'In other words, Allah will forgive whatever he wishes, to whomever he pleases, but he won't forgive shirk.  I would be interesting to try to tease out the 'to whom he pleaseth'.  E.g. to ask whether this means that Allah could forgive or not forgive, solely according to his soreveign will.'

Yes, that was what he said. Allah can forgive whom he wants. Or not. He could forgive the worst of Muslim sinners but not a Christian saint because he was (according to Muslim definition) guilty of shirk.

Thanks to Celinda and Mark for your responses. Mark, my limited 'cross-cultural encounter' was of course not definitive. But I did attempt to ask clear and central questions from a knowledgable individual and received back some quite clear answers in return which I pass on for what they are worth. I deliberately did not mention jihad because I did not wish to appear confrontational. But jihad is not necessary for salvation.

My overall impression is that for Muslims belief is far more important than good works. Only the actions of religious observance seem to count.

Celinda, the question is surely what Muslims regard as sin, and whether they regard forgiveness of others as a pre-condition by which God will forgive sin (a change of heart). Muslim views of sin may not be the same as ours. Sin for Muslims is transgressing sharia (which is the Mosaic law as they understand it). It is not necessarily about your feelings and behaviour towards other human beings. It's about fastidiousness in observing religious formalities such as eating halal food, avoiding impure things or praying five times daily.

That strikes me as frankly rather meaningless and hard-hearted if it does not induce sympathetic feelings towards others, especially outsiders. A change of heart. An inner transformation.

Jesus warned of this and gave a very sharp answer to the Pharisee on the easy allowing of the divorce of women by the Mosaic law, that 'it was for the very hardness of your heart that he (Moses) gave you that precept... what God hath joined together let no man rend asunder'. Monogamy was the norm amongst Jews of Jesus' time. The Essenes had advanced its cause. Serial monogamy however, was practiced as a sly way of getting round it. But Our Lord expressly condemned the casual putting away of human beings on mere whim. He set a new bar. It was devastating for women to be divorced in those days, let us not forget. Marriage for Our Lord was a high moral relation. Men must not abuse power. 

Although that passage has been interpreted by the Church as saying Our Lord forbade divorce, I read it differently. The feminism of that passage always strikes me forcefully. Our Lord is not saying that consensual divorce need be a sin where there is irretrievable breakdown, but that 'hardness of heart' and the casual one-sided disposal of defenceless blameless women like they were so much trash, is a sin. His concern was about the abuse of power, the need for compassion, human dignity and justice. Islam has no such compunctions over a very fundamental human relation like marriage. Polygamy is never an equal relation between men and women. Women can be divorced on the mere whim of a husband. This is not an equal relation nor a high moral relation.

Thankfully Muslims are moving away from such barbarism but the Quran is unchanged.

Shirk is regarded as being a very serious sin - the one that God cannot forgive. And Muslims do consider Christians as guilty of shirk. Last August at the same mosque I attended a very interesting dialogue between a convert from Roman Catholicism who now goes by the name of Idris Tawfiq and our local bishop on the subject of the Muslim view of Jesus. Tawfiq informed us that Muslims, when confronted by Christians, (whom they may like at a personal level) often wriggle around on the subject of Christian shirk. This isn't taqiyya, it's embarassed politeness. It's also because they hope that Christians will see the light one day and come round to the truth of Islam.

Many Christians find the doctrine of the Trinity difficult and are not able to explain it convincingly, so Muslims feel it is only a matter of time before we surrender.

But Tawfiq finds it a false kindness to give a soft or muted answer on such an essential question. Christians are guilty of shirk and are therefore damned so it's better to let them know. God cannot forgive shirk (unless of course you repent of it by ceasing to believe in the Holy Trinity and the Nicene Creed). The Quran is quite clear about this.

Sura 9:30 - 'The Jews say, Ezra is the son of Allah. The Christians say, The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their statement from their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before them. May Allah destroy them. How are they deluded?'

Or: Sura 5:72 - 'They have certainly disbelieved who say, Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary, when the Messiah has said, O Children of Israel worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Indeed he who associates others with Allah - Allah has forbidden him Paradise, and his refuge is the Fire. And for wrongdoers there are no helpers'.

Sura 4:171 - 'O people of scripture do not commit excess in your religion or say about Allah except the truth. The Messiah Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah and his word which he directed to Mary and a soul from him. So believe in Allah and his messengers. And do not say 'Three' desist; it is better for you. Indeed Allah is but one God. Exalted is he above having a son...'

They also do not believe Jesus was ever crucified or that he rose again. In other words, the entire Christian faith.

Strangely, they do believe in his miracles and in the virgin birth.

sunniva's latest posting is a  good example of the  difficulty in constructing a picture of Islamic theology on the basis of a few hours' dialogue. 

