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Criticism Of Islam: Part I
John of Damascus viewed Islamic doctrines as nothing more than a hodgepodge culled from the Bible.
Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam’s formative stages. Early criticism came from Christian authors, many of whom viewed Islam as a Christian heresy or a form of idolatry and often explained it in apocalyptic terms. Later there appeared criticism from the Muslim world itself, and also from Jewish writers and from ecclesiastical Christians. Issues relating to the authenticity and morality of the Qur’an, the Islamic holy book, are also discussed by critics. Islamic salvation optimism and its carnality was criticized by Christian writers. Islam’s sensual descriptions of paradise led many Christians to conclude that Islam was not a spiritual religion. Although sensual pleasure was also present in early Christianity, as seen in the writings of Irenaeus, the doctrines of the former Manichaean Augustine of Hippo led to broad repudiation of bodily pleasure in both life and the afterlife. Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari defended the Qur’anic description of paradise by asserting that the Bible also implies such ideas, such as drinking wine in Gospel of Matthew.
Defamatory images of Muhammad, derived from early 7th century depictions of Byzantine Church, appear in the 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Here, Muhammad appears in the eighth circle of hell, along with Ali. Dante does not blame Islam as a whole, but accuses Muhammad of schism, by establishing another religion after Christianity.
Since the events of September 11, 2001, Islam has faced criticism over its scriptures and teachings being a significant source of terrorism and terrorist ideology.
Other criticisms focus on the question of human rights in modern Muslim-majority countries, and the treatment of women in Islamic law and practice. In wake of the recent multiculturalism trend, Islam’s influence on the ability of Muslim immigrants in the West to assimilate has been criticized. Both in his public and personal life, others objected the morality of Muhammad, therefore also the sunnah as a role model.
Science Of Ḥadīth Criticism
By the time these collections had been completed a science of ḥadīth criticism had developed, the purpose of which was to determine the authenticity of ḥadīth attributed to the Prophet and to his companions and to preserve the corpus from alteration or falsification. The scholars verified each report with a chain of authorities (sg., isnād), going back, insofar as it was possible, to the Prophet himself. In order to decide on the degree of authenticity of a text, traditionists examined the chains of transmission from three points of view: that of the number of transmitters (sg., rāwī), ranging from a great many persons, representing all generations up to the classical compilers, narrating a single report, so that its authenticity was absolutely assured (a mutawātir ḥadītir), to a limited number of narrators, and even to a single chain (āḥād ḥadīth); that of the credibility of the transmitters, which consideration gave rise to an extensive biographical investigation in which the individual narrators were judged according to their personal qualities and professional achievements (ʿilm al-rijāl, science of the sources of information); that of the continuity of the chains, ranging from an uninterrupted isnād (musnad, supported) going back to the Prophet, to chains presenting various kinds of lacunae.
The nature of the ḥadīth text (matn) constituted another criterion for testing the authenticity of the material. Scholars suspected reports that were illogical, exaggerated, or of a fantastic or repulsive character, or that contradicted the Qurʿān. They called attention to a common practice of fabricating ḥadīth (waḍʿ) carried out by those who propagated false teachings, but also by teachers of the truth who sought by inventing ḥadīth to expose heresy. Still others spread false ḥadīth for personal advantage or to express zealous piety. A voluminous literature emerged because of concern for the matn: works dealing with the historical context of ḥadīth lexicographical studies of difficult words, the study of texts which were abrogated by other ḥadīth, the explanation of apparent contradictions found in authentic ḥadīth, and the so-called “divine ḥadīth” (ḥadīth qudsī), a category of material in which the Prophet assumed the role of transmitter and reported sayings of God himself. Matn criticism also included discussion by scholars of the comparative value of reporting ḥadīth word for word as opposed to transmitting reports by their meaning only. Both of these tendencies are seen in the collections, and, as a result, many variant readings of texts exist. Although the authority of hadīth in the community is very great, its inspiration is considered to be of a lower degree than that of the Qurʿān, which is believed to be the very word of God.
Muslims use three terms of a general nature to assess the relative validity of ḥadīth texts: ṣaḥīḥ(sound), the most acceptable; ḥasan (good), somewhat below the first in excellence; and ḍaʿīf (weak). Scholars usually apply these terms in a relative way, depending upon the type of criteria that are used to judge the ḥadīth.
Another aspect of ḥadīth science is the technique of transmission. With the passage of time the number of transmitters increased enormously. Measures of control emerged to ensure that ḥadīth were properly passed on from teacher to students or from scholar to scholar. The manuals describe eight ways whereby people could become accredited transmitters of the ḥadīth material that they learned. These mechanisms of control are applied in cases ranging from a most direct and personal exchange between teacher and student to the situation of a scholar who might discover a previously unknown or neglected written collection by a respected authority, and be authorized to transmit it.
