The Islamic Doctrine of Allah Contrasted with the Biblical Doctrine of God (Originally from http://rim.org/muslim/islam.htm but the web site is no longer availlable to link directly to. Therefore, it is hosted locally at amefufuka.com.) The following article works from the presuppositional perspective of the Christian worldview, presenting a comparative critique of the Islamic doctrine of Allah, as well as a critique on the grounds of Islam itself. We believe and know, by God's grace and mercy, that the biblical Christian worldview alone forms a coherent worldview, and is alone fully correspondent to reality, as it is the God of the Bible who is the One True God. In contrast the Allah of the Quran and Islam cannot truly be God, and is rather a misrepresentation of the One True God, who is holy, and who in Christ Jesus is both perfectly merciful and perfectly just. In his groundbreaking article The Theological and Apologetical Dimensions of Muslim Evangelization, Samuel P. Schlorff states that "for far too long evangelical missions have been limping along without an effective apologetic to Islam."(1) Since his article was published in 1980, some work has been done,(2) yet there remains a great void in the area of the development of thorough and effective apologetics directed towards Islamic theology and worldview. The Christian approaches to Islam in the 20th century have shifted from the polemical method of the 19th century to the approach of simply focussing on the positive presentation of the Gospel. Schlorff states, “many evangelicals seem to have concluded that all apologetics are out of place in Muslim evangelization.”(3) Greg Bahnsen concurs with this analysis, stating, “it is imagined, [that] Islam can counterfeit each move in the Christian’s argument.. this is an inaccurate preconception.. the two worldviews are dissimilar in pivotal ways when one reflects on Islam’s unitarianism, fatalism, moral concepts, lack of redemption, etc. Islam can be internally critiqued on its own presuppositions.”(4) Following in the footsteps of Schlorff and Bahnsen, this paper will continue the presuppositional apologetic approach in the internal and comparative critique of several crucial areas of the Islamic doctrine of Allah. Islam presents one of the great historical challenges to the truth of Christianity. Arising from the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, Islam took hold of North Africa, the Middle East, and now continues to expand in the 21st century, overwhelming and attacking other religions, Christianity in particular. Throughout this history of expansion,(5) and to the present, the rallying cry of Islam remains, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Apostle.” Samuel Zwemer, the great missionary to Muslims of the early 1900’s, showed that two key Islamic doctrines flow from the shahada. These are the doctrines of revelation and of Allah.(6) The shahada is the basic presuppositional claim of the Islamic worldview. Flowing out of it are the doctrines which form the foundations for the radical dissimilarities between the Christian and Islamic worldviews. In revelation, Muhammad is considered the sole, final channel of revelation, through whom the Quran has abrogated all former revelations. The doctrine of Allah flows primarily from the teaching of the Quran.(7) Fazlur Rahman, a prolific Muslim scholar at the University of Chicago, spends the first chapter of his work Major Themes of the Quran discussing what he views as the Quranic teaching regarding the doctrine of Allah. His opening paragraph provides an important qualifier, which is essential in grasping orthodox Islamic theology: The Quran is a document that is squarely aimed at man; indeed, it calls itself “guidance for mankind” (hudan li’l-nas [2:185] and numerous equivalents elsewhere). Yet, the term Allah, the proper name for God, occurs well over 2,500 times in the Quran (not to count the terms al-Rabb, The Lord, and al-Rahman, The Merciful, which although they signify qualities, have nevertheless come to acquire substance). Still the Quran is no treatise about God and His nature: His existence, for the Quran, is strictly functional - He is Creator and Sustainer of the universe and of man, and particularly the giver of guidance for man and He who judges man, individually and collectively, and metes out to him merciful justice.(8) The fact that the Quran is primarily addressed to the life of men, rather than being a revelation of who Allah is presents a basic and profound difference with the purpose and teaching of the Bible as the Word of God.(9) This difference creates a serious epistemological void in the very foundation of the Islamic worldview, and is an important influence in the ensuing incoherence of the Islamic doctrine of deity.(10) The Islamic doctrine of Allah is typically divided into two sections: the unity of Allah, and the attributes (or names) and works of Allah. The great stress laid upon the former is in large part due to the historical contexts which Islam found itself it from its earliest days: pre-Islamic tribal Arabia was a hotbed of polytheism, Jewish communities, and wandering mystics and monks who at least nominally fell under the category of Christianity, and taught of the Triune God. In describing the doctrine of the unity of Allah (tauhid), Maulana Muhammad Ali(11) states: The unity of God according to the .. Quran, implies that God is One in His person (dhat), One in His attributes (sifat) and One in His works (af’al). His Oneness in His person means that there is neither plurality of gods, nor plurality of persons in the Godhead; His Oneness in attributes implies that no other being possesses one or more of the Divine attributes in perfection; His Oneness in works implies that none can do the works which God has done, or which God may do… This is summed up in the Quran: “Say, He, Allah is One; Allah is He on Whom all depend; He begets not, nor is He begotten; and none is like Him.”