For example, the question about what is biggest sin would have to receive  the answer 'shirk' (associating Allah with partners) because there is a famous verse in the Qur'an which states just that:

God forgiveth not that partners should be set up with Him (=shirk); but He forgiveth anything else, to whom He pleaseth; to set up partners with God is to devise a sin most heinous indeed. (Sura 4:48 - Yusuf Ali).

In other words, Allah will forgive whatever he wishes, to whomever he pleases, but he won't forgive shirk.  I would be interesting to try to tease out the 'to whom he pleaseth'.  E.g. to ask whether this means that Allah could forgive or not forgive, solely according to his soreveign will.

As for the question as to whether Christianity is shirk, this would be a useful (and confronting) question to ask.  Likewise the answer is clear in the Qur'an:

(they take as their Lord) Christ the son of Mary; yet they were commanded to worship but One God: there is no god but He. Praise and glory to Him: (Far is He) from having the partners they associate (with Him). (Sura 9:31 - Yusuf Ali).

Say: "Praise be to God, who begets no son, and has no partner in (His) dominion: Nor (needs) He any to protect Him from humiliation: yea, magnify Him for His greatness and glory!" (Sura 17:11 - Yusuf Ali)

What then is the significance of  not mentioning jihad? why would this Muslim leader raise such a topic in a conversation which he hopes will soften a Christian's heart towards Islam?

In any case, the specific question to ask is not about jihad, but martyrdom, e.g.:  "If a Muslim dies as a martyr, will they be saved?"  Then you might ask 'How will they be successful?' to find out more about what heaven is like for the martyr. 

There is one further thing about jihad though - a more central question - and that is its relationship to salvation. This is what we should press in dialogue.

Some time ago I spoke at length to a Muslim imam in our local mosque on one of those dawa events (he was Syrian, a Saudi trained Wahabbi) about what Islam teaches about salvation. He told me that in Syria both Christians and Muslims call God 'Al-Lah' and was curious to know why the West had become secular. I tried to answer him the best I could! (This would take too long to relate). I asked him:

'What do you have to do according to Islam, to be saved?'

He replied: 'Believe in the One God with all your heart and mind'.

I said: 'What if you have sinned, and sinned mightily? What then?'

He replied: 'God is capable of forgiving sin, any sin, if you are sincere enough'.

He meant, (if I remember right), sincere in faith rather than sincere in repentance... this is something important I must clarify.

The point being, in over an hour and a half of talking to him about how salvation is reached, and what is the greatest sin, and how is sin overcome, whether by good works, or faith alone, or by grace of God, he never once mentioned jihad. If I recollect aright, he seemed to rule out 'good works' and this would (logically) rule out jihad (since this is regarded by those that argue for jihad as a 'good work'). 

I know it would be dangerous to conclude an argument from omission, but nonetheless I am just noting that had jihad, whether offensive or defensive, whether military or just 'intellectual struggle', been necessary for salvation, had any redemptive power whatsoever, it was significant he failed to mention it. Taqiyya? I don't think so. I think he related the orthodox position on salvation.

'What does Islam regard as the biggest sin?' I asked.

The biggest sin he said, was shirk. 'Believing God has partners'.

Shirk (I concluded) was worse than genocide then. I quizzed him about monstrous sins like mass murder - all could be forgiven by God but not shirk. He was perfectly clear about that.

I felt a little bit uncomfortable hearing that even huge sins could be forgiven by faith alone but that 'disbelief', a private intellectual 'sin' committed by the mind, was even more damning than the worst public sins committed by deed!

Our Lord taught us: 'Ye shall know them by their acts'. He never said: 'Ye shall know them by their thoughts/theology'. When sin was involved, how was faith alone more significant than repentance? Wasn't some sort of change required in a really sinful heart, that faith was just the first step of? 

Then his assistant chirped in enthusiastically: 'There is even a saying that such is the mercy of God that he can forgive all sins and even reconcile victim and aggressor, so that they will enter heaven together, lovingly, hand in hand'. I felt a little uncomfortable that this theology could be giving the green light to mass murder.

I guess what I am musing over here is the role of faith over repentance and forgiveness in Islamic theology. I'm not quite clear how it works. Our Lord taught us: 'Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us'. The forgiveness of God is somewhat dependent on our capacity to forgive others; an active loving orientation towards other human beings is required, a change of heart at that level, as well as faith in God and repentance (to God) at our wrong-doing. Islamic theology seems excessively 'fideistic'; to prominance belief in the head over deed and orientation towards human beings.