Throughout the history of Islam the Qurʿān and the ḥadīth have functioned together to shape the life of the community worldwide. Ḥadīth provide the basic sources for the biography (sīrah) of the prophet Muḥammad, filling in details regarding events mentioned briefly in the Qurʿān and providing a wealth of information on the personality, the family, and the career of the Prophet. Also Muḥammad ’s example in word and deed, as recorded in the ḥadīth, helps Muslims to interpret the Qurʿān by pointing out the circumstances in which portions of the Book were revealed, by giving the meanings of obscure verses and words, and by recounting incidents in which the Qurʿānic texts were applied to situations in life.
As the record of the sunnah, or example of the Prophet, the ḥadīth literature is one of the sources of Islamic law (sharīʿa). How legal thinking evolved in the community is a complex question, but it is clear that by the early ninth century A.D. ḥadīth were officially accepted as a basic source of law. Many of the collections of ḥadīth are arranged according to the subject matter of jurisprudence (fiqh), thus showing that these compilations early became the tools of the legal profession.
To return to the first function of ḥadīth, that of preserving the record of the Prophet ’s biography, this element is of greater scope than a merely formal sīrah. The vast number of supplicatory prayers, exhortations, theological statements, practical counsels, words of encouragement and comfort, warnings, and predictions contained in the ḥadīth have always served to direct the piety of Muslims, to provide an overall framework for reflection and practice, all the more significant because by it the Qurʿān is, so to speak, embodied and exemplified in the flesh of the Prophet and his companions.\
Ḥadīth have continued their multiple functions in the Muslim community through the centuries, and no one today doubts that they retain their place of supreme importance in the religious consciousness of Muslims. The formal study of ḥadīth has continued, too, although, after the period of the classical collections and the codification of rules for judging authenticity and for transmission of reports, the style of research naturally changed. Scholars examined the “Six Books” from every angle, wrote commentaries on them, gathered selected material from them for smaller, more accessible collections, and wrote treatises on all aspects of the science of ḥadīth.
As study of the written collections became more formalized, the place of teaching changed from private homes and mosques to schools dedicated to learning and transmitting the material. Muslim historians describe a certain decline in devotion to ḥadīth research beginning around the twelfth century. It was then that institutes began to be founded called dūr al-ḥadīth (sg., dār; “houses of ḥadīth”); the first was in Damascus, then spreading to many Muslim lands. Until recent centuries, they kept alive a concern for ḥadīth scholarship. In the mid-twentieth century Morocco established a modern Dār al-Ḥadīth in Rabat for graduate study in connection with the university and for research and publication. The modern universities in Muslim countries may include courses on ḥadīth in their departments of sharīʿa, in some of which the methods of the social sciences are beginning to be applied to the study of the literature. Venerable institutions such as Dār al-ʿUlūm in Deoband, India, and al-Azhar in Cairo are centers for ḥadīth studies.
A Criticism Of Religious Thought
The descendent of a prominent Syrian political family and graduate of American University of Beirut, he holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University His Marxist criticism of religious thought published in 1970 caused a scandal. He was brought to trial in Beirut in the same year on charges of provoking religious troubles but was acquitted.
The first edition of the work from which this selection comes, was published in 1969. In this excerpt, ‘Azm attacks the misuse of Islam by “reactionaries” and urges a scientific critique of such misuse. It is not Islam but the thought of “reactionaries,” relying on false understandings of the faith, that he criticizes. ‘Azm’s problem is not only with unnamed reactionaries but also with “progressives” associated with what he terms the “Arab liberation movement,” because he sees the latter as too respectful of religious tradition, which enshrines “backward institutions” and “obscurantist ideology.” Identifying Marx’s Kapital and Darwin’s Origin of Species as “the most important books of the last two centuries,” ‘Azm sets out to demolish the argument made by Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad ‘Abduh, among others, that no contradiction exists between science and revelation. ‘Azm avers that religion accepts doctrines as a matter of belief, whereas science requires proof and utilizes methods that contradict basic religious assumptions, such as the doctrine of the creation. He adopts the argument of the American pragmatist philosopher, William James, that the acceptance of anything for which proof is lacking must be placed in abeyance. This is not to reject religious feeling for those who desire to express it but rather to reject the imposition of those sentiments upon everyone as uncontested truth.
