Professor Martin Forward and AbdurRahman AbouAlmajd about prophet Muhammad

Professor Martin Forward and AbdurRahman AbouAlmajd about prophet Muhammad.

We have a fresh opportunity to reflect about Prophet Muhammad.  

At this point Professor Martin Forward is going to talk about his views of Prophet Muhammad.

Professor Martin Forward

He is a British, Methodist Christian lecturer and author on religion, and Professor of History at Aurora University, Illinois, USA. He has taught Islam at the Universities of Leicester, Bristol and Cambridge in England, and spent a period of time in India where he was ordained a deacon of the Church of South India. He was also a senior tutor and lecturer in Pastoral and Systematic Theology (Wesley House, Cambridge), and was a member of the Cambridge University Faculty of Divinity. From 2001 until 2011, he was the Executive Director of Aurora University's Wackerlin Center for Faith and Action and the Helena Wackerlin Professor of Religion, and has participated in numerous interfaith dialogues. He has authored a number of books related to Islam and Christianity, such as "Muhammad: A Short Biography" and "Jesus: A Short Biography" respectively.

Q :First of all I wonder what made you focus on Islamic studies ?

M F:My father was in the British RAF for thirty-four years, so I spent my childhood in
various parts of the world in the closing years of empire, in the 1950s and 60s. From 1961-63, my family lived in Aden, at the heel of the Arabian peninsular. We met some Indian Muslims there, who went there with the British army and had stayed on. My father had known and become friends with them on previous appointments to Aden in the 1940s, and they fed and talked with us. I was captivated by their generosity and by the sincerity of their faith. In the 1970s, I went to seminary to become an ordained Christian (Methodist) clergyman, where, apart from doing the usual things seminarians do, I studied the origins of Islam. Then I went to India from 1975-1977 to work at the Henry Martyn Institute of Islamic Studies, Hyderabad .

In India, I was friends with people of a wide range of convictions: Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Parsees, Jews, secularists, as well as Christian missionaries! This has meant that, instead of being an expert in one thing, I became an academic generalist, curious about what God is up to in his wide world .

In later years, when I taught in the Cambridge Theological Federation and in the University's Faculty of Divinity (1995-2001), I was co-founder of what is now the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths, the brainchild of my Jewish friend, Edward Kessler, an educational organization that brings Jews, Christians and Muslims into dialogue with each other. Helping make possible Ed's work is quite possibly that best thing I have ever done, and the thing that it will give me the most pleasure to talk about with God on the Day of Judgment. For surely, members of these great faiths are meant to talk with and learn from each other, not despise or even fight each other .

Since my focus has been on Christian understandings of Islam, but has widened to include other things, from my vantage point as I near retirement and old age, I wish I read Arabic and spoke Urdu better! There are consequences of widening your fields of interest. But I long ago discovered that my real gifts are not those of an academic with a narrow specialism, but rather are those of a communicator and an enabler. By this I mean that I like to think that I can get across sometimes complex ideas to ordinary people in ways that they can understand. Also, I have the knack of finding people who can do great things for God and humanity, and giving them encouragement to grow into their gifts .M F:

Q :You have the knack of finding people who can do great things for God and humanity, and giving them encouragement to grow into their gifts, could you elaborate on that please?

M F:Let me give you three examples. I’ve just mentioned my friend, Edward Kessler, and his pioneering work in Jewish relations with Muslims and Christians. He has much more business acumen than I do, a greater ability to raise money, agiftfor dreaming dreams and making them come true. In all these things and others, I cannot compete with him; nor do I want to, since everybody’s gifts are different. But everyone needs encouragement, and I’m rather a good encourager, to Ed and tomany other friends. And I was able to find his institute accommodation space where I worked, and helped to make it a collegial part of the Cambridge Theological Federation.

I’ve also been proud of my work helping to create the Leicester Council of Faiths (LCC) in 1985, working with Muslim, Hindu and other colleagues to bring together religious leaders throughout the city, to work for the common good. I was the Council’s first joint-secretary. The LCC is now well-established and regarded as a model interfaith organization. I worked behind the scenes to encourage and advise religious leaders. Once, I even wrote the speech the then Archbishop of Canterbury gave in the first visit ever by someone holding that office to a Hindu Temple. I also wrote the Hindu leader’s reply to that speech! I function very well as a person in the shadows, helping good and well-meaning people to get important things done.

