Many centuries have passed since there was any meaningful dialogue between Muslims and Christians, mainly because the two religions are like chalk and cheese.  Christianity is a profoundly theological faith: Islam, like Judaism, is a way of life.  Jews have the Torah, Muslims have Sharia, but while both appear to build on the Old Testament, the two sets of laws have diverged widely.  There is no parallel in Judaism to Islam’s attitudes towards women, nor would Judaism tolerate the thousand-lash floggings which besmirch the name of Saudi Arabia; something we should stop condoning on the principle, ‘It’s a sovereign state, and that’s their way.’  In Verwoerd’s South Africa, apartheid was their way, and the world responded with crippling sanctions.  Why go pussy-footing around Saudi Arabia?

Anyway, as I was going to say, because Islam is first and foremost a way of life it has no detailed theology of, for example, sin and salvation; and where it does venture into theology it is usually only to deny Christian beliefs.

Which is not to say but that there are things we seem to agree on, not least with regard to Jesus.  Muslims agree that he was born of a virgin, that he performed wondrous miracles of healing, that he raised the dead, and that he was a great prophet: indeed, next to Mohammed, the very greatest.

Yet when all is said and done, Islamic theology is much more negative than positive.  It’s a theology of denial, and the most remarkable of its denials is that Christ was never crucified.  God, it is claimed, would never have allowed such a fate to befall a great prophet.  Instead, he was taken up to heaven, and some other man was crucified in his place (some have suggested it was Judas Iscariot).

This is no small thing.  The cross is at the heart of Christianity as God’s sublime act of redemption and the supreme expression of his love.  A Christianity without the crucifixion would be a completely different religion; and, of course, if there was no cross there was no resurrection.  Apart from all else, these denials reduce the New Testament gospels to complete fabrications.

The other no less drastic denial is Islam’s abhorrence of the idea that Jesus was the Son of God.  The objection doesn’t take the form of lodging a rival claim to the effect that it was Mohammed, not Jesus, who was the Son.  It takes the much more radical ground that God couldn’t have a Son, because a ‘son’ implies sexual intercourse, and Muslims seem unable to separate the idea that Jesus was God’s Son from the idea that there was sexual intercourse between God and the Virgin Mary: an idea that Christians have always rejected with abhorrence.  The child in Mary’s womb was created not by some grotesque act of divine fornication, but by the same power as once said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.

Then, of course, if you deny that Jesus was the Son of God you are also denying the Christian doctrine of the Trinity: another idea that Muslims deplore because it seems to imply that there are three gods.  It’s striking, however, that while Mohammed is strident in denial, he himself sheds no fresh, revolutionary light on the nature of God, even though he was ‘The Prophet’. He allowed his theological agenda to be set by Christianity.

All this raises the fascinating question, Is ‘Allah’ the same as ‘God’?  Or, in other words, Are we not worshipping the same God under different names?

At the risk of tying ourselves up in words, it is certainly true that the name ‘Allah’, used in the Q’ran, is just about identical with the name,’Eloah’, used in  the Old Testament.  The one is Arabic, the other Hebrew, and although we today use the terms ‘Semitic’ and ‘anti-Semitic’ only in relation to Jews, Arabs no less than Jews are Semites, descended from Shem, the third of Noah’s sons.   Hence the affinity between Arabic and Hebrew.

And it is not only the name that the religions have in common.  Jews, Christians and Muslims share views about God which they learned from the Old Testament.  We all believe, for example, that there is but one God, and that he is all-merciful, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, all-governing and all-judging.

But there is a problem.  Christians have given God a new name, and it is into this name we are baptised.  We call him, ‘the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’.  Mohammed repudiated this ‘Allah’ with all the force of his soul.  The name told lies about God, saying that he had a Son, and that this Son had become man, died on a cross to atone for human sin, and then risen from the dead to rule the world.

This God has certainly made a name for himself, and it is a name of which Christians are immensely proud: ‘the Crucified God’.  But this is certainly not ‘Allah’.

The theological gulf between Islam and Christianity is immense, and this means that any contact between the two religions is bound to be fraught.  The easy way would be for Christians to avoid saying anything that would be offensive to Muslims, but that would amount to a vow of silence, and would make contact dishonest and pointless.  It is the offensive bits, like Christ being God’s Son, we have to talk about.

But at the same time both sides have to keep reminding themselves that tolerance cannot wait for theological agreement.  Each of us, Jews, Christians and Muslims, must (in the words of Jesus) put our swords back in their scabbards.

But then, to many Muslims, tolerance itself has become the supreme theological denial.  Allah won’t tolerate it.  Which is why, in Saudi Arabia, his wrath (and more!) will fall on anyone who dares to sing, ‘Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’



This article first appeared in the West Highland Free Press 6th February 2015