"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Another show that many people here in the States haven’t come across is the absolutely superb “Outnumbered“. In the clip below, the family are at a wedding reception and the children have a few questions for the vicar about theology…
I began this series examining the founding of Islam and the person of Muhammad. Next, I took a very broad look at the Qur’an and some of its teachings and application to Islamic life.
Islam demands of its believers “faith” and “religion”. In today’s entry I would like to look at the “faith” of Islam. I will deal with the demands of “religion” tomorrow.
As I said yesterday, I have done my best to ensure factual accuracy in all these posts and have used Islamic sources as much as possible to ensure that I’m not propagating Christian misconceptions of Islam. I did send this to some Muslim friends for comment, but I have yet to hear back. If you are a follower of Islam and believe that I have misrepresented your religion, please drop me an email and I will remedy the situation.
The Articles of Faith within Islam are thus:
1. The existence and unity of Allah: Muslims are absolute monotheists and unitarians. Even the suggestion of any kind of subdivision or plurality of God is utterly rejected. Islam explicitly rejects the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity.
In yesterday’s blog post I began a brief introduction to Islam. I focussed primarily on the founding of Islam and Muhammad.
Today I would like to look at the divine revelation which Islam claims to have received, which is found principally in the Qur’an/Koran.
As I said yesterday, I have done my best to ensure factual accuracy in all these posts and have used Islamic sources as much as possible to ensure that I’m not propagating Christian misconceptions of Islam. I did send this to some Muslim friends for comment, but I have yet to hear back. If you are a follower of Islam and believe that I have misrepresented your religion, please drop me an email and I will remedy the situation.
As mentioned in my previous post, the Qur’an (literally, “the recitation”) is a compilation of the messages given to Muhammad.
Christians and Muslims understand the concept of scripture differently. Christians describe the Bible, in the words of St. Paul, as being “God breathed” (theopneustos). As Dei Verbum explains:
“In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted” – Dei Verbum, Chapter 3
Muslims, on the other hand, view the Qur’an as the word of God in the most literal sense, believing that the text bears no imprint of the writer’s character whatsoever. Rather, they believe that the Qur’an is the literal word of God, dictated to Muhammad, written down verbatim.
This is one of the many blog entries I was halfway through before being distracted by something shiny… I started preparing this series of entries around the time of the media storm from the “Burn a Qur’an Day“. I was rather surprised by the reaction of many Christians to this dispute, but what I found even more troubling was their apparent lack of basic familiarity with the religion of Islam.
In this series of posts I will not be disputing any assertion made by Islam. I only intend to provide a brief sketch of the religion. I would like this to be an introduction and brief overview for the average Christian who is unaware of Islam’s claims.
Please note, I have done my best to ensure factual accuracy in all these posts and have used Islamic sources as much as possible to ensure that I’m not propagating Christian misconceptions of Islam. I did send this to some Muslim friends for comment, but I have yet to hear back. If you are a follower of Islam and believe that I have misrepresented your religion, please drop me an email and I will remedy the situation.
Islam (“submission to God”) was founded by Muhammad in the early 7th Century, a little over six hundred years after Jesus’ ministry, seven hundred and sixty-six miles away from Jerusalem in Arabia. In the early part of Muhammad’s life he was a successful trader and then, through marriage to a wealthy widow, he became an important figure.
Thanks to his wealth, at the age of forty, Muhammad was able to spend much of his time in meditation in a cave on the outskirts of Mecca. It is said that it was during this time that he began to receive messages from Allah (God) through Jibril (the Archangel Gabriel). He was told that these messages were to be preached to all mankind. They were subsequently written down by his companions and collected together to form the Muslim holy book: the Qur’an/Koran (literally “the recitation”).
Muhammad’s followers were initially fairly small in number, consisting mainly of his own family. There were soon violent persecutions in Mecca against the Muslims, causing Muhammad to move to Medina where Islam was more favourably received. A little later, the first jihad (holy war) took place. Muhammad returned to Mecca and destroyed the idols there and within eight years Muslim armies had conquered (and effectively converted) the whole of Arabia.
It’s hard to believe, but January is already basically over. That’s 8% of the year gone already!
This means it’s time to check up on my New Year’s Resolutions and see how I’ve done so far… (told you I take these things seriously!)
1. Spend 30 minutes every day in Scripture: Okay, I have done not too badly on this one. Between preparing the Sunday Gospel for the JP2 Group and preparing other Bible Studies, I’ve been spending some time in Scripture pretty much every day.
However, I’m still not quite regularly up to the full half an hour and it’s not quite as meditation-focussed as I would like. That’s something to work on…
2. More dancing: I’ve been limping through this resolution. So far, I have been out dancing once each week, which is certainly more than I was doing last year, but I still don’t feel I’ve really embraced the spirit of this resolution yet. I have a plan though…
3. No more rushing: I’m rather pleased with this one. I have certainly cut down my number of social engagements, distributed them better and set aside more time to just chill at home. My state of mind has definitely improved as a result. This one is a “win” 🙂
4. No chocolate: Not touched a single piece. I really miss it though…I even had a chocolate dream last night 🙁
5. Get into the best shape of my life: Really have done very badly on this front. I’ve definitely cut down my food intake and increased the amount of fruit and veg, but the exercising really hasn’t happened. Must do some lengths in the pool before bed tonight…
6. At least five minutes of guitar practice every day: This one is another “win”. I’ve done a minimum of five minutes every day, but very often more, particularly at the weekends. Love it.
7. Keep proper track of my finances: Utter fail.
8. Get back to England for a couple of weeks: All flights are now booked. I’m going via Washington to see the lovely DC people and coming back via Philadelphia to see Jen.
So…all in all, I don’t think I’ve done too badly. I think the two big ones I have to concentrate on this next month are (5) and (7).
See you next month 🙂
One of the charges I’ve had leveled at me in the past is that I’m not a very open person and that I’m not very good at communicating what I’m thinking. Now, I personally don’t think this is true, but I guess one can only deny something like this for so long, particularly when the rest of the world seems to think otherwise. And so in the spirit of good communication….
For today, I thought I’d share a clip from a show that doesn’t really seem to have made an impression over here in the USA. So here’s a little bit of classic comedy from the 90’s, “Father Ted”:
(You’ll have to watch it inside YouTube)