Similarly, I’m very proud of those students of mine who’ve gone on to do great things, whether in academic life or elsewhere. I’m pleased that so many of them want to keep in touch with me. Because I’m ordained, I believe I have a God-given responsibility to try to encourage people who do wonderful things, and help them out where I can. I also think I have sometimes to point out things some people do that are foolish, trivial and even wicked, that get in the way of justice, love, hope, and all the virtues God wants us to show and share.

Q : It is known that the field of your interest is Islamic Studies; what made you take up Islamic Studies ?

M F:Curiosity. Knowing some Muslims when I was a child.And, because of my experiences traveling the world with my father, a particular interest in religious difference. Because I was (and am) curious rather than judgmental, I wasn't predisposed to think that difference is a bad thing and that it should be condemned and replaced by one single version of reality that happens to be mine. And I'm so glad that my experiences in India made me concentrate on Islam which is itself, like all religions, a very varied phenomenon. In much of India, when I lived there, Muslims shared festivals with Hindus, Christians and other religious people. They also venerated saints, praying at their tombs. They danced, and played wonderful music. Some contemporary Muslims hate the veneration of saints, singing and dancing, and have very rigid and conservative beliefs, sometimes even condemning other Muslims as kuffār or unbelievers. But, in truth, that's only their prejudice, and they show very little understanding of God's inclusive generosity. What I love about my Muslim friends, is their profound belief in one God who is merciful and compassionate, who knows best, and to whom we can leave issues of judgment .

Q : Could you elaborate on Maghazi? Do you think Prophet Muhammad was staying his life in killing and using swords and nothing thing else ?

M F:The stories of the Prophet's raids during his lifetime have been used by some of his critics to portray him as a violent, warrior type figure, as opposed to, for example, peaceful religious leaders like the Buddha or Jesus (PBUT). There are, of course, many different sorts of religious leaders. Most faiths have some historical figures who take up the sword and others who do not, but instead tread a way of non-violence. It's possible to argue that both kinds of leaders have their place, depending on the circumstances of their times and situations. In my biography of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), I argue or sometimes just assume that he resorted to violence for the sake of God, only when there seemed to be no other alternative way to establish God's will. There’s a story that, on the road to Uhud, Abu Dujana, a Muslim and a man of the Khazraj, put on his red turban and swaggered up and down between the lines of the Muslims. His comrades knew that he meant to kill the enemy. Seeing him, Muhammad said, ‘This is a gait which God detests, save at such a time and place as this.’For the most part, Muhammad preferred to achieve his ends by other means than violence: preaching, diplomacy, the example of a faithful life, and so on. And, except in rare cases, he often showed a surprising generosity to his enemies, as when he returned in triumph from Medina to Mecca, and executed only a few people for, as far as we can tell, very specific reasons. And, of course, on that occasion, he pardoned many people who must have thought they would be killed if he ever gained power over them.

Q : I remember Thomas Carlyle was amazed as to how one man, single-handedly, could weld warring tribes and wandering Bedouins into a most powerful and civilized nation in less than two decades, we know you wrote Muhammad a short biography, I wonder how you were amazed in your biography of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

M F:Carlyle was right to be amazed. The Prophet Muhammad had a range of gifts that he used to bring people together in the worship of One God. He had charm, a strong sense of justice (probably because of the early loss of his parents), an ability to bring very different sorts of people together to work for the common good; and many more talents besides these. As I’ve already said, he was willing to use violence when he must, but only after other tactics had failed; and he was a masterly tactician. Those gifts as a tactician were much needed. Central to Muhammad’s vision was his belief in one God. This put him at odds with many of his contemporaries who had no religious faith to speak of, or who practiced pagan rituals, or who believed in one God but didn’t accept Muhammad as his final prophet. It wasn’t only religion that divided Arabian society. There were clan and tribal differences as well, that could erupt into violence. Someone like Bilal, the first muezzin, who was an Abyssinian slave, also illustrates the presence of class and racial tensions. Muhammad brought together very different sorts of people and gained their loyalty through his religious message. But those differences were always likely to erupt, as they did on the Prophet’s death, when it came to choosing his successor. For the most part, his personal qualities of integrity, empathy and authority held the divided community together during his lifetime.These can be illustrated in the story of the death of UtbaibnRabia, who was killed in single combat with Hamza, the Prophet’s uncle. When Muhammad noticed sadness on the face of his Muslim son, Abu Hudhayfa, he said, ‘You feel the death of your father deeply.’ The young man replied, ‘I knew my father to be a wise, virtuous and cultured man. I hoped he would become a Muslim. It saddens me that he dies without faith.’ When the Prophet died, the deprivation of his gifts opened up the rifts in the Muslim community and almost tore it apart.

