It is a natural feeling for many people to want to turn to a higher power when life becomes almost too difficult to bear. “Irritated by Trivialities” is a poem that explores this feeling with a specific focus on the poet’s frustration with people that cause discord and violence in society. He calls upon God to grant him guidance and peace, and to break the monopoly on power that some tyrants in this world have over the innocent.

Mainstream psychology has long been a secular discipline that has shunned most efforts to include elements of spirituality or faith. However, the emerging field of Islamic Psychology looks to combine traditional, Sufi concepts of spiritual health with modern, empirical research on successful psychiatric practices. The result is the formation of the TIIP (Traditional Islamically Integrated Psychotherapy), a manual for clinicians that wish to educate themselves about this holistic approach to mental health.

The complexity of the human body is always amazing to reflect upon, and aging has consistently remained one of the most elusive areas to understand. Recent research has been shedding light upon “Free Radicals,” unstable molecules that buildup in our bodies over time and have been linked to a variety of age-related disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease and diabetes. It is possible to remove many of these Free Radicals by consistently eating fruits and honey that contain powerful antioxidants, however it is not possible to stave them off entirely or to prevent aging. Still, the healing properties of many fruits are indeed blessings sent to us.

Lastly, we can observe immense complexity and depth within the animal kingdom. Our article “How Do Ants Know Trigonometry?” explores the Black Desert Ant and its exceptional process for finding its way home after successfully scavenging for food. Is it truly possible for such a tiny creature to develop systems so immensely complicated on its own just because it felt like it needed them?

The message of the Holy Qur’an is believed to be relevant for all Muslims, including those who lived when it was first revealed (between 610 and 632) and those who will come until the end of time. Based on the incidents faced by Muslims over 23 years during the time of revelation and the stories of former nations, the Qur’an provides guidelines in the form of commandments, prohibitions, and good advice, which are simultaneously incident-specific and universally relevant, dynamically forced and firmly static.

The first collocutors of this Divine Address were fortunate to be able to perceive the Divine Intention without any synthetic interpretation and commentary; and whenever they needed any further explanation, they were guided by Prophet Muhammad himself, peace be upon him. Subsequent generations could engage in that endeavor only by accurately settling the association between facts and norms. The Prophet is the Final Messenger and the Holy Qur’an is the Final Divine Message and Scripture; thus Divine Messages that are believed to be “universal,” “comprehensive,” and “meta-historical” could by no other means be discovered and implemented. Intellectual rigor was required.

The Companions, the successors of the Companions, and their immediate successors engaged in an intensive intellectual endeavor, right after the Prophet passed away. While usul sciences set the methodology for their work, disciplines like Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), Islamic theology (kalam), Islamic tradition (hadith), and Islamic exegesis (tafsir) reveal the outcomes of these methodical studies. Studies on the biography of the Prophet (seerah), military chronicles (maghazi), and the history of Islam (tarikh) also provided authentic or inauthentic resources to these disciplines.

These activities lost verve with time. Seeking Divine purpose by preserving the constants as they initially were and developing theoretical interpretations and practical transformations according to the ever-changing and evolving social, political, economic, moral, legal, military, etc. circumstances, have not always been possible. Social changes require dynamism, for dynamism – not inertia – is the nature of things and life. For many Muslim societies, a social life that remained frozen as exactly as it was in the time of the Prophet was one of the problems. Another problem was considering the surface meanings of the Qur’anic verses and the Hadith enough as solutions for real social problems.

This frozen social structure that sustained during the codification (tadwin) period affected Muslim viewpoints of the Qur’an and the Hadith, as well as their methodology of knowledge. Principles such as “the universality of the Qur’an,” or tenets like “Acting on the text is better than abandoning it,” “The particular cause of any Qur’anic revelation (asbab al-nuzul) does not mean its judgment does not have any universal validity,” and “Independent reasoning (ijtihad) cannot be exercised when there is explicit statement,” formed the keystones of knowledge production across many centuries. I believe this is a very important matter that needs to be covered in a separate article.

The verses of the Holy Qur’an are not detached from the social realities experienced between 610 and 632 in Mecca and Medina. In the words of Nasr Hamid, a creative and prolific dialogue existed between the Divine Intention and the first addressees of the Qur’an. Severing this correlative link between God and the community of revelation is the foremost reason for triggering what may be called the alienation from the Qur’an.

The first condition for accurately understanding the Divine Intention is knowing what the first addressees of the Qur’an had understood of and practiced from those verses during the course of revelation. Attempting to understand “what the Qur’an tries to tell” without knowing “what the Qur’an tells” does not lead to accurate results. On the contrary, such an attempt may turn out to be the first step taken toward disastrous results such as making God speak for one’s own pleasure and making the Qur’an say whatever one wants it to say.

Browsing the Qur’an from the perspective of “creative and prolific dialogue,” there are pages of narrations about events of the time. Among these events were, but not limited to, the battles of Badr, Uhud, and Khandaq, the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, the conquest of Mecca, the Tabuk and Mu’tah campaigns, the codes of conduct toward prisoners of war, how the daily prayers are to be performed in the event of war, etc. There are verses that cover the dispute between Khawla bint Tha’labah and her husband Aws ibn Samit and how God adjudicated that dispute conclusively. Other narrations in the Qur’an include Zayd ibn Harithah’s divorcing his wife Zainab and her subsequent marriage to the Prophet, the impending fate of Abu Lahab and his wife Umm Jamil due to their persecution of the Prophet, the funeral prayer of Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul, and tens or hundreds of events such as these. All of these point at the correlative relationship between God and society. Consequently, it may be said that it is impossible to think about the Holy Qur’an as detached from the social incidents experienced during the course of its revelation.

