Download The question of the status and prophethood of the Prophet

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</div>The question of the status and prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad
has been one of the most crucial and controversial issues in the history
of Christian-Muslim relations.ReadingIslam.com presents a series of
articles investigating the answers to the following questions: Can
Christians acknowledge the prophethood of Muhammad? Are they ready to
regard Muhammad as a prophet of God?The articles will discuss those
scholars whose views have generated lively debate within Christianity and
who have contributed substantially and positively to the developments of
Christian-Muslim dialogue. They are Montgomery Watt, Kenneth Cragg, Hans
K&uuml;ng and David Kerr.In this part, the author discusses Kenneth
Cragg&#39s view.
Kenneth Cragg, as an Anglican Bishop and missionary to Islam, is regarded
as one of the key figures in the twentieth-century Christian thinking
about Islam and Christian-Muslim relations.
His books and essays cover many areas in the broad fields of Islamic
studies, Christian-Muslim relations, and inter-faith dialogue. Within
this context, he has published a great number of books and essays on the
Christian understanding of Islam and its basic phenomenon, such as the
Quran and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Although his first major treatment of Prophet Muhammad is recorded in his
book, The Call of the Minaret, his Muhammad and the Christian has
particular significance for our concern here because it was published as
a Christian response to the Muslim question: "Why do Christians not
acknowledge the prophethood of Muhammad when Muslims show such great
respect to Jesus?"
Due to this specific purpose behind Cragg&#39s work, we will concentrate
mainly on its account of the same while also examining Cragg&#39s own
views on Prophet Muhammad&#39s status.
The significance of Cragg&#39s views is that, as a committed Christian
and an Islamicist, he takes the Muslim demand seriously and tries to
answer it sincerely within the context of his own religious tradition. In
this connection, his book, Muhammad and the Christian, can be regarded by
Muslims as "judicious, gentle, and positive in its use of information.
Its criticism of Islam is honest, and ostensibly caring in tone." (Khan
189)
Before starting to analyze Muhammad and the Christian, we would like to
observe briefly, how he treats the phenomenon ofMuhammad in The Call of
the Minaret.
Here, Cragg portrays Prophet Muhammad as a man of "a sure monotheism and
a prophetic mission," in which a divine relationship of revelation,
through a scripture, created a community of faith (75).
Then, after asking by which criteria the prophethood of Muhammad is to be
evaluated by Christians, Cragg enumerates the following:
Is it by those of Arabian paganism which would show Mohammad to be a
great reformer? Or by those of early Islamic development which would show
Mohammad to be one of the rarest potentialities in human history? Or by
those of the classical Hebrew prophets which would show in Mohammad a
strange and yet unmistakable shift in the whole concept and expression of
prophethood? Or by those of the hills of the Galilee and Judea where
there are criteria of almost insupportable contrast. (91)
He himself subscribed to the last criterion in answering the question
"How should prophethood proceed?", and made the following contrast:
The Mohammedan decision here is formative of all else in Islam. It was a
decision for community, for resistance, for external victory, for
pacification and rule. The decision of the Cross &mdash; no less
conscious, no less formative, no less inclusive &mdash; was the contrary
decision. (93)
Here, Cragg&#39s main criterion for the assessment of the phenomenon of
Muhammad is a Christian one, and is in the direct comparison with Christ
as portrayed in the Gospels.
One of the most interesting points in Cragg&#39s treatment of the
phenomenon of Muhammad in The Call of Minaret is that he used the title
&#39prophet&#39 almost synonymously with the name of Muhammad.
Our examination of related passages, however, demonstrates that he did
not use this title to give official status to Muhammad as a prophet.
Instead, he might have used it because he was accustomed to calling him
prophet while living among Muslims in the Middle-East. (69ff)
When we turn to Muhammad and the Christian, we realize Cragg changes the
approach we observed above. At the outset of this work, he explains his
new thinking by indicating that the elements of other religions should be
evaluated within their own historical context and not from one&#39s own
religious tradition and standpoint.
He says:
Religions, they will say are specifics best left to their differing
histories and their segregated faith systems, hopefully practicing
tolerance but never venturing to translate their own ethos into the idiom
of another. On this view, it will be either naive or hopeless to think
that Muhammad is assessable in terms proper to the Buddha or that the
Prophet of the Quran can rightly be aligned with Jesus of the
Gospels...Therefore it is wisdom to leave the several faiths to their own
world-views, their historical matrix and their characteristic mood and
mind. One should not look to their contemporary societies for any common
reaction to the present world. Their futures must be conceded to be as
separate as their pasts. (2)
By such a statement, Cragg seems to move away from assessing the
phenomenon of Muhammad in the light of Christian teaching to an
assessment in the light of the Quran&#39s own teaching. One of the
reasons behind this shift could be that some of his Christian colleagues
charged him with Christianizing Islam.
