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Criticism of or opposition to Islam, in the narrow sense is theological criticism of Islamic dogma and the Qur'an, but in the wider sense may also refer to political criticism of Islamic society, the Sharia and political Islamism and militant Jihad, and opposition to a perceived 'Islamic' agenda. Negative views of Islam are sometimes termed with the neologism Islamophobia.
History
Criticism of the central beliefs of Islam predate Islam, as the religion shares many characteristics of other earlier religions and of religion itself. In this sense, criticisms against belief in the supernatural, or in the omnipotent creator God of Islam - in other words, atheism - date back to the writings of the ancient Greek philosophers, such as Epicurus. Medieval Islamic scholars would indeed struggle to reconcile with or to reject the works of the ancient Greeks, just as Christianity did.
The earliest recorded, explicit criticisms and oppositions to Islam come from what the early Muslims wrote of their pagan Arabian adversaries, as well as the Jewish inhabitants of south Arabia at the time (particularly the Jewish tribes of Medina).
The earliest non-Muslim sources of criticism and opposition come from medieval Christian ecclastical writings of Eastern Christians, such as in Syria, who had come under the dominion of the Islamic Empire, or their fellow coreligionists in Europe who were becoming increasingly aware of the growing Islamic Empire (see History of Islam, Battle of Yarmuk). At first they saw Islam as a military threat, a pagan scourge sent by God as a punishment against Christians for their sins. Eventually the Islamic empire conquered present day Spain (see Al-Andalus) and the Church became increasingly aware of the religion of Islam itself. As a result, Islam began to be seen as not just a military threat but as a religious threat as well. Many medieval ecclastical writers began to portray Islam and Muhammad as a "precursor of the Antichrist" or the Antichrist himself, and Muhammad was frequently described as having been possessed by Satan. In later centuries, criticism and opposition to Islam would continue to be expounded by Christian writers. Other religions, particularly Hinduism, would also develop similar criticsms of their own, as a result of the increasing Islamic conquests outside of Arabia.
In the modern era, European and American Orientalism would examine the claims of Islam from a secular, academic perspective. In the 21st century, political and military conflicts have caused Islam and Islamic practices to come under increased scrutiny around the world and have generally been the focus of greatly increased attention in the non-Muslim media.
Ethical criticism
Main article: Islamic ethics
Ethical criticism on Islam focuses on several points.
- Lack of reciprocity. The Golden Rule, "Do onto others as you would wish them do onto you", does not occur in the Qur'an. In the 40 hadith collection of Nawawi, there exists an incarnation of this rule, but it is valid exclusively regarding brothers, i.e. Muslims (as the Qur'an forbids considering a non-Muslim as a brother).
- Human rights. Islamic law contradicts the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights at several points, e.g. regarding the freedom of religion, slavery, treatment of women etc.
- Discrimination of women and non-Muslims.
- Ethic priorities. According to islamic ethics, violating dietary rules or sexual indiscretions are as bad as violation of the human rights of others. Killing an infidel does not carry a death sentence, but illegal sexual intercourse does.
- Human right violations by adherents of islam. See main article Historical persecution by Muslims.
Theological Criticism
Criticism of Islamic theology may come from within Islam (in which case it does not qualify as opposition to Islam as such, of course, but as schism or sectarianism), from a secular viewpoint, or from the point of view of another religion.
Muhammad
The Catholic Encyclopedia (1911) states that he was inspired by an imperfect understanding of Judaism and Christianity, and that he was prone to epileptic fits. Many medieval and early modern critics are either motivated by extreme hatred, or extreme admiration of Muhammad. Outspoken as always, Martin Luther refers to Muhammad as "a devil and first-born child of Satan". The Catholic Encyclopedia goes on to state that Luther's protestantism is itself rather similar to Muhammad's theology, and that such indiscriminate abuse is unsupported by facts and that later scholars, such as Sprenger, Noldeke, Weil, Muir, Koelle, Grimme and Margoliouth, give a more unbiased estimate of Mohammed's life and character, and substantially agree as to his motives, prophetic call, personal qualifications, and sincerity. According to Sir William Muir, Marcus Dods, and some others, Muhammad was at first sincere, but later, carried away by success, he practised deception wherever it would gain his end. Koelle "finds the key to the first period of Muhammad's life in Khadija, his first wife", after whose death he became prey to his evil passions. Sprenger attributes the alleged revelations to epileptic fits, or to "a paroxysm of cataleptic insanity". Zwemer (1907) goes on to criticize the life of Muhammad by the standards, first, of the Old and New Testaments, both of which Muhammad acknowledged as Divine revelation; second, by the pagan morality of his Arabian compatriots; lastly, by the new law of which he pretended to be the "divinely appointed medium and custodian". According to this author, the prophet was false even to the ethical traditions of the idolatrous brigands among whom he lived, and grossly violated the easy sexual morality of his own system. After this, it is hardly necessary to say that, in Zwemer's opinion, Muhammad fell very far short of the most elementary requirements of Scriptural morality. Quoting Johnstone, Zwemer concludes by remarking that the judgment of these modern scholars, however harsh, rests on evidence which "comes all from the lips and the pens of his own devoted adherents".