Even before the defeat of 1967, the Arab liberation movement knew that Arab reactionaries and their international allies were using religious thought as an ideological weapon, and yet no great importance was attached to this fact. Apparently no one saw the necessity of disarming the reactionaries by exposing their thought to a critical, scientific analysis to reveal the forgeries they employ to exploit the Arab man. In fact, the political and intellectual leaders of the Arab liberation movement espoused a negative attitude which abetted the conservative position inasmuch as they refrained from any criticism of the Arab intellectual and social heritage and refused to seek out ways of effecting change at the higher levels corresponding to the changes which had occurred in the composition of the society’s infrastructure. The Arab liberation movement considered the cultural superstructure worthy of respect and veneration. It surrounded retarded mental habits, bedouin and feudal values, backward human relations, and obscurantist, quietistic world views with an aura of sacredness which put them outside the pale of scientific criticism and historical analysis.
The fact is that the Arab liberation movement changed some of the economic and social conditions of the Arab man but, at the same time, placed all sorts of obstacles on the path leading to parallel changes in the intellect and conscience of the Arab man, which would aid his “view of himself, of life and the world to evolve” . . . To put it another way, the Arab liberation movement stood “on its head rather than on its feet” . . . in the sense that it wanted to put the revolutionary economic and social changes it introduced and its use of modern science and technology at the service of existing social relations and class divisions . . . This posture found expression in the cultural policies of the Arab liberation movement such as its superficial but conservative preoccupation with the religious heritage, traditions, values, and thought, which, of course, impeded the hoped for changes in the Arab man . . . Under the cover of protecting the people’s traditions, values, art, religion, and morals, the cultural effort of the Arab liberation movement was used to protect the backward institutions and the medieval culture and thought of obscurantist ideology.
In our view, the old religious position, full of serenity and optimism, is collapsing completely. We are passing through a stage of real renaissance marked by a complete scientific and cultural upheaval and a radical industrial and socialist transformation. We have been affected by the two most important books of the last two centuries: Capitalism and The Origin of the Species. The corpse of traditional feudal society has been shredded by the machine, and its bones have crumbled under the weight of modern economic and social organization, and with it has passed the fateful, positive attitude toward religion and its problems.
In this frantic atmosphere two problems loom large, the first is of a general cultural and ideological nature — the problem of the struggle between science and religion (Islam, for us). (The second is a special problem, which is the concern of everyone radically affected by the scientific culture, which has begun to flood his society and milieu and forces him to face up to a basic question: “Can I accept in all honesty and sincerity the religious tenets my father and grandfathers accepted without betraying the principle of intellectual integrity?”
There is a widely accepted opinion claiming that the struggle between science and religion is only apparent and that the difference between scientific knowledge of religious creeds is merely superficial. The propagandists of this opinion also claim that the spirit of Islam, for example, cannot conflict with science and that apparent conflicts are between science and the extraneous silt of the ages which has buried the true spirit. I would like to expand a bit to clarify this opinion, criticize it and explain the opposite viewpoint, to show that religion as it enters the core of our life and affects our intellectual and psychological makeup is in opposition to science and scientific knowledge — heart and soul, literally and figuratively.
First, we should not forget that more than two-and-a-half centuries passed in Europe before science was decisively victorious in its long war against the religious mentality which was dominant on that continent and before it established itself definitively in its cultural heritage. Science is still fighting a similar war in developing countries, including the Arab homeland, even though the battle is hidden and its lineaments are only occasionally apparent to all.
Second, the Islamic religion comprises opinions and tenets on the growth, composition, and nature of the universe, on the origin, history, and life of man through the ages which form an inseparable part of the religion. It is not necessary to emphasize that these opinions and tenets are clearly in opposition to our scientific information on these subjects. But contradictions between religion and science concerning their convictions on a limited subject is not very important. The conflict and struggle go much deeper than that when they touch the problem of the methodology which must be adopted to arrive at our convictions and knowledge in the subjects mentioned. It is a question of the way we must follow to be certain of the truth or falsehood of these convictions. Islam and science in this matter are on contradictory paths. For the Islamic religion (as for other religions) the correct methodology for arriving at knowledge and conviction is to return to specified texts considered as sacred or revealed, or to go back to the writings of the sages and the learned who studied and explained these texts. That is, the justification of the whole operation is reduced to faith and blind trust in the wisdom at the source of these texts and their freedom from error. It goes without saying that the scientific path to arrive at knowledge and conviction concerning the growth and nature of the universe and man and his history is completely incompatible with this subservient methodology which dominates religion because scientific methodology rests on observation and deduction and because the unique justification for the soundness of the results arrived at by this methodology is the degree of its internal logical harmony and its conformity with reality.