Jihad

The same applies to the Qur’anic verses about concepts like jihad (endeavor), qatl (killing), and qital (warfare) – generally, the verses about military jihad. Each of these verses was revealed independently as related to particular incidents and expressed, in a crystal-clear style, how Muslims should react to incidents; in other words, the Qur’an produced tangible solutions to tangible problems. For instance, when looked at from the perspective which we attempt to illustrate, it is seen that the verses “(While at war) kill them wherever you come upon them, and drive them out from where they drove you out (thus recovering your lands from their usurpation). (Though killing is something you feel aversion to,) disorder (rooted in rebellion against God and recognizing no laws) is worse than killing”; and “(But if they persist in causing disorder, continue to) fight against them until there is no longer disorder rooted in rebellion against God, and the religion (the right for worship and the authority to order the way of life is recognized) for God.” (2/191 and 193) are from the roadmap detailed by God for Muslims to solve their problems with the polytheists of Mecca. However, many adopt a universal, atomic, or overgeneralizing approach, and these verses are discriminatorily interpreted as proof that Islam is “a religion of violence.”

These verses, from Surah al-Baqarah, were not revealed separately and at different times, but within a bundle of six verses revealed before the “Compensatory Minor Pilgrimage,” meant to be performed a year after the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. The cause of revelation was to teach Muslims how to respond should the polytheists of Mecca – who a year earlier had violated the prohibitions for the forbidden months – violate the Treaty once again and wage war against the Muslims. Therefore, an accurate interpretation of these verses is possible by understanding “what God says” before “what God means to say” and handling this bundle of verses while considering the cause of revelation as a whole.

Scholars must jointly deliberate on the cause of revelation, analyze the links within the verse and with other verses, take into consideration the holism of the Qur’an, and social, economic, military, cultural, and religious conditions at the time. All of this is necessary contextual information. When taking these factors into account, it is clear that Islam is not a religion of violence or war, as claimed by some orientalists. This approach would also falsify the argument that considers the warfare as essential and peace as secondary in Islam, as some so-called Muslim scholars purport. These are deeply troubled arguments that are seriously radicalized and ethically flawed.

Yet, it is upsetting that there were and are groups that define themselves as Muslims and reach such conclusions. ISIL, Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, etc. are violent groups that have adopted methods exploiting the Holy Qur’an, severing the Qur’anic verses from their contexts and cherry-picking concepts to legitimize their defective approaches. Having been engaged in such violent exploits, they generated a theology, and later laws, from their political ideology. Unfortunately, while they perpetrate heinous crimes, they forget the Qur’anic verses which expound that enmity is to be shown to oppressors only, not to others (2:193); belief is a personal choice and what falls on Muslims is only advice (18:29; 49:14); that there is no coercion in religion (2:256); and that hatred and anger harbored against non-combatant unbelievers should not prevent believers from doing good to them (60:8; 5:2). They disregard the practices of the Prophet and accepted them as overruled, such as the Charter of Medina, the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, the general amnesty during the Conquest of Mecca, and the prohibition on the killing of women, children, the old and the men of religion even on the battlefield.

When trying to understand the true meaning of Qur’anic verses, it is important to delineate the line between the fact and the norm, between realpolitik and idealism. While facts or realpolitik is the context for which the Qur’anic verses bring tangible solutions to the incidents experienced during the course of revelation, idealistic perspective refers to the values and principles that need to be obtained from a holistic look toward the Qur’an, including the jihad verses. “Kill them wherever you find them,” in Baqara 191, (“them” referring to the aggressive polytheists of Mecca) indicates realpolitik circumstances of revelation. “Disorder (i.e. oppressing and torturing people because of their faith) is worse than killing,” indicates idealism and stipulates freedom of belief and conscience.

Concepts introduced by the Qur’an

During its course of revelation, the Qur’an did not only use the established concepts of the contemporary society, but introduced its own concepts as well. The concept of jihad is in the second category. Other concepts such as zihar, nikah, and talaq (concepts about marriage and divorce), which are mentioned in the Qur’an, were already in the lexicon of the society. However, the concept of jihad has gone through sharp semantic shifts and variations over the fifteen centuries since the time of revelation, and especially after the freedom movements in Muslim countries during the nineteenth century for independence from colonialism. This shift moved further from the Qur’anic foundations due to the works of orientalists; media outlets thriving on an anti-Islamic furor; and persecution of Muslim minorities. The weakness of Muslim states, authoritarian regimes, distribution of oil revenue, economic crises, and a large youthful population that cannot be easily brought under control given current circumstances are other major reasons that have led to the misuse of the concept of jihad. The idea has also been exploited by numerous radical-minded Muslim individuals, groups, and organizations. Concepts are like living organisms. The meanings encompassed by them contract, expand, change, and transform according to experienced realities. Nowadays, it is incumbent on Muslims to revert this concept to its original state by placing it back on the Qur’anic foundations in theory and practice.

Consequently, I think neither the battle cry “Islam is a religion of war” nor the slogan – yes, I term it a slogan – “Islam is a religion of peace” are accurate. Indeed, I think such a reductionist and cliché discourse form a massive intellectual block, preventing a complete understanding of Islam as a religion. The jihad verses in the Qur’an seems to have received their share from this minimalism. A literalist approach to the Qur’anic verses addressing realpolitik conditions is an indication of adopting the Qur’an solely as a book of law or policy. Individuals having this viewpoint may exploit the Qur’an to have it speak to their desire. It is compulsory to make a distinction among the Ideal Islam experienced during the lifetime of the Prophet, the Scholarly Islam expressed theoretically in the course of the academic activities of scholars in subsequent years, and the Historical Islam that has been experienced by Muslims in various locations worldwide for the last fifteen centuries. The minimum condition to achieve this distinction is studying the Qur’anic verses vis-à-vis the circumstances and context behind their revelation and understanding what the Qur’anic verses really “say,” before going deeper into analyzing what they “mean to say.” Intra-textuality, inter-textuality, reason for revelation, holistic approach to the Qur’an, and contextual knowledge are key terms for reference in this regard.