The Qur'an
Modern higher criticism is just beginning to be carried out on the Qur'an. This scholarship questions some traditional claims about its composition and content, contending that the Qur'an incorporates material from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, and that the text of the Qur'an developed both during and after Muhammad's lifetime. For example, Islamic history records that Uthman collected all variants of the Qur'an and destroyed those that he did not approve of. Parts of certain Hadith collections refer to chapters (suras) that are no longer extant in the Qur'an.
Hadith
Secondary in importance to the Qur'an for most Muslim schools of thought are the oral traditions of Muhammad, called hadith. After higher criticism was performed on Christian texts, a set of scholars began to focus on those of other religions. Ignaz Goldziher is the best known of these turn-of-the-century iconoclasts, who also included D.S. Margoliuth, Henri Lammens, and Leone Caetani. Goldziher writes, in his Muslim Studies,
- ... it is not surprising that, among the hotly debated controversial issues of Islam, whether political or doctrinal, there is not one in which the champions of the various views are unable to cite a number of traditions, all equipped with imposing isnads.
The next generations of Western scholars were also sceptics, on the whole: Joseph Schacht, in his Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (1959), argued that isnads going back to Muhammad were in fact more likely to be spurious than isnads going back to the companions. John Wansbrough, in the 1970s, and his students Patricia Crone and Michael Cook were even more sweeping in their dismissal of Muslim tradition, arguing that even the Qur'an was likely to have been collected later than claimed.
Contemporary Western scholars of hadith include:
- Herbert Berg, The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam (2000)
- Fred M. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins (1998)
- Wilferd Madelung, Succession to Muhammad (1997)
although Madelung is less critical than the rest.
A very minor Islamic sect that maintains a Qur'an alone view has rejected hadith not ony because of suspected invalidity. Some members of this belief system cite that the Qur'an calls itself complete(11:1) and that it would be shirk to take another source of guidance other than it.
Relation to Christianity
The theology of the Qur'an is strictly monotheistic, and denounces the Christian Trinity as polytheism (shirk). Naturally, this view has been rejected by Christians, who claim that it is based on an imperfect understanding of the concept of the Trinity. A result of this difference is the Islamic reverence for Jesus (Isa) but the rejection of Jesus as the "Son of God" as a blasphemous concept.
Islamic theology has been compared to Unitarian or Arian Christianity, and in this sense Christian criticism of Islam may be considered as based on common Christo-Islamic religious principles, and Islam as typologically belonging to a number of Christian sects declared heretical by the post-Nicene Christian Church.
Atheist criticism of Islam is naturally much more fundamental, disputing the Existence of God, and applicable to Christianity and other religions just as much as to Islam.
Political Criticism
Islamism and militant Jihad, especially Islamist terrorism, are sometimes criticized as outgrowths of Islam rather than political phenomena.
Liberal movements within Islam attempt criticism of Islamic society from within, typically differentiating religious issues from issues of traditional society. Points often mentioned in critical discussion of Islamic society are Sex segregation and Slavery.
Contemporary Critics
- US conservatives
- Jewish
- ex-Muslims
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Taslima Nasrin
- Salman Rushdie
- Ali Sina (pseudonym of a self-described Iranian ex-Muslim expounding his views on his website)
- Ibn Warraq (pseudonym of an ex-Muslim, author of bestselling books critical of Islam)
See also
- Topics of Islam and controversy
- Criticism of other religions
Literature
- Zwemer Islam, a Challenge to Faith (New York, 1907)
- Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not a Muslim (1995)
- —, Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
External links
- Christian academic sources
- Catholic Encyclopedia
- directories of anti-Islamic sites