Whilst we remember Muhammad’s human gifts, we should also acknowledge the divine message he spoke. The idea that there is one God, who creates and judges, was and remains a powerful message. Some people were suspicious of it and of its demands on them, but others were amazed by it and dedicated their life to witnessing to it. So the Prophet had wonderful human gifts that he put to the service of preaching about One God: this is a superb and, for many people, inspiring combination.

Q : You looked at the Sira, how do you find it ?

M F:The Sira contains many different sorts of biographical material. Christian scholars are often much more critical (more critical than they have to be, I think) about the early historical accounts of their own religion than Muslims are of theirs. This has led many Muslims to argue that Islam is a better and more historical religion than Christianity. But that is an unconvincing argument to Christians. Rather, Muslims are more suspicious of the tools modern historians use than are Christian, Jewish and secular scholars, and so treat Islamic origins with a care and reverence that seems misguided to many modern historians. Indeed, when such scholars have examined the origins of Islam, they are often much more skeptical in their conclusions than are Muslim scholars .

Which leads me to encourage Muslim scholars to trust that God can use modern historical tools to cast new truth on old events. The results need not be irreligious. If we trust God to be the author of truth, wherever it comes from, then criticism of religion can sometimes be positive and healthy and godly .

On a related topic, I am so glad to read about the Turkish hadith project. Although some traditionalists have been angry about it, the attempt to use modern tools, even technological tools, to understand the Hadith to enable Muslims to live in the present rather than the past, and to distinguish the religiously essential from the culturally conditioned, seems admirable and necessary to me .

Q :“when such scholars have examined the origins of Islam, they are often much more skeptical in their conclusions than are Muslim scholars . ” Could you explain this and give us some example on that, please?

M F:When I was a student at Cambridge University, forty years ago, learning about the origins of Islam, I was very impressed by the work of the French scholar of Islam, MaximeRodinson. Rodinson was a Marxist and an atheist, and so I am not inclined to interpret religious data as he does. I disagree with much of his analysis of early Islam, and with his conclusion that the Prophet was genuinely convinced of the divine origin of his revelation, but was mistaken to do so. For Rodinson, the Prophet’s revelatory utterances can most credibly be explained by the complexities of human psychology, where our mind can fool us in many ways about the things we say and believe. I would prefer to agree with the Scottish scholar, William Montgomery Watt, who believed, as a Christian, that there was a divine source for the Prophet’s teaching, even if he would frame it differently than Muslimswould.  But what impressed me about Rodinson (and also Watt) was that his disagreement with traditional scholars was courteous and generous. He did not give the impression of wanting to score points or, in a colonial and post-colonial world, to assume the innate superiority of his teaching over that of Muslim scholars. He was engaged in a quest for accuracy, for truth. I have tried, in my own writings and lectures, to respect that same position, and believe that scholars of different religions can genuinely disagree with each other about important matters, whilst respecting the views and wisdom of others. To go a step further, just as I respect and have learned from Rodinson’s views, without accepting them, so I think traditional scholars can do so as well.

I have also learned from more recent non-Muslim scholars of Islam, such as John Esposito, Scott Alexander, and Karen Armstrong, who all show delicacy and reverence in examining the faith of other people, even when, in fact especially when, they do not agree with the conventional view. Many such scholars are somewhat radical or liberal in their attitude towards their own faith. They have taught me never to take anything on trust, but always to make our questions and reservations gentle and kind, and for the sake of truth, not for the shameful sport of upholding our own beliefs by disparaging those of others.

The best critics of religion are, however, not outsiders from another faith or ideology, but insiders, whose intentions are to reform a treasured set of convictions, and make them relevant to contemporary living.This is why I am so happy to read about the Turkish hadith project, and why I admire the work of many South African Muslims who, because of their stance against apartheid, have strongly advocated for justice and interfaith harmony.

One last reflection, if I may. Although my earliest practical understanding of Islam came from those Muslims I met and made friends with as a child, I am ashamed to say that all my early teachers of Islam were non-Muslims. This was a hangover from the days of Empire, and I am so glad it’s time has passed. When I have taught recent classes on Islam, I have always asked Muslim friends to come and talk with my students, and I take them to the mosque and to Islamic cultural centers. The perspective of a friendly outsider is valuable, but nothing can measure up to meeting a believer who can talk from the heart, as well as the mind, in a uniquely priceless way.

Abdur-Rahman: Thank you very much, Martin Forward.