After this methodological statement, Cragg begins to respond to the
Muslim question by considering Western historical studies relating to
Muhammad. He gives an analysis of him and his role as a prophet as it is
presented in the Quran. He also considers Muslim thought on Muhammad and
his prophethood in the Muslim tradition from the time of the prophet to
our own day. It is not possible to discuss the significant points of this
long survey here but we will limit our focus to the status and
prophethood of Muhammad.
As regards the Muslim demand for acknowledgement of Muhammad&#39s
prophethood by Christians in the process of Christian-Muslim dialogue,
Cragg states that a vital part of the Christian&#39s response to this
demand concerns Muhammad&#39s inner experience. He points out that:
the ultimate area of Christian response, given an honest reckoning with
all the foregoing, will be the content of the Quran itself. Indeed, the
question of a Christian acknowledgement of Muhammad resolves itself into
that, a Christian response to the Islamic Scripture. It is safe to say
that Muhammad himself would not have it otherwise. Nor could any faithful
Muslim. (6)
Then he maintains that within this context a Christian can consider
Muhammad as "the Prophet of the Quran" (91). As Abrahim H. Khan remarks,
Cragg&#39s strategy in assessing the prophethood of Muhammad within the
context of the Quran can imply that his study of the significance of
Muhammad for Christians is "intellectually respectable", because by doing
so he may mean that "Muhammad&#39s role in the Quran is authentic
prophet" (Khan 190).
In this connection, Cragg points out that:
the Christian conscience must develop a faithful appreciation of the
Quran and thereby participate with Muslims in Muhammad within that
community of truth as to God and man, creation and nature, law and mercy,
which they afford. (140-141)
Further, it seems that considering Muhammad as &#39the Prophet of the
Quran&#39 allows Cragg and other like-minded Christians to affirm that in
his role as the human channel through whom the Quran was revealed
Muhammad was a genuine prophet of God. &nbsp;
After acknowledging Muhammad as &#39the Prophet of the Quran&#39, Cragg
tries to tie this recognition with the Christian tradition by arguing
that this "must entail a Christian concern for a larger, more loving,
comprehension of divine transcendence and, as its sphere, a deeper
estimate of human nature and its answer in that which is &#39more than
prophecy&#39." He then adds that acknowledgement should not mean that:
the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, the meaning of the Cross, the
mystery of the Eucharist, the integrity of the four Gospels, the doctrine
of the Holy Spirit, and many contingent matters, are not vital. But it
means that they are better left latent here, within the positive and
often common themes of Islamic faith and devotion. (139)
As has been observed so far, Cragg insists that a Christian
acknowledgement of the Muhammad&#39s prophethood must hinge on Biblical
grounds. And within this, he evaluates the teaching of the prophet
Muhammad as follows:
In the broadest terms it means the rule of God, the reality of divine
power, wisdom, mercy and justice. It means the strong permeation of the
human scene with a consciousness of God, his claim, his creating, his
sustaining, his ordaining. That awareness by which Islam lives is sure
enough to contain all those issues which the Christian must be minded to
join when he studies the predicates of his New Testament theology. (145)
From this passage, we may conclude that Cragg is extremely careful and
cautious in his assessment of the Muhammad&#39s prophethood within the
context of Quranic teaching, this presumably so as not to underestimate,
theologically, his own dogmatic position. For example,
while he acknowledges Muhammad as "the prophet of the Quran", he
interprets the finality of Muhammad not in time but with respect to place
and locale so as not to compromise the Christian belief of the finality
of Christ. (92)
He reflects this position in a number of places throughout his book. The
following passages can be given as examples:
For the Christian the pattern of Muhammad&#39s Sirah will always be in
conflict with the power and perspective of the Cross. (52)
One cannot assess the latter only in terms of the preferability of
monotheist faith to pagan idolatry, without regard to questions about
Jesus and the Cross. (93)
The Gospel presents what we must call a divine &#39indicative&#39, an
initiative of self-disclosure on God&#39s part by which His relation to
our human situation is not only in law and education, but in grace and
suffering. Christians therefore believe that they have to &#39let God be
God&#39 in just those initiatives which Islam excludes... (158)
By these statements, Cragg explicitly argues that God&#39s Sovereignty is
fully vindicated not in terms of an Islamic understanding of prophecy but
in the sonship of Christ which is designated by "those measures of grace
and love, of sin and redemption, which are distinctive to the Gospel"
(141).
He also makes the connection between the Quranic statement about the
blessing of the prophet with New Testament statements about the Divine
sonship of Jesus Christ (54-65).
