þ7 GMBEBEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEˆDÍDéDéDG-G-G- GMGMGMGM Chapter 8 Muslim Creeds and Theologies: Their Purposes and Varieties Theology Westerners, especially those who have been influenced in their religious thinking mainly by Christianity, tend to consider theology the core concern for understanding and communicating a particular set of beliefs. This assumption carries over in the general society to educational contexts. It is common for an American college student who enrolls in an academic course in a secular religious studies department, as, for example, in a state university, to be regarded by the uninitiated as a ÒtheologyÓ student. Without regard for whether the course in question concerns Òcargo cults,Ó puberty rites, burial ceremonies, or religious autobiography, the uninformed will call it, before examining it, Òtheology.Ó Of course we are seeing here the ignorance of both what theology is and is not and the misunderstanding of the academic study of religion. There seems to be an assumption that any intellectual inquiry concerning religion is theology. This view probably comes from theologyÕs long dominance among the religious sciences of Christianity. But theology is properly a religiously committed intellectual discipline, in that it seeks to provide an intellectual structure for the elements of faith and practice of persons united in a common tradition. Theologians begin with a foundation of scriptures, creeds, assertions, and doctrines and then elaborate on and systematize them by means of a disciplined discourse in order to explicate the faith for the believers and defend it against the attacks of outsiders. Theology is both a normative and constructive discipline, starting from faith and returning to it. It is not disinterested or purely intellectual, although it usually strives to be reasonable, balanced, and verifiable beyond its own borders of belief and life. In the last sense, it may be associated with evangelistic and missionary enterprises, by demonstrating the truth of religious world view to those whom it would convert. Religious Studies The secular academic study of religion, known as Òreligious studiesÓ across much of the English-speaking world, is composed largely of descriptive disciplines, like the phenomenology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and history of religion. Normative disciplines, such as theology or philosophy of religion, also belong, but they are regarded as quite different from the fields previously mentioned because of their interest in establishing and testing the truth of religious statements and claims. Theology usually does this within a religious tradition, but philosophy does it in the name of free intellectual inquiry and thus stakes out a more universal arena of activity in which its arguments claim to be publicly verifiable and not merely limited to the already convinced within a religious community. To study theology or philosophy of religion is not necessarily to be engaged in a normative venture. It may be a historical and comparative inquiry that seeks simply to learn and understand what theologians or philosophers have said and written. In a religious studies department unconnected with any specific religious tradition and in no way committed to a particular religious perspective, one finds courses about Islamic or Christian or Buddhist convictions that are descriptive, analytical, and historical. The students and professors are not engaged in becoming betterinformed Muslims, Christians or BuddhistsÑalthough those are legitimate goalsÑbut in learning about and understanding what people believe and why and how this affects their lives and influences those outside their communities. By now the reader may wonder where this chapter is headed and why it has started out with a discussion of religious studies and its divisions. It has proceeded in this manner in the interests of clarity and right order, and it is hoped that the distinctions made will be of benefit not only to the study of formal Islamic thought but also to other traditions that the student may wish to examine. If theology is of central importance in the Christian tradition, so much so that in the Middle Ages in Europe it was considered to be the Òqueen of the sciencesÓ (with philosophy merely its ÒhandmaidenÓ), it should not be assumed that it enjoys a similar position in the other two Abrahamic traditions, Judaism and Islam. In those religions, theology is rather recessive, because the emphasis has always been much more on legal and ritual concerns. Recall, in Chapter 5, our distinction between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Christianity, with its concern for creeds and doctrines and their clarification and defense, was characterized as being more orthodoxy centered than was either Judaism or Islam, which emphasize Òright practice,Ó orthopraxy. Jewish Theology Years ago, when I was just starting out teaching religious studies in college, I had to prepare a number of lectures on Jewish thought for an introductory world religions course. Wanting to maintain a balance in the coverage of the Abrahamic religions, I went to a distinguished colleague who is an acknowledged expert on Judaism. When asked to suggest some possible reading materials on Jewish theology, the senior colleague laughed out loud and said something like: ÒSave your time. There arenÕt any!