the point of Nostra Aetate is not that we agree on a few philosophical prolegomena, but that the worship and adoration of the Muslim is for the God of Abraham and that the thrust of their belief and practice is widely recognizeable to the Christian, striving (jihad) for the same goal as the Christian.
But let’s make it more concrete and talk about the birth and spread of Islam. It seems fairly clear that Mohammad has a much better grasp of the word of God than do his contemporaries in Mekkah and his call to the tribes of Western Arabia to follow the God of Abraham and throw off the destructive practices of the day are prophetic. So prophetic in fact that he is run out of Mekkah by those who wish to maintain the status quo. When he moves to Medinah his interpretation of Islam begins to undo the tribal structure and envisions a community in which all are equal before God and persons are not set against one another on the basis of family/tribe (i.e., the Ummah). The institution of a new law that applies to all is revolutionary.
After Mohammad’s success and the return to Mekkah, then the question becomes how does one handle the often heavy handed and meddlesome activities of the two Empires that have been battling for control and influence in the region: the Byzantine’s and Persians. It is not as if the area were peaceful and suddenly these warlike Muslims picked a fight. The fight was already on. And Islam defeated not one, but two Empires.
War was part and parcel of the politics of the day. Muslims are simply being faulted for winning when the Christians wish they had. It is the losers whining. Moreover Christians had no trouble finding not merely justification but what they considered to be clear mandates from God in the Bible to wage war against Islam. This was not considered ‘twisting’ the Bible to their ends, but was the widely agreed sense of what the Bible meant.
Finally, the deeply political character of Mohammad and Islam cannot be separated from the reform of life that is envisioned by Islam. Mohammad is looking for a total change of life in Arabia and that will require by its very nature a new political vision. Jesus on the other hand sees himself as operating within an already existent Judaism and calling that Judaism to be true its God. This is a very different situation.
On a slightly different note, I will point out that suras 8 and 9, which contain some of the harshest statements against the “infidels” in the Qur’an do in fact have a very definite historical location. They are revelations that Mohammad received during the struggle against Mekkah (the battle of Badr and following). The great schools of legal interpretation have been very aware of this. First, none of the schools understood the command of God against the pagans to include Christians or Jews, and there was a great deal of debate over whether it included pagans outside of the conflict specifically addressed at Mekkah. While the Shafii school ultimately decided that it did apply to all pagans, the two most predominant schools outside the Arabian peninsula, the Hanafi and Maliki, argued that it did not apply beyond the immediate context of the conflict at Mekkah. Patricia Crone’s book, God’s Rule: Six Centuries of Medival Islamic Political Thought is a good resource here. In any case, the pagans were to be offered the same tax-situation that applied to Christians. By the standards of the day, this was fairly humane.
In any case, the attempts to read, e.g., suras 8 and 9 without reference to that historical context or the changed situation is a very distinct interpretive move on the part of the militants. To say that it is simply a command of God without historical limitation is NOT an obvious reading of the text for most Muslims.
and Allah knows best.
in the peace of Christ.