(12) The principle of the unity of Allah, as described by Ali, is deeply rooted in the Islamic religion, and in the mindset of the general Muslim. This undoubtedly is due in large part to the fact that shirk, the associating of gods with Allah in persons, attributes or works, is considered the greatest of sins.(13) “The belief that there are three persons in the Godhead, and that the Son and Holy Ghost are eternal, omniscient, and omnipotent.. all fall under this [the teaching of the sin of shirk]… the most palpable form of shirk is that in which anything besides God is worshipped…”(14) Schlorff states “the doctrine of the Trinity contradicts the Islamic concept of the Absolute Oneness of God. God is stripped (Tanzih) of personity and every knowable attribute to become an abstract metaphysical Unity.”(15) The attributes and works of Allah form the second major area of theology proper in Islam. A century ago Samuel Zwemer noted that to a large degree the attributes or nature of Allah are expressed by negation.(16) Schlorff concurs stating that the basic Islamic assumption regarding Allah is that he “is Absolutely Other (or Transcendent).”(17) The application of this in the area of semantics brings about a serious epistemological problem. Schlorff explains: Transcendence implies on the one hand that language used in describing God has no positive connotation whatsoever; there is absolutely no relationship (or analogy) between the connotation of a word when predicated of God and its connotation when predicated of men. For example, we cannot understand God’s mercy by the analogy of mercy in man; God’s mercy and that of man are completely dissimilar. Thus Islam has a negative theology; it cannot say what God is, but only what He is not… God is unknown and unknowable to man, both in this life and the next. Apart from “tanzil” (sending down revelation) man can know nothing about God or His requirements of man… There is an uncrossable gulf between man and God which makes a personal knowledge of God a metaphysical impossibility… The Bible does teach a creator-creature distinction which will never be erased, but does not carry this to the extent of complete dissimilarity or unknowability. Islam makes this distinction to mean that God is completely unknowable to man.(18) Evidences of this problem abound in Muslim writings. Ali prefaces his section on the attributes of God with the following comment: Before speaking of the Divine attributes it will be necessary to warn the reader against a certain misconception as to the nature of the Divine Being. God is spoken of in the Holy Quran as seeing, hearing, speaking, being displeased, loving, being affectionate, grasping, controlling, etc., but the use of all these words must not be taken in any sense as indicating an anthropomorphic conception of the Divine Being… It is laid down as a basic principle regarding the Divine attributes that “He does not resemble His creatures in anything, nor do any of His creatures resemble Him.”(19) Despite this core Islamic belief, certain things about Allah are held to be indubitable. He is the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe.(20) He is all powerful.(21) He is just. He is merciful.(22) This mercy includes that Allah is the “giver of guidance for man.”(23) Further attributes are based on the names of Allah.(24) While there is a major epistemological problem in Islam rooted in the conflict of the doctrine of the transcendence of Allah with all other teaching regarding Allah, there are further problems found within the teaching of the attributes of Allah. A serious conflict is found between the justice and mercy of Allah, in regards to the ethical relation between Allah and man. Izutsu states “the God of the Koran shows two different aspects that are fundamentally opposed to each other [concerning the ethical relation between God and man]. For a pious believing mind, these two aspects are but two different sides of one and the same God, but for the logic of ordinary reason, they would seem contradictory, and, in fact, many thinkers have been at pains to reconcile these two aspects with one another.”(25) The problem is for Allah to remain perfectly just and righteous sin must be punished. If all men are sinful and have committed sin, and Allah is infinite and perfect in his attributes, there can be no mercy. For mercy then would function as a negation of his justice. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that in order for Allah to be both merciful (in the Quranic sense of ignoring the sins of some) and just, he must be an arbitrary and changing being.(26) Schlorff points out that this is indeed the teaching of Islam: God is absolutely free, and unrestricted even in the realm of truth and morality. He is free to “abrogate” the truth or obligations of earlier revelations by subsequently revealed truths and obligations. He is free to judge the same act to be “good” in one circumstance and “evil” in another according to the situation, although in principle acts are “good” or “evil” according to whether they are commanded or forbidden in the Quran. The criteria by which God judges and assigns man his destiny are unknowable to man. He is free to forgive the sinner or to condemn him. He is free to do opposites as He pleases.(27) Muslim writers agree. Fazlur Rahman states, “God.. becomes the friend of and cooperates with a person who has “discovered” Him. Yet, God’s friendship may not be presumed at any point by either any individual or any community, even though the Quran speaks of God’s promises to individuals and communities.. One cannot take God for granted, since no individual or community can at any time appropriate Truth.”