesiastical dogma and Greek science, became such a system of thought as that expounded in the Summa of Thomas Aquinas. Philosophy remained the handmaid of religion and Arab influence first served only to complete the ecclesiastical philosophy of life.