Third, among the essential things that the Islamic religion insists on is that all basic truths that touch the core of man’s life and all knowledge connected with his destiny in this life and the next were uncovered at one specific and decisive moment in history (the revelation of the Qur’ān and perhaps the other books before it). For this reason we find the gaze of believers always directed backwards to that time in which they believe these truths and this knowledge were uncovered by God through angels and messengers. The result is that the function of the believer, sage, philosopher, and learned man is not to discover new essential truths or gain important knowledge not known previously but only to work for a more profound view and more comprehensive grasp of the revealed texts. The scientific spirit is far removed from the logic of this religious view because science does not acknowledge the existence of texts which are impervious to objective criticism and serious study and because the most outstanding characteristic of scientific thought is discovery . . . But religion from the nature of its firm, stable, and limited beliefs lives in eternal verities and looks backwards seeking inspiration from its infancy. For this reason religion has always formed a metaphysical obscurantist justification for the social, economic, and political status quo. It has always been and is still a strong fortress against those who exert effort for a revolutionary change of these conditions.
There is a resemblance between religion and science in that both attempt to explain events and define causes. Religion is an imaginative substitute for science. But the problem arises when religion claims for itself and its beliefs a type of veracity which no imaginative substitute is capable of claiming. The attempt to efface the features of the struggle between religion and science is nothing but a hopeless effort to defend religion. It is resorted to every time religion is forced to concede a traditional position and every time it is forced to withdraw from a center it formerly held.
Now we turn to what we called our particular problem. The question around which our study will center can be summarized as follows: what should be the position of a man who has been exposed to scientific culture and has been radically affected by it vis-à-vis traditional religious beliefs and the institutions in which they are embodied? Can this man continue to believe in Adam and Eve, hell and heaven, that Moses divided the Red Sea and turned his rod into a serpent? What can be the position of a man who had a religious upbringing and accepted it lock, stock, and barrel vis-à-vis the natural scientific view of life, the universe, and man? It is difficult to find among us a person enjoying a bit of sensitivity and even a modest share of intelligence and scientific education who does not feel at some stage of his life and development the anxiety which surrounds this question and the worry it provokes. The intellectual and psychological state which this question expresses has become a basic part of our makeup; sometimes it floats on the surface of consciousness and we feel its existence strongly; at other times it is buried deep within us where it affects our conduct and thought in hidden ways. In any case it is always active.
Various Explanations Concerning Science And Religion
The First Solution: Concordism. Among the sayings repeated by “concordist” speakers to confirm their claim that there is no conflict between religion and science is the Prophetic Tradition saying, “Seek science even if it is in China,” and numerous well-known Qur’ānic verses which encourage man to think and meditate on things and to seek science and knowledge, etc. They attempt to demonstrate that Islam’s concern for science and intellect extends back to its beginning. Naturally these thinkers attribute an absolute sense to these Islamic phrases. They speak as if these phrases belong to no time or place and can be separated from the historical context and the circumstances which gave them meaning and import at the time. It is clear to us that the science which Islam encourages one to seek is essentially religious and legal science and what is associated with it, and not physics and chemistry, for example. The intellect which Islam encourages man to use seeks knowledge of God by meditating on what he has created as did Hayy ibn Yaqzān in the story of Ibn Tufayl. The aim is not the formation of the dialectical theory of matter or the theory of Durkheim on religious customs and worship, or a theory of a convex universe. Islam is not at fault for that. At that time religious sciences were regarded as the most lofty and weighty, the extreme limit sought by anyone seeking science.
In this regard it should be remarked that the vast majority of these “concordists” know only very little about modern science, its methods of research, and what we may call the “scientific soul” or the “scientific spirit.” However, they stand perplexed and breathless before the achievements of science and its practical applications. They are forced to respond to its effects in their everyday life and for this reason find that they can do nothing but announce perfect harmony and complete concord between their Islam and this great force. Therefore, Islam and modern science are harmonious and concordant in everything! No wonder then that they fall into strange contradictions.
This type of thought declaring concord between Islam and contemporary life is concerned with justifying the social and political conditions which exist, no matter what they may be, on the basis of their complete harmony with the pure religion, its doctrines and law. The religious men of Islam supervise this operation defending the status quo and its personalities and policies. They put all their effort into laying a veneer of Islamic law over the political and social order, no matter what it may be, with which they are associated. We find that every Arab system of government, no matter what its color, is not esteemed Islamic institutions ready to issue fatwās’” declaring that its policy is in complete harmony with Islam and contradicts it in nothing. There is no need to point out that the Islamic institutions in each state amass Qur’ānic verses, prophetic traditions, and legal opinions to demonstrate that the position of the given state is truth itself.