With so many expectations and obligations in our lives, it is a surprise we are not all insane. Dr. Brené Brown of the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work program is a shame resilience researcher, learning how people deal with issues like those above that can trigger feelings of shame, negatively impacting our relationships and ability to function. She has published three books covering the topic of shame and shame resilience. Dr. Brown has been gaining attention in recent years as she has appeared on CNN, NPR, PBS, and the internet video site TED. The topic may seem unusual, but the research has far-reaching implications, widely applicable beyond the social work field. Everyone experiences shame, and overcoming shame is necessary to function, instead of being held back and isolated by shame. Responding in a constructive, shame-minimizing way by working through shame issues is what Dr. Brown calls living in a more “whole-hearted” and “authentic” way.

Researching people

Social sciences have different methods of researching, and Dr. Brown used the grounded theory, a method which allows qualitative data, and inductive and deductive reasoning to gather data without having a hypothesis to start with. Using the grounded theory method, consensus from individual interviews was taken based on the language and terms they used to describe their experiences, “and maybe stories are just data with a soul,” posits Dr. Brown in her TED talk. Dr. Brown decided she wanted to study shame, and so she did so without any of her own theories to start. She just had the questions: What is shame and how does it work? According to Robert Hilliker, a licensed counselor, former student, and collaborator of Dr. Brown’s, she has gathered over 11,000 interviews with people, investigating their shame experiences and where applicable, their shame resilience.

Owning our own story can be hard, but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.

Dr. Brown found that some of the people she interviewed showed impressive resilience to shaming experiences. She focused in on these people and studied what made them resilient to the effects of shame. The people were dubbed, “the whole-hearted.”

How shame works

The positive side of shame research is that there are tools to combat the feeling and the experience of shame, and to make our everyday lives less like shame minefields and more like a day at the office, picking up the kids, going to the grocery store, and making friends along the way. Simple exchanges with fellow parents or children, with bosses or teachers, spouses, friends, and acquaintances can easily turn into huge triggers for shameful feelings. When a weak spot is hit, a mistake is made, an accident happens, or someone runs late, short exchanges can become terse and tense, full of hidden meaning and innuendo, implied or imagined incompetence and inadequacy.

Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky, but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy–the experiences that make us most vulnerable Whether a situation goes smoothly or blows up in someone’s face has a lot to do with his or her shame triggers, something everyone has. Detailed in I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power, social and family situations can become nightmares when our lives are ruled by shame. For people that cannot deal with their shame (everyone to some extent, according to Dr. Brown) the options are limited: numbing the feelings of shame and fear through addictions, attempting to become “invulnerable” through perfectionism, making the uncertain certain by becoming dogmatic, and pretending that our actions do not hurt others. But these negative actions do harm others, and they break down our connections to others.

How whole-heartedness works

Even more exciting than learning that shame is universal and awful was that there are strengths that can be cultivated to overcome shame. The title of Dr. Brown’s second book says it all: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. The main components of whole-hearted living were courage, compassion, and connection. Being authentic requires accepting ourselves for who we are and living that truthfully. “Owning our own story can be hard but not nearly as difficult spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy–the experiences that make us most vulnerable,” says Dr. Brown in her book.

There are so many ways to apply such a broadly useful set of concepts, especially for a person of faith. The “guideposts” in The Gifts of Imperfection evoke many concepts from holy books. “Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think” calls to mind the story of Prophet Noah, who everyone thought was crazy as he built an ark. The chapter on cultivating gratitude and joy clearly connects to faith. Dr. Brown’s perspective on gratitude is especially relevant to modern life: “For me and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is ‘I didn’t get enough sleep.’ … Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it …”

As I read this passage, it makes total sense to me why we’re a nation hungry for more joy: Because we’re starving from a lack of gratitude.

Opportunities for growth

Dr. Brown and counselor-protégé Robert Hilliker have developed a curriculum called Connections which covers many of the concepts from her books and research. They are also developing a certification program for counseling professionals such as social workers and clergy who would like training.

“Spiritual leadership has a responsibility to make faith communities safe and supportive … We actually train spiritual leaders in the curriculum,” says Hilliker. “[Shame resilience] would be a wonderful thing for faith book clubs to sort of rally around … Her work has really reached a tipping point where people are talking about shame, this very pervasive feeling that everybody has and few people deal with well,” he says. Such a common feeling that can be very debilitating may not be the most cheerful topic of conversation, but learning to deal with shame may be one of the most liberating acts in a person’s life. To learn more, please visit: http://www.connectionscertification.com/.

Dr. Brené Brown, from her website.

Defining Some Broad Terms

Shame is simply defined as the fear of disconnection, that a person will be rejected when he or she becomes vulnerable.

Courage from the Latin cor, originally (and by Brené Brown) meant to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.

Compassion, defined as deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it, starts with self-compassion according to the shame-resilience research.

Connection is defined as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.

Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.

These situations entail the psychology of morality-an intriguing and growing topic of study. Significant and insightful research has been completed in an attempt to understand more about morality from a psychological perspective. Many questions have been raised in the realm of morality and ethics, such as: How do people think about morality? What are people’s concepts of a moral person? How do people apply morality in conflict and their everyday lives?