Ó After a puzzled silence on my part, he then clarified his surprising remark by explaining that Judaism has always stressed deeds rather than creeds. After that, he did give me some suggestions on reading assignments in theology, emphasizing that such activity has been regarded by Jews as neither characteristic of their tradition nor particularly important, however interesting. When Jews theologize, they do it mostly for themselves and by themselves. Not only has there never been anything like an official Jewish theology, there has never been a universal creed in Judaism. Opinions and theories by the thousand have been generated, but instead of being crystallized into a universally accepted doctrinal explication, mostly all of them have simply been included in the enormous corpus of Jewish thought. There they have had to fend for themselves in a highly contentious and skeptical intellectual environment, in which debate and disputation are a way of lifeÑindeed, a main way of being religious. Islamic Theology The situation in Islam is similar to that in Judaism, although theology has been more prominent among Muslims than among Jews. Even so, in Islam, it does not approach the relative importance that it has in Christianity. The reasons for this difference will be seen as we discuss the rise of theological thinking in Islam and the development of its different forms. The nearest thing to a creed in Islam is the shahaøda. But that very brief, two-part confession of belief in the oneness of God and the apostlehood of Muhammad is neither detailed nor developed enough to serve as a creed that covers the basic beliefs that unite Muslims. The shahaøda does not list the five elements of õømaøn, discussed in Chapter 5, nor does it say anything about what Muslims must do, even in broad terms. What it does is simply proclaim the essential nature of God and the relation to him of his Prophet, and thus implicitly all humans. All Muslims frequently and formally (in worship) utter the shahaøda, and to do so devoutly makes the outsider immediately an insider, a Muslim, upon whom all of the specific beliefs and duties are then incumbent, without further ado. But the shahaøda, if it is a creed, is an extremely laconic one. Kalaøm The word theology does not exist in Islam as an idiomatic or natural term. It can be expressed in Arabic, of course, in which it is known as Ôilm-al-laøhuøt, Òthe science of divinity,Ó or al-laøhuøtõøya, which is close in meaning to ÒdivinityÓ in the sense of a field of study. But those two terms are not commonly used by Muslims as names for their religious sciences. The word Ôilm, Òknowledge, science,Ó is a Muslim term that is often connected with a specific branch of the religious sciences. The one who possesses expert knowledge of IslamÕs sources and principles and practices is called an Ôaølim, Òone who knowsÓ (pl., ÔulamaøÕ, which has come to mean the class of specialists in Islamic Law). The technical term that is the closest parallel in Islam to theology is kalaøm, meaning Òwords, discussion, discourse.Ó ÔIlm al-kalaøm is Òthe science of discourseÓ on divine themes. It is the Muslim equal of dogmatic or systematic theology in Christianity, although it never came to have as much importance in Islam as its analogue did in Christianity. Sometimes instead of Ôilm al-kalaøm, Muslims prefer the phrase Ôilm al-tawh.õød, Òthe science of [the divine] unity.Ó This expression reflects pious regard for the subject matter and lifts the enterprise above verbal hairsplitting and wrangling, which the word kalaøm, Òtalk,Ó sometimes implies. In fact, the word kalaøm is sometimes a pejorative expression to strict Muslims, usually of a legalistic cast of mind, who distrust human reasonsÕs attempts to understand God and his ways with humans. Similarly, the theologian, known as mutakallim, has sometimes been regarded as more clever than wise and more sharp than sincere. This is due to the sophistry that has at times come out of theological reflection and debate. Theology has been considered to be legitimate by Muslims only when it has been subservient to the religious law, known as the sharõøÔa. The science of Muslim jurisprudence, known as fiqh (literally, ÒunderstandingÓ), is the chief Islamic sc...
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