Also, this methodology of concord between Islam and modern science is epitomized in the derivation of all modern sciences, theories and methodologies from verses of the Qur’ān. It is an arbitrary and ridiculous exercise of cramming every bit of modern science, great and small, into verses of the Qur’ān, then claiming that the Qur’ān contained all science from the beginning. In other words, the proponents of this current lie in wait for every new scientific theory and every scientific discovery, then exert themselves to find a verse in the Qur’ān claiming that it contained the theory and the discovery for fourteen centuries if not forever.
The Second Solution: The complete rejection of scientific theory and all the ideas and opinions it contains, and complete enclosure within the religious view to defend it unto death. In fact it is very difficult to take this view either individually or as a group because in its most extreme form it is a kind of intellectual suicide, and in its moderate form it leads to a progressive cleavage between man and the world around him. It is a type of escape that saves man from the effort of facing up to truths that do not harmonize with his own emotional, intellectual, and religious makeup. If he cannot bear this contradiction between his inner world and the world which surrounds him, then he will manifest the symptoms of the disease: complete nervous collapse or a type of general paralysis preventing any productive or fruitful work. He is hypersensitive to the burden which the religious heritage and the culture of the past place on him, and he is unable to adapt to the new conditions surrounding him.
The Third Solution: Distinguishing between the temporal and the eternal or spiritual dimensions of religion by saying that all that we find in religion concerning nature and history, etc., is included under the temporal dimension, which can be ceded completely to science. The spiritual dimension, however, has absolutely no connection with science; it is the area of eternal truths, hidden things, faith, and mystical experience. The proponents of this current say that scientific method and knowledge do not go beyond the scope of nature and for that reason it is not easy for them to investigate religious beliefs which are supported by pure faith not by intellectual argument nor by science and its proofs. In other words the propagandists for this opinion say that religious knowledge differs specifically from scientific and intellectual knowledge. For this reason we always fail when we try to apply logic to religious knowledge. It always appears to contradict logic and to be incompatible with the scientific mentality because this special kind of knowledge is the result of mystical experience or of the leap of pure faith or something similar.
The Fourth and Final Solution: Now we will proceed to the solution which William James presented in the article . . . “The Will to Believe.” In that article James establishes a general principle for verifying the opinions and judgments presented to us. It is this: we cannot accept or reject any opinion as long as sufficient indications and testimonies to its truth or falsehood are not present. As long as these conditions are not met, we must suspend judgment. Likewise, the force with which we defend any given opinion we hold should be proportionate to the strength of the arguments supporting it and the number of signs indicating its correctness. There is no doubt that this principle enunciates a noble ideal which man can realize only to a certain degree, no matter how intelligent or how free he may be from fanaticism and passion in reforming his studied opinions on the various subjects of life. . . . James asks if there are various cases in which a man is right in affirming a matter despite the clear lack of indications and confirmation of its truth or falsehood. He answers that religious belief or faith in the existence of God is one of these cases. According to James the person who faces the difficult choice between belief in the existence of God or lack of belief will never find any intellectual confirmation or scientific demonstration proving God’s existence or non-existence. Here James confirms the right of this man to believe in the existence of God relying on what his emotional nature indicates about this subject. But the question which comes to our mind is, why do we give the question of religion this preference and privilege to the point of excepting it from the comprehensive moral principle which governs the operation and content of certainty? Harmonizing our opinions with our emotional nature cannot form acceptable justification for our belief in these opinions, not if we wish to have studied opinions rather than merely inherited views.]
This does not mean that I want to invalidate religious feelings in man’s experience of existence, but I think it is necessary to distinguish religion from religious feeling. Those feelings ground down by the burden of petrified traditional religious beliefs and the weight of frozen rites and rituals must be freed from their prison so that they may flower and express themselves by ways and means appropriate to our conditions of life in twentieth century civilization. For this reason we must renounce the traditional notion stating that existence is a special religious truth, and we must direct our concern towards religious feelings liberated from these weights and burdens. Likewise it seems to me that it is not necessary to attach religious feelings to hidden beings, concealed existences and strange forces as was always done. These feelings constitute a property which can shape all our other feelings, thoughts and goals. We can look to these feelings to bring order, harmony and assurance to our view towards the changing events of life. In this sense, religious feelings may be represented in the artist’s view of beauty, or in the scientist’s search for truth, or in the militant’s conception of the goals he works to achieve, or in the view of the common man towards fulfilling the daily duties of life.
Criticism Of Islam: Part I
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Last Updated: 08/2021
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