In psychologists’ attempts to answer these questions, we learn more about mankind as a whole and about our own individual selves. This article will summarize some of the most prominent studies in the field of morality psychology and use these perspectives to help attain a better understanding of who a moral person is and what they do.

Exploring differences in moral foundations between political liberals and conservatives is one interesting area of research in the psychology of morality. Graham, et al. (2009) established a definition of a moral foundation as consisting of five moral intuitions: harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. The researchers found that political liberals were likely to chiefly judge a moral situation along the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity aspects, while conservatives were more likely to use all aspects equally. The results of this study seem to agree with the ideologies of liberals and conservatives. Considering that conservatives are less receptive to changes in political policies and culture, it makes sense that they would place a high value on the authority of a government, and also that they would give more weight to protecting their in-group from outside influences. This ideology may in turn stem from a Hobbesian worldview (Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679) in that everyone is at the most basic level self-interested, and therefore they must protect their own interests from the interests of others.

Liberals, on the other hand, would be more likely to go against the authority of the government or in-group concerns if they felt a moral injustice was being committed. This may be one reason why conservatives sometimes accuse liberals of not being patriotic.

As for the purity/sanctity condition, there is some doubt as to whether it can really be considered a moral facet. Conservatives seem to think that this is the case, but liberals on the other hand give nearly zero consideration to aspects of purity during moral judgments, as it seems to be an unrelated concept. Additionally, this idea may explain why conservatives tend to be against gay marriage, while liberals are more likely to support gay relationships.

Before moving on, let me pose another question: which action is more moral, volunteering time in a soup kitchen or keeping your vow to your wife not to go to the racetrack and gamble on payday?

Now we turn our attention to an enlightening study by Janoff-Bulman, et al. (2009) that analyzed morality in a different way: by categorizing it into two distinctive types, prescriptive and proscriptive. Prescriptive morality has a commendatory and encouraging nature, and it is characterized by taking positive action and the question what one should do to be moral. Proscriptive morality is more commanding and punishing in its aspects, and it is characterized by preventing negative action and the question what one should not do to prevent immorality. The distinction between the two can be states as helping versus not harming.

The researchers provide evidence for these two different types of morality in their studies. For example, in one experiment, participants were asked to describe what they thought it meant to be-depending on the manipulation-either moral or immoral. They had correctly predicted that proscriptive morality tended to have more concrete and defined language, so as to assist its adherents in knowing exactly what actions are wrong. Prescriptive morality’s language was more abstract so as to include more possible right actions.

It was also found that people were more disapproving when someone committed forbidden acts as opposed to someone failing to perform righteous acts. This finding-that it is generally more objectionable to see an overtly immoral act than to see a failure to commit a positive act-is strong evidence for the prescriptive/proscriptive distinctions of morality.

There are many more questions about morality researchers are asking. For instance, what lies behind the rationalization of a racist behavior or attitude? How are people’s moral principles influenced by the particular identity of the individuals involved? Uhlmann, et al. (2009) examined these topics. Most of us tend to think of ourselves as having a relatively stable moral standing, but this study showed that for most people, this simply is not the case. People were presented with different moral dilemmas that measured if they would support either a consequentialist solution or a deontological solution to the dilemma. According to the researchers’ hypothesis, changing some details of the scenario could influence people’s preference for either consequentialism (the idea that it is permissible to commit an action that would normally be considered immoral for the benefit of the greater good) or deontology (the idea that there are some actions that are morally wrong under any and all circumstances); this is in fact what they observed.

They observed that political liberals were more likely to sacrifice a white man to save a black group of people and less likely to sacrifice a black man to save a white group. The reverse effect was observed for conservatives in that they were more willing to sacrifice a black man to save a white group and vice versa. They also found that conservatives were more likely to endorse the unintended killing of Iraqi civilians by American forces than the unintentional killing of American civilians by Iraqi armed forces.

These results provides a striking example of how people’s moral concepts can change when the specifics of those involved in the moral equation change, which in turn suggests that people value some lives more than others. Conservatives, in particular, seem to value people who are part of the in-group over people who are not. This study also suggests that liberals may actually devalue in-group members in an attempt to maintain a non-racist morality.

Another major question is how do religious concepts and the knowledge that one’s actions are being judged affect how people behave morally? The following study (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007) asked participants to play a game that would measure their generosity towards total strangers. The researchers discovered that people who were primed with words relating to God and religion were more generous on average than those who received no priming. The researchers also found that priming people with secular concepts of moral institutions had the same effect.

These results provide strong evidence that people will try to act more morally if they have some idea in the back of their minds, whether conscious or not, about being judged in some manner for their moral actions. This does not have to apply exclusively to religious concepts, as the results of this study show. As a matter of fact, related research conducted by Bateson, Nettle, and Roberts (2006) showed that just the indirect suggestion of being judged by other people was enough to reproduce this effect-an increase in moral behavior. Specifically, they saw a three-fold increase in the amount paid for drinks supplied on an honor system when the image associated with payment resembled human eyes versus a control image. Apparently, a pair of eyes is enough to trigger a conscious or subconscious idea of being watched and judged.

What is known about the neural activity of the brain itself with regards to moral judgments? What roles do cognitive and emotional processes in the brain play in thinking about morality? Greene et al. (2004) conducted detailed biological mapping of brain neuronal activity of individuals during their thought processes that went along with solving hypothetical moral dilemmas. It was observed that areas in the brain associated with abstract reasoning and cognitive control-regions noted included the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex-were found to be more active during very difficult moral judgments where utilitarian resolutions require violation of personal moral convictions. They concluded from their work that utilitarian moral judgments rely more on cognitive processes and abstract thinking, whilst more personal moral judgments relied primarily on social-emotional processes.

