Book Review
Shame & Redemption
The Crucifix on Mecca's Front Porch: A Christian's Companion for the Study of Islam by David Pinault
reviewed by Casey Chalk
There are two typical responses to the threat posed to the West by militant Islam. The first, popular among liberal, secular elites and liberal-leaning Christians, is to make, and encourage others to make, conciliatory or ecumenical overtures to the Muslim community. The hope in this approach is that Muslims who lean extreme can be persuaded that their economic, social, and psychological welfare will be improved by participating in a rights-based global community. It also has the tendency to overlook or downplay differences between Islam and Christianity for the sake of finding common ground. The other approach, found largely among conservatives, is one of confrontation. Its proponents criticize Islam and its many manifestations of intolerance and violence, and warn of its threat to the West. They also, however, often employ unfair and simplistic characterizations of Islam. Both approaches have some validity, and both have palpable weaknesses. In The Crucifix on Mecca's Front Porch: A Christian's Companion for the Study of Islam, David Pinault commendably finds a rare middle ground.
If anyone were qualified to write such a book, it would be someone like Dr. Pinault, a professor of religious studies and the director of the Arabic, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies program at Santa Clara University. Pinault began studying Islam in the early 1980s, and he is competent in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, three of the most important languages in the Islamic world. He is also widely published on a variety of topics related to Islam—Shia ritual and piety, Muslim devotional life in India, and religious pluralism in Pakistan are among the topics covered in other books of his.
Throughout his long academic career Pinault has sought to understand and sympathize with Muslims and the Islamic tradition. In this book, he proceeds along a careful, scholarly track that begins with a study of the pagan, pre-Islamic Arabian world in which the prophet Muhammad was raised. Then, over several chapters, he sagely unpacks the story of Muhammad and the formation of the Quran, from Muhammad's reported meetings with the angel Gabriel, to his conflicts and battles in Mecca and Medina, to the growth of Islam out of Arabia and the Sunni-Shia split.
Pinault also devotes several chapters to the role of Christianity within the Quran and Islam. These include discussions of the Quran's depictions of Jews and Christians, how it sees the role of Christ, and its treatment of Christ's crucifixion. These are followed by a treatment of Islamic Christology and anti-Christian Muslim polemics, a reflection on Christian kenotic theology in response to those polemics, and a few chapters on contemporary Muslim-Christian interactions in several Muslim nations.
A Human Artifact
While Pinault shows sympathy for Islam, he does not shy away from taking contentious but defensible positions on the Muslim religion. For example, he views the Quran as a human artifact. This is an opinion that any scholar of ancient religions should find uncontroversial, but it is offensive to Muslims, who believe the text is solely of divine origin. Pinault has no problem asserting that Muhammad "strip-mined biblical tradition for heroic prophets, discarding as heterodox slag whatever did not conform to Islamic tawhid," or monotheistic belief in Allah. Again, among scholars of Islam—such as Notre Dame professor Gabriel Said Reynolds, whose Quranic commentary, The Quran and the Bible, catalogues Islam's reliance on both Holy Scripture and various Jewish and Christian written and oral traditions—such a claim is not surprising.
Pinault is also skeptical of any simplistic ecumenism that sees significant "common ground" between Christianity and Islam. Instead, he points out three important aspects of Christian belief that Islam denies: the kenotic, or self-emptying experience of Christ, the second person of the Trinity; God's solidarity with his created beings and with the suffering of those who live in this world; and the redemptive nature of the passion and death of Christ on the cross.
Pinault refuses to engage in point-scoring polemics, instead offering a fascinating historical account of the religion and its development, which helps the discerning reader better contemplate the essential nature of Islam and the Quran. For example, he notes that the Quran is reliant not just on the Jewish and Christian traditions, but also on the pagan Arab Jahiliyah tradition of Muhammad's upbringing. This is important because of the central role of the demonic in Muslim theology, which almost certainly derives from a belief in jinns, or evil spirits, that was common in that tradition. After Muhammad's first alleged encounters with the angel Gabriel, some Arabs accused him of being a sorcerer in league with jinns. Muhammad himself was afraid that a jinn, rather than a messenger of God, had appeared to him. Gabriel sought to assure Muhammad of his divine endorsement by using a rhyme scheme peculiar to Jahiliyah. Thus, the Quran contains a fusion of the pagan, pre-Islamic Arabic tradition with something from the Judaeo-Christian tradition, namely, the angel Gabriel.
Demons & Rage
Casey Chalk is a graduate of UVA and a student at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Theology at Christendom College, Front Royal, Virginia. He is also an editor for the ecumenical website Called to Communion (www.calledtocommunion.com)
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