I didn't engage him in asking whether he believed Christians guilty of shirk; that all Christians no matter how good, or how faithfull, are worse in the eyes of God for upholding the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, than mass murderers, since I simply wanted to hear, freely, from him, his point of view, not press mine. I'll leave that for the next time!

But when confronted with Islamic notions of jihad it is worth pointing out to Muslims that jihad is not necessary for salvation, only complete faith in 'the One God'. And that this position is no different from what Our Lord taught us: 'to love God with all your heart and all your might...' (but also, importantly) '...and to love your neighbour as yourself'. 

A further response to Ben White’s Review

The last of White’s three main objections to Sookhdeo’s book was that he made factually wrong statements about Islam, specifically with reference to taqiyya and abrogation.  On the issue of taqiyya I have already made a number of postings to argue that this is in fact a Sunni doctrine, and is grounded on the interpretation of the Qur’an in the light of Muhammad’s life, not on later developments in Islamic history as White claimed.

Regarding abrogation, White states:

There are other simplifications of Islamic theology, one of which is the exegetical practice of abrogation (naskh), developed by Muslim scholars to deal with seeming contradictions in the holy texts.  The rule, in so far as it can be summarised succinctly, states that whenever there is a direct contradiction between commandments in two verses, it is the chronologically later one that takes precedence.

Sookhdeo writes that according to naskh, “it is the harsher and more violent Medinan passages that apply today because they are later, while the earlier conciliatory passages dating from Muhammad’s days in Mecca are not applicable” (63). The reality is far more complex; Islamic scholars disagree on which verses abrogate which, exactly how many verses are abrogated or merely ‘restricted’, and the issue has generated volumes of legal debate. But you wouldn’t know that from reading this book.

Using the methodologies developed in both the asbab and naskh materials, Muslim scholars came to the conclusion that the scriptural verses regarding war were revealed in direct relation to the historic needs of Muhammad during his prophetic mission.  At the beginning of his prophetic career in Mecca when he was weak and his followers few, the divine revelations encouraged avoidance of physical conflict.  Only after the intense physical persecution that resulted in the Emigration (Hijra) of the Muslim community to Medina in 622 were Muhammad and the believers given divine authority to engage in war and only in defense.  As the Muslim community continued to grow in numbers and strength in Medina, further revelations widened the conditions and narrowed the restrictions under which war could be waged, until it was concluded that war against non-Muslims could be waged virtually at any time, without pretext, and in any place.'  (Jihad, The Origin of Holy War in Islam, OUP 1999, p.50).

Offering such vague references to the complexity of abrogation is but a tactic to obfuscate and confuse.  Sookhdeo's generalization remains quite valid and orthodox.

I have just read Colin Chapman's "Why I signed the Yale response" in regard to A Common Word (written 3rd March 2008).

In it Colin says (and he is, inter alia, aguing against the declared positions of Mark Durie and Patrick Sookhdeo) that

"one of the first questions that I have raised in discussing the document with Muslims is: 'Do you accept that we are monotheists? And do you or do you not believe that we are guilty of shirk because of what we believe about Jesus?'"

A little further on Colin says that he has spent time with one of the prime movers behind ACW and says

"I believe I now have the freedom to put to him (at the appropriate time) all the difficult questions I like."

This was written a year ago and I'm wondering whether Colion has reported on asking these questions and what response there has been from the Muslim side.

Can anyone tell me or direct me to a source of information?

Like Colin I believe ACW requires engagement from the Christian side, but I am concerned that it won't proceed beyond warm and wuzzies. My argument for engagement has to do with the position of Christians, in particular, in the Muslim world as well as the operation of the apostacy.

You are absolutely right Simon ... having offered something into the public domain we have to let the public get on with it. We have to let it go - and stay out of the way. To try and get involved, or ask others to on our behalf, just looks and sounds defensive and therefore muddies the waters of the debate we have contributed to.

Ah - but like all the most important lessons in life, it is usually only learned with hindsight.

I've watched this debate with interest, because it goes directly against one of those things that wise old writers pass on to their younger, more eager colleagues.

And it's this: never respond to a review. It might be just and right to try and correct a reviewer - who is clearly an idiot who hasn't understood a single word you've written; who has disparaged your good name across the face of the planet; who is, quite clearly, wrong.

But guess what? Who ends up looking the fool? Who ends up alerting the 99% of people who hadn't seen the original review and didn't care one way or the other? Who ends up starting a messy feud that has ramifications far beyond the original insult?

I was told this piece of impeccable wisdom when I started out writing, and I've stuck to it. I've grumbled about bad reviews to my friends, I've fumed silently, I've wittered on to my wife. I have never, ever, made any comment in public regarding a review, good or bad. It seems someone has neglected to tell Patrick, and it may be already too late to undo the damage.