This is good evidence for two different types of moral processing-cognitive or more logical, and emotional or more personal. During this study, Greene and colleagues also considered the degree of personal relatedness of a scenario with the likelihood of utilitarian resolution, and therefore the associated cognitive processes and abstract-thinking brain regions. They looked at what happens when you alter the classic moral dilemma of the runaway trolley car (Thomson, 1986) by making it either more personal or less personal. It was observed that people were more likely to engage in utilitarian calculations when the harm was less personal-in the case, that involved pulling a lever to kill a person-as opposed to when harm was more personal, in the case requiring pushing someone off of a bridge.

Morality is often connected to religion and religious values, and a natural topic to investigate is the role that sacred values may play in moral psychology. Ginges et al. (2007) examined the Israeli-Palestine conflict in an attempt to answer the question of how sacred values are involved in the resolution of political conflicts. The researchers wanted to shed some light on several issues related to sacred values in political conflict – namely, how do instrumental incentives, such as monetary gain, affect compromise with sacred values?

Interestingly, they observed that adding instrumental incentives to hypothetical deals involving the forfeiting of some sacred value actually made the subjects who held sacred values more opposed to and outraged about compromise than if they simply offered the compromise on its own. They also found that these people were less opposed to compromise if the deal also stipulated that the opposing party would give up one of their own sacred rights.

These results are important in that they show how radically different sacred values are from instrumental values. Sacred values are, for the most part, non-negotiable, except in the cases mentioned above, and it seems as though the idea of offering something of instrumental value in an attempt to negotiate the non-negotiable only serves as an insult to those who hold these sacred values. It is only when some other sacred value is offered up that we see some willingness to compromise, suggesting that sacred values cannot be compared with instrumental values, but they can be compared to other sacred values. Because of this, one may wonder whether sacred values can really be considered truly uncontestable, as opposed to simply a different type of value that is not comparable with more material principles.

An important side of the psychology of morality concerns how people perceive the moral legitimacy of authority under different circumstances. More specifically, how much of a moral investment do the participants have in the moral issues. The researchers Skitka, et al. (2009) correlated an individual’s general degree of moral conviction with how much they either supported or agreed with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on physician-assisted suicide in 2006 that prevented the Attorney General from prosecuting doctors in Oregon who operated under state law. It was discovered that the degree of moral investment a person had about this decision increased the variance of people’s perception of the legitimacy of authority. More specifically, people who supported the decision with high moral conviction more strongly supported the post-decision legitimacy of the Supreme Court than people with lower moral conviction, and people against the decision with high moral conviction more strongly opposed the post-decision legitimacy of the Supreme Court than people with lower moral conviction.

These results are strong evidence for the idea that our perceived legitimacy of authority is intimately tied with our moral conviction on the issues that matter most to us. In other words, if the government made a ruling that we did not agree with, but did not care much about (for example, the ruling that pizza is a vegetable), we wouldn’t have much reason to deny the legitimacy of the government. However, decisions made about issues we have a strong moral standing on tend to either strongly reinforce or strongly undermine the perceived legitimacy of authority in our attempt to reconcile our moral standing versus the decree of authority. Additionally, a study could be run to test the hypothesis that liberals would be more willing to deny the legitimacy of the government, and conservatives would be more willing to affirm the government’s power.

We believe it is moral to care about others and give charity, but what motivates the moral response of giving? Some psychologists are interested in this question. Olivola & Shafir (2011) found that people were willing to give more money to a charity if they were required to run a marathon as opposed to simply attending a picnic. This finding shows that associating donations with self-sacrifice or suffering activates people’s concepts of morality.

How could we measure if having concepts of justice and fairness cause people to strengthen their moral responses as well? An experiment might be set up in this manner: one group of participants would be told that they would be donating to a village in Africa that is suffering from a drought, and as a result, running low on food. The other group would be told that local rebels are constantly raiding the village and taking their food, thus depleting their food supplies. We would then measure how much people would be willing to donate to the village in each situation. The condition of need arising from a natural disaster should not activate concepts of justice and fairness; however, even if some people think suffering from droughts is an inherently unjust event, the second condition – need arising from a military-type attack – should greatly outweigh the first in terms of justice/fairness considerations. Based on the results of the Olivola & Shafir (2011) study, it is reasonable to expect that people would donate more money to the people being raided, since that condition should activate moral concepts such as justice and fairness.

What do these studies tell us about what a truly moral person is? Let’s first look at the five moral foundations again, from Graham, et al. (2009). It appears that a truly moral person bases their judgments primarily on harm/care and fairness/reciprocity. This is because there can be situations where authority or in-group concerns can conflict with harm and fairness considerations, and in these situations the latter set of moral outlooks should prevail. One only needs to consider an example such as this: imagine you are asked to commit atrocities in the name of your country. It should be clear that these atrocities couldn’t be justified in this way. Based on the results of Skitka et al. (2009) such a request may even lead one to deny the legitimacy of whatever authority commanded this action-which is what a truly moral person would and should do in that situation. For reasons like these, harm/care and fairness/reciprocity should be on the forefront of one’s moral concerns.

Harm/care and fairness/reciprocity are also probably closely related to each other, and in many situations, one moral concept is found with the other. Consider an instance where a person beats his wife in an act of drunken violence. It’s clear that harm/care are involved in this situation, but also consider that we could say that what he is doing is an injustice to his wife. Similarly, suppose an example where a banker swindles a client for thousands of dollars. It’s clear this has to do with fairness/reciprocity, but we could also consider this action as a way of harming somebody else in a non-physical manner.