(28) The conclusions regarding the Islamic doctrines of Allah, even from a brief and cursory study are stark. The very foundations of the Islamic worldview are rife with contradiction. As Schlorff has stated in his article “from a biblical perspective, as elaborated in Romans 1 and 2, the Islamic doctrine of God represents a thoroughgoing repression of the Truth and the substitution of a false concept of God in its place.”(29) The consequences are that man is cut off from a personal relationship with, and knowledge of, God; man is cut off from true rationality having lost the transcendent point of reference found in the God of the Bible; and since Allah is absolutely free and unknowable, the Islamic worldview cuts man off from true morality.(30) The Islamic worldview brings itself crashing to the ground in its emptiness and folly. Truth and the basis for an accurate and renewed knowledge of reality are to be found only in God’s Word - the Bible. Here the powerful and transforming answer to the futility of Islam is found. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.” Endnotes: 1. Samuel P. Schlorff, "Theological and Apologetical Dimensions of Muslim Evangelization," Westminster Theological Journal vol.42, no.2 (Spring 1980): 335-366. 2. Much of the recent work in apologetics towards Islam can be found on the Internet at several websites including www.answering-islam.org and www.rim.org/muslim/islam.htm. The focus has changed in recent years to move beyond the evidentialist and 19th century polemic approaches, though as Schlorff pointed out in 1980, the main alternative remains the evangelical approach "concentrating on the positive presentation of the gospel and avoiding the 'stale polemics of the past' except when pressed... many evangelicals seem to have concluded that all apologetics are out of place in Muslim evangelization." Schlorff, 336. 3. Schlorff, 336. 4. Greg Bahnsen, “Presuppositional Reasoning With False Faiths,” Penpoint vol.7, no.2 (Feb./Mar. 1996): 1-2. 5. Usually the result of a combination of military-political tactics and population growth. 6. Samuel M. Zwemer, The Moslem Doctrine of God (New York: American Tract Society, 1905), 32. 7. The Islamic doctrine regarding Allah finds its primary source in the Quran; however other influences, such as that of the hadith, differing political factions, schools of interpretation, outside historical influences/contexts, and sects within Islam have been influential in the development of the image of Allah. 8. Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes of the Quran (Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1980), 1. Rahman stands as an influential academic apologist for Islam in North America. His apologetic bent is clearly evidenced by his introductory remarks to this volume, and the entire worldview and perspective evidenced throughout. 9. Especially when we consider that Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh (John 1:14). “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” (John 1:18) Jesus said “this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3) 10. This fundamental difference is further illustrated by the self-testimony of the Quran which teaches that there are “three different manners of [divine] revelation: (1) mysterious communication, (2) speaking from behind the veil, and (3) the sending of a messenger. The first type is not elucidated… we are left in the dark as to what it means in concrete terms. As to the second type, the expression used - ‘from behind the veil’- suggests that there does occur a verbal communication; only the hearer in this case does not have any vision of the speaker himself. But although nothing is visible to his eyes, the Prophet has the clearest conciousness of there being somewhere in the close vicinity a mysterious being who speaks to him in an extremely strange way… The third type is first named ruh al-quds ‘Holy Spirit’ but later in the Quran comes to be identified with the Angel Gabriel [2:91,97].” Toshihiko Izutsu, God and Man in The Koran (New York: Books for Libraries, 1980), 176-178. Thus even in the manner of revelation Allah remains a mysterious and distant deity. This ties closely to the Islamic doctrine of transcendance (tanzih) which teaches that Allah is unknown and unknowable to man. Schlorff, 338. 11. Maulana Muhammad Ali writes as a Lahori Ahmadiyya - a member of an Islamic subgroup based largely in Pakistan and viewed by Sunnis as being somewhat sectarian in nature. However in the area of the doctrine of Allah they are united with orthodox Islam. 12. Maulana Muhammad Ali, The Religion of Islam (Lahore, Pakistan: The Ahmadiyyah Anjuman Isha’at Islam, 1950), 144-145. 13. Ali, 145. 14. Ali, 147. A fascinating discrepancy presents itself here within the Islamic worldview: “For Muslims, the Quran is the Book of God. It is the eternal, uncreated, literal word of God sent down from heaven..” John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 19. 15. Schlorff, 339. 16. Zwemer, 32. 17. Schlorff, 338. 18. Schlorff, 338. 19. Ali, 154. 20. Rahman, 1. 21. Ali, 157-158. 22. Izutsu, 230. 23. Rahman, 1. 24. It is fascinating to note how quickly Islam turns away from its own basic claims regarding Allah and begins to ascribe attributes to him according to his names, when at the same time Islam teaches that there is no correspondence, no analogy between Allah and creation or revelation, nor can there be in the understanding of man. Muslims often quote a hadith which states that there are ninety-nine names for Allah (descriptive, but not really descriptive in light of the doctrine of transcendence - Allah being “wholly other!”), and that the hundredth name is Allah. Ali disagrees stating that “while some of them occur in the Holy Quran, others are only inferred from some act of the Divine Being finding expression in the Holy Book [Quran].” Ali, 161. 25. Izutsu, 230. 26. For further development of this apologetically see the article Allah: Just and Merciful? on this website. 27. Schlorff, 338. 28. Rahman, 12. 29. Schlorff, 340. 30. Schlorff, 340.