It seems that he uses this connection to demonstrate that the prophet
Muhammad in one sense &#39incarnated&#39 the reality of God&#39s Message
to humankind whereby he asks: "Are we not then warranted in saying that
the prophet of Islam&#39s very stature argues the sort of divine
commitment to the human situation and its righting which the Christian
sees implemented in Jesus as the Christ." (127)
In our opinion, Cragg&#39s attempt is repugnant to Islam, since "it runs
against the grain of basic Quranic teaching, which is that only a being
who is completely human can provide effective guidance to humankind."
(Khan 196)
Further, Khan maintains that an understanding of the prophet
Muhammad&#39s position "from the perspective of a theology that implies
that incarnation, atonement and redemption, and that endorses Jesus
Christ as the standard of faith" distorts his image in the eyes of
Muslims.
Also, to see Muhammad as a witness "to the human situation implemented in
Jesus Christ" is to underestimate Muhammad&#39s being as Rasul Allah or
Messenger of God. (Khan 196)
Jane I. Smith, stresses that by trying "to balance Christology with the
Muslim sense of prophecy", Cragg "moves onto potentially dangerous
ground." (Smith 75)
In his investigation of the status and prophethood of Muhammad, Cragg
used Jesus Christ as a decisive criterion by which he indicated that the
human condition needs more than prophethood to meet its deepest needs. He
concludes his investigation by arguing that "if, restoring Jesus&#39
principle, we question or regret the Caesar in Muhammad, it will only be
for the sake, in their Quranic form, of those same &#39things of God&#39,
which move us to acknowledge him."(159)
This conclusion leads him to argue that the "whole logic of Muhammad&#39s
career is that the verbal deliverance of prophetic truth fails of
satisfaction and must therefore pass to the post-Hijrah invocation of
power." (155)
By doing so, Cragg acknowledges that Muhammad might have been a prophet
but Jesus Christ was more than a prophet. For, according to Cragg,
Muhammad as a prophet testified to "the sort of divine commitment to the
human situation and its righting which the Christian sees implemented in
Jesus as the Christ." (127)
As has been observed, Cragg develops his views as a response to a
consistent Muslim call for Christian acknowledgement of Muhammad&#39s
prophethood in the process of Christian-Muslim encounters. He expresses
this point in the preface to Muhammad and the Christian:
It is the aim of this study to offer at least one Christian&#39s view of
a resolution of the problem, a resolution which, no more than tentative,
remains loyal to Christian criteria while outlining a positive response
to Muhammad. (ix)
Within this context, it seems that all his thoughts on this issue can be
regarded as guiding principles which show Christians how they might
respond to the Muslim demand by holding Christ as a decisive and
normative criterion for the salvation of humankind.
In the light of our examination of Cragg&#39s views on the status and
prophethood of Muhammad, we may draw the following conclusions:
First, Cragg regards Muhammad as a prophet of God and the human channel
through whom the Quran was transmitted for those who had no Scripture.
However, while doing this, Cragg places Muhammad&#39s significance into
the pattern of an Old Testament prophet whose ultimate objective points
beyond himself to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
Chronologically speaking, we may ask how this is possible when Muhammad
came six centuries after Jesus. This question is answered by Cragg with
an appeal to geography. Thus, the Arabian peninsula at the time of
Muhammad is considered by Cragg to have been in an Old Testament state of
affairs. He says: "For places can be &#39contemporary&#39 in time and in
no way &#39contemporary&#39 in character." (92)
Second, from the Muslim point of view Cragg&#39s generous suggestion that
Christians should regard Muhammad as &#39the Prophet of the Quran&#39 is
not as generous as he thinks. For, Muslims do not recognize Muhammad only
as &#39the prophet of the Quran&#39 but as Rasul Allah, the Messenger of
God.
According to this belief, Muhammad is not just a prophet for the Arabs,
but a prophet with a universal Message for all human beings. Hence,
Cragg&#39s recognition of Muhammad as &#39the prophet of the Quran&#39 is
for Muslims nothing less than a betrayal of their faith.
Third, although Cragg examines the question of Muhammad&#39s prophethood
in a scholarly way, in the light of Quranic accounts, it seems that his
final verdict is "no longer from a scholarly position but a theologicalapologetic one, intended to safeguard the kerygmatic core of the
Christian faith, and simultaneously to appease Muslims." (Khan 192)
In short, we may conclude that, it is indeed a positive development
towards Christian-Muslim dialogue for a committed Christian scholar to
respond so positively to the Muslim demand that in the dialogue process
the Christian partner should respect Muhammad as a Prophet within the
context of his own religious tradition.
By doing so, Cragg has shown that the Christian partner can acknowledge
Muhammad as &#39a prophet of the Quran&#39 by safeguarding