Research further clarifies a truly moral person as one who leads a disciplined life that builds off of the proscriptive, preventing immorality, and subsequently the prescriptive, acting morally. Such a person must be a role model for everyone else to follow. For this reason, a truly moral person is careful not to commit proscribed acts. A person who performs many good deeds, but also many bad deeds, will appear insincere and hypocritical. In other words, a truly moral person does their best to not mix the good with the bad. Once a person has built a strong moral foundation of avoiding proscribed behaviors, he or she can branch out and help others with ever-increasing frequency. Furthermore, with regards to the study on the effects of being watched, a truly moral person acts in every situation as though he or she is being watched or will be judged later on, even if they know that they are alone. This is because they know that any action they do may have consequences at some point, either immediate or distant.

Work in the area of the psychology of morality sheds some light on how a moral person behaves, however an ideally moral person does what is right with 100% accuracy, and no matter what the circumstances. This is an ideal, and very few people can be considered to be ideal moral examples. Prophets are the only people who could be considered to be morally infallible. Prophets like Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, peace be upon them, serve as examples of perfect moral conduct. Even though none of us can hope to attain the rank of a Prophet, every person ought to strive for this ideal and be the best person they can be. If we hope to have any positive impact on the world we must first start by changing ourselves for the better. Only then can we attempt to sincerely help other people around us, starting with our close family and friends, and later on, the larger world.

M. Tarik Ozgur is a graduate of Lehigh University Physiology Department in 2013.

References

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• Skitka, L. J., Aramovich, N. P., Lytle, B. L., & Sargis, E. G. (2009). Knitting together an elephant: An integrative approach to understanding the psychology of justice reasoning. In The psychology of justice and legitimacy: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 11, pp. 1-26).
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Even though Kant has very original insights that opened new gateways in the history of philosophy, his so-called “critical philosophy” is not devoid of defects. This article aims to present Kant’s account of causation and critically evaluate it.

Kant’s famous remark about his awe for “the starry heavens above me, and the moral law within me,” which is written in his gravestone, shows his orientation in philosophy. While he was interested in explaining the features of the universe and the nature of our theoretical knowledge, he did not ignore the practical aspect of our life that concerns with how to act in the right way. That is to say, ethics and natural science were main disciplines Kant tried to understand. However, this paper examines his analysis of theoretical knowledge and the natural science by focusing on his account of causality.

An introduction to Kant’s “critical philosophy”

Before Kant, there were two important traditions in modern philosophy: rationalism and empiricism. On the one hand, the rationalists assumed that we could obtain knowledge of the world by trusting in the power of our minds. Kant considered them to be dogmatic in the sense that they dogmatically assumed this idea without examining the nature and limits of our minds so as to see whether we can really achieve this goal or not. On the other hand, the empiricists usually distrusted the power of the mind in its attempt to know the world, and in its most extreme case, in Hume, it led to skepticism. In response to these two approaches, Kant suggested to examine critically the nature and limits of the mind and see to what degree we can have knowledge at all. This is called “critical philosophy.”

For Kant, our minds are not passive receivers of representations like mirrors. A normal flat mirror reflects the image from an object as if it is the same except in a two-dimensional way. It was a common attitude among philosophers before Kant to treat the mind like a mirror. The mirror does not change the form of the object. Likewise, the mind does not affect or change the form of the objects, it just receives them. However, Kant changed the whole picture. He treated minds as active filters. Whatever is reflected on it is shaped in a certain way. On this view, the mind is like a concave or convex mirror, or colormatic glasses but it is not like a flat mirror.

According to Kant, the mind has three faculties with different functions. These faculties are sensibility, understanding and reason. Through sensibility we get the raw material of experience. This material is structured and shaped by space and time which are not outside the mind but are the pure forms of the faculty of sensibility. What we get through this faculty is called “intuition.”

The faculty of understanding provides us with concepts, especially with “the pure concepts,” or categories, of which there are twelve in total, and are used in organizing the intuition. In brief, what is reflected on the mind as coming from the world is structured by the a priori forms of intuiton (space and time) to which the twelve categories of mind are applied.

Kant’s postulation of the mind as an active factor in obtaining knowledge is considered to be “the copernican revolution” in philosophy. Kant has a formula which depicts his system very well: “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitons without concepts are blind.” In order to have understanding, we should both have intuition and concepts. These two conditions should be fulfilled for a genuine and reliable understanding. First, concepts without intuiton do not give us understanding; we can just think about them and never be sure whether they are something about real or not. According to Kant, concepts such as soul, God, and free will are ideas to which no intuition corresponds. Second, if there were no ordering role of the mind, all the information we got from the world would be chaotic. For instance, we would not be able to identify a certain individual as a human being, an animal of a different sort or even as an object, because we lacked an ability to order and classify the information. Therefore, according to Kant, the world appears to us differently from as it is in itself due to the ordering character of the mind.

Kant calls the world as it appears to us “phenomena” and the world in itself “noumena.” The latter is beyond the limits of the legitimate realm of theoretical knowledge. We cannot understand it, and we cannot theoretically know anything about it: we can only think about it. Ideas such as those of God and free will are directed toward the nounemal realm. They belong to the faculty of reason and have a regulative role in ordering and unifying our experience. However, they are empty according to Kant. That is to say, there is no corresponding intuition to them in our experience. Thus, we cannot decide whether they really exist or not by theoretical knowledge. This conclusion of Kant’s critical philosophy may suggest an agnostic position towards God, (actually it led many people to become agnostics) according to which human beings can neither affirm nor deny the existence of God. However, Kant thought that he found a reason for believing in God in another domain, namely in practical reason and knowledge. Nevertheless, Kant’s attempt to show the illegitemacy of theoretical knowledge regarding neumena undermines itself. This can be seen especially in his analysis of causality.

Synthetic a priori truths

Kant takes mathematical science and natural science for granted. He accepts them as successful sciences and tries to understand the conditions under which they are possible. His conclusion is that these sciences can be grounded only on “synthetic a priori judgments.” There are two important conceptual distinctions here: the analytic-synthetic and the a priori-a posteriori. The former is a semantic distinction, the latter is epistemological. A statement is analytic if its predicate-concept is included in the subject-concept, otherwise it is synthetic. The proposition that all black cats are black or that bachelors are unmarried is analytic. A black cat is black, the predicate is embedded in the subject here. And bachelors are by definition unmarried because a bachelor is a single male. However, the color of my cat is not included in its definition. A priori judgments are known independently of experience whereas a posteriori ones are known by appealing to experience as a justification. We know that everything is identical to itself without any experience. But we need some experiential evidence to affirm the statement that the Morning Star is identical with the Evening Star. It was a scientific discovery that those stars were actually the same, namely Venus.

For Kant, all analytic judgments are a priori. He also claims that there are synthetic a priori statements. This is a bit unusual because we normally know synthetic statements by experience. How can we know a statement a priori if its predicate is not included in the subject? Kant explains the possibility of such judgements by appealing to the mind’s role in shaping experience. According to him, by applying the categories to intuition, we put what is in our minds into our experiences. So, “we can cognize of things a priori only what we ourselves have put into them.” In other words, the categories shape the experience and we know that aspect of experience a priori since it belongs to us. The conceptual distinctions presented so far enable us to understand Kant’s account of causality better.

Causality

From a historical point of view, Kant’s account of causality was a response to Hume’s scepticism about causation. Let us first see what Hume said about this issue. Hume points out that we only observe correlated events in nature, and that there are some regular correlations and some irregular ones. For instance, we always observe that lightning precedes thunder. On the basis such regular correlations, we infer that the events in question are also causally related. That is to say, lightning causes thunder. However, according to Hume, we never observe causation between events. What is observed is just that two events are correlated in a regular manner. Causation is what our mind is inclined to infer when faced with such regularities. Causal links are produced by the human mind as subjective mental operations. So, there is no objective causality between events: it is our subjective interpretation of the regularity between them.

If we consider the fact that electrical charges are regarded as the common causal factor behind lightning and thunder by contemporary scientists, we can appreciate what Hume said. We do not observe causal links. Perhaps, sometime in the future, scientists will propose another physical factor as the cause for thunder, lightning and maybe for electical charges. Since we do not observe causal links, we can never be sure about what causes what. Hume extends this skepticism so far that nothing really causes anything else. There is no objective causation; there are just correlations in our experience. In other words, he also denies the objectivity of the universal causal principle, namely that every effect or event must have a cause.

As a response, Kant distinguishes two different levels in analysing causation. On the one hand, he tries to prove the objectivity of the universal principle of causality. Kant is aware of the difficulty of proving it on the basis of experience. Such a universal principle cannot be based on experience. Kant considers this univeral principle as a synthetic a priori truth. It is valid for anything we experience because all our experience is shaped by the category of causality. He formulates this principle in the following way: everything that happens presupposes that which it follows in accordance with a rule.

According to Kant, the phenomena consisting in irreversible sequences indicate the causal order. As an example of irreversible sequence, he mentions the sequence when we look at a ship moving down the river. In this case, what we apprehend is an objective process. And its order cannot be arranged otherwise than in this very succession. So, when we watch the ship’s departure, the order in which our visual states occur is not up to us. As a conclusion, Kant argues that in irrevesible cases, the apprehension of one perception which occurs necessarily succeeds that of the other which preceded according to a rule called “the law of the connection of cause and effect.”

On the other hand, Kant’s analysis of irreversible sequences does not suggest anything about particular causal relations. A particular sequence of irreversible representations does not enable us to identify the cause of the event in question: it only indicates that the event in question must have a cause (in the sense that some other event precedes it), even if we do not know what this cause is. Kant expresses this point by saying that “Everything in nature, as well in the inanimate as in the animated world, happens or is done according to rules, though we do not always know them….”

While there are some ambigious passages indicating as if Kant has identified some necessary causal links between particular events (such as that the sunshine caused the warmth of a stone), those passages should be interpreted under the light of this general statement here. The reason simply is that Kant aims to exemplify his view of causation in such contexts rather than identifying some particular causal links.

A fundamental problem with Kant’s analysis of causality

As we have seen, Kant treats the universal principle of causality as a synthetic a priori truth. In doing so, he limits causal ascriptions to the phenomenal realm because it is the phenomenal realm not the noumenal realm, which is shaped by our minds. So, according to Kant causal talk about noumena, things in themselves, is not legitimate and does not give us theoretical knowledge.

However, the question that should be answered in this regard is if the human mind interacts with noumena. If so, how does it interact? In some passages, Kant seems to consider noumena to be an empty and limiting concept. We cannot know anything about this realm (even whether or not noumenal objects such as free will, soul and God exist), therefore it is just a heuristic device indicating what is beyond our theoretical knowledge. Thus, we cannot say anything about the relationship between the mind and noumena, because noumena are beyond our understanding. Otherwise, anything we say can only be an illegitimate speculation.

Nevertheless, such passages do not represent Kant’s whole philosophical outlook. As a fundamental aspect of his critical philosophy, Kant assumes that our experience is shaped by us but not totally created by us. There is an external element to experience that is independent of us. He must accept that there are noumenal objects even though we do not know what they are. They are not just conceptual tools formulated to define the phenomenal realm. In fact, there are several passages in which Kant explicitly ascribes causal efficiency to the noumenal realm.

