"Muslim-Christian Relations: Past, Present, Future" by Ovey N. Mohammed, S.J., Maryknoll, N.Y., Orbis Books, 1999

This work represents the latest in the Orbis "Faith Meets Faith" series in Interreligious Dialogue. As such, it should be seen as providing a window into ongoing thinking by Catholic theologians on the challenging issue of Christian relations with, and attitudes towards, other faiths.

After having taken a traditionally exclusivist attitude to other faiths, and indeed, other Christian denominations during most of its long history, the Catholic Church underwent a revolution at the Vatican II Council in 1964. For the next decade and more, the study of mission within the Catholic Church was gradually eclipsed while theologians reassessed traditional Catholic approaches. The Church moved away from exclusivism towards inclusivism, represented by an increasing acceptance of truth claims, and sometimes salvific claims, of non-Christian faiths. Papal encyclicals in the early 1990s contributed to a redefinition of substance of the traditional Catholic view of evangelism. Henceforth, this was to focus on three macro streams: inter-religious dialogue, inculturation/contextualisation and liberation theology.

This work by Father Mohammed, a Jesuit priest, contributes to the first of the above streams of evangelism. He devotes the first chapter to a thumb-nail sketch of Islamic history, scripture and belief. He takes an approach which accords with orthodox Muslim dogma, accepting the traditional Muslim accounts of Muhammad’s life, compilation of the Qur’an, and describing sectarian differences. He makes no attempt to engage with, or even briefly refer to, alternative approaches to these topics. He indicates no knowledge of revisionist school challenges to normative Muslim historiography. He steers clear of the sensitive subject of biblical sources for Islamic scripture (which usually draws a negative reaction from Muslim scholars) in making copious cross-references to biblical and broader Christian data. One senses that he is adhering to self-imposed limits, carefully avoiding any difficult topics which might upset Muslim reader sensibilities.

Chapter two, covering 20 pages, focuses upon a macro-level summary of the historical background to modern day Christian-Muslim relations. Father Mohammed rather tendentiously paints two very contrasting pictures for the early period: Christian disunity ("The amazing rapidity of the Arab advance was due to the cooperation of local Christians disgusted with Byzantine cruelty and oppression" - p. 30) and Muslim unity ("In coping with diversity, the different [Sunni Muslim law] schools respected each other’s differences, and differences of opinion among schools were regarded as a sign of God’s mercy" - p. 31). He accords the flourishing of the Reformation in Europe in part to Turkish military expansionism, an original claim which stretches the imagination and sounds like Turkish apologetics (p. 37). He firmly links European colonial expansion with Christian mission, neither acknowledging that some missionaries spoke firmly against colonial expansion, nor explaining that in some locations such as Northern Nigeria, colonial authorities were protective of local Muslim structures and actively prevented Christian missionaries from working in these areas. He seems to subtly rationalise Muslim discrimination against Christian minorities in the modern day by linking the latter with colonialism and with the West (p. 40).

The third chapter includes reference to past studies by Christians of Islam, as well as Muslim approaches to inter-religious relations. In this Father Mohammed summarises the approaches of both polemical and irenic Christian writers. However, in dealing with Muslim writers on inter-religious dialogue, he chooses to focus upon moderate Muslim voices alone - Arkoun, Rahman, Ayoub, Talbi - and makes no reference to polemical Muslim writers, such as Maududi, Qutb, Al-Attas. Thus the reader is left with the contrasting impression of Islamic balance and Christian imbalance. In the latter part of this chapter, Father Muhammad flies a clearly pluralist flag, declaring acceptance of the prophetic claims of Muhammad and accepting the Qur’an as a word of God. In this, he shows that he has taken the process initiated by Vatican II much further than some Catholic theologians would be happy with.

The final chapter is the best, in that the writer’s agenda seems to be somewhat relegated to the background. He contrasts Muslim, Protestant and Catholic views towards Muslim-Christian relations. He also presents a useful summary of the situation of Islam in North America and Britain.

In writing this volume, Father Mohammed has conducted and written up his research through the filter of his own pluralist theocentric views of interfaith relations. Readers need to be aware of this in engaging with this work. If read critically, then this book can provide a useful window into emerging Catholic approaches to interfaith relations. However, students seeking to study the history of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations should approach this work with caution, balancing its tendentious scholarship with other more scholarly critical sources which provide alternative perspectives to this important topic.

Peter G. Riddell

This review was published in LBC Centre for Islamic Studies Newsletter No. 6 (Summer 1999), 12-13.