For instance, when Kant distances himself from the idealist philosophers who claim that everything we perceive is mind-dependent and there is no objective reality outside the mind, he claims that “there are bodies without us, that is, things which, though quite unknown to us as to what they are in themselves” and that we know them “by their representations which their influence on our sensibility procures us.”

As another example, this time regarding the free will of human beings, Kant thinks that human beings are free with respect to the noumenal realm but under causal determination with respect to phenomenal realm. When he tries to account for moral responsibility, he presents the free will as having its own causal power to be able to appropriate particular human actions. The following is an explicit remark: “The will is a kind of causality of living beings so far as they are rational.”

As it is clearly seen, Kant is forced to accept that the realm of things in themselves (noumena) causes the realm of appearances (phenomena) and this is exactly what undermines the very foundation of his critical project as limiting theoretical knowledge to phenomena.

Conclusion

Kant certainly has an insight in making a distinction between phenomena and noumena; however, his way of distinguishing these two realms undermines his own critical philosophy. There is a similar distinction made by Muslim theologians between dhahir (phenomena) and batin (noumena). In their case, categories of causality and existence for instance are legitimately applicable to noumenal realm, but they argue that we do not know how they are applicable. According to them, for instance, we know that God exists but we do not know how He exists. His existence is quite different from our existence. As Descartes says: “A finite mind cannot grasp [adequately] God, who is infinite. But that does not prevent [the finite thinker] having a perception of God, just as one can touch a mountain without being able to put one’s arms around it.” As a conclusion, Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena should be improved so that it enables us to ascribe existence and causality to the noumenal realm even in a minimal sense.

1. Is “Allah” the same god as the God of the Bible?

2. Trinity and Tawhid (oneness).

3. The divinity of Jesus (pbuh) and the concept of Prophethood.

4. The authenticity of Holy Scriptures.

We will now briefly touch upon these four points in the same order given above.

Is “Allah” the same god as the God of the Bible?

A frequently-asked question by Christians in such meetings is if the word “Allah” refers to the same Deity mentioned in the Bible. The answer to this question is different for each side. According to Islamic teachings, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, Who sent prophets throughout history to mankind, speaks in the Bible as well as in the Qur’an. Thus, the answer is undoubtedly a “yes” for the Muslims. On the other hand, we cannot expect the Christians to accept this answer with similar enthusiasm, as this would also mean that they accept the Qur’an as the Word of God.

The Names and Attributes of Allah as they are mentioned in the Bible are very few compared to the many found in the Qur’an and the sayings of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Despite the fact that these Attributes and Names are similar, the Christian understanding of God shifts from the God of the Old Testament that commands an “eye for an eye” to a very compassionate God presented in the New Testament. Naturally, when a Christian hears the word “God,” he or she immediately begins to think, what kind of a God figure is being referred to? Is He like that of the Old or the New Testament?

To make things more complicated, the word “Lord” is sometimes used to refer to “Jesus” in Christianity. Thus, in a Muslim-Christian Dialogue the two sides may have significant differences in the very concept of God, the first article of faith. The key to successful communication on this topic is probably to discuss the Attributes and the Names of Allah as they are presented in the Bible and the Qur’an. This should be done without confusing the issue by discussing the personality or the claimed divinity of Jesus. The similarities in the way the Creator describes Himself in both Books will surprise the parties and clearly show that it is the same Divine Being Who is speaking in both Books.

Trinity and Tawheed

Trinity is often misunderstood by Muslim populations, including some learned men of religion. Most of the time, it is portrayed as believing in three gods or in three deities. However, as is well known, Christianity is a monotheistic religion, not a polytheistic one. The confusion comes from the fact that the godhead of Trinity has three distinct characters. But, to a Christian believer, these three characters are like three different manifestations of the same Divine Being on different platforms. In one of the most-quoted verses of the Bible, Jesus says “Father and I are one.” So, to a Christian, Jesus is the manifestation of the Heavenly Deity on Earth. This may be the grounds for many other disagreements between the Muslims and Christians about the personality of Jesus, but it certainly does not make Christianity a polytheistic religion.

This is, in a way, good news for the dialogue efforts. The most important article of faith is shared by both sides, which is the fact that God is One. He is the Creator of the Heavens and Earth, Almighty, All-Knowing, Pre-Eternal, Everlasting God that we all worship.

The oneness of God is not the only tenet shared by these two major world religions. The list indeed is very long. According to most Christian denominations, God will judge us on our deeds on the Day of Judgment and He has an eternal life prepared for us. The good will be rewarded and the evil will be punished. But, we all count on His Mercy rather than on our own deeds or acts of worship for our salvation. The concept of the Hereafter and the Day of Judgment are the most central articles to both faiths after the Oneness of God.

The divinity of Jesus and the concept of prophethood

Many Muslims simply fail to understand how central the divinity of Jesus is to the Christian faith in most denominations. It is not very uncommon for Muslim speakers to start their speeches by claiming that Islam respects Jesus so much so that it considers him as one of the five major prophets of God. It is in fact a great blasphemy for a Christian to consider Jesus as less than divine. As much as Muslims disagree with it, the idea that Jesus was sent to earth by God as His beloved son and that he died on the cross as a ransom for the sins of believers are main tenets of the Christian faith and they are as central as the Trinity itself. For a Christian to accept that Jesus was indeed a man just like us, and/or he was actually not crucified is the same as abandoning the Christian faith in its most orthodox form as practiced by majority of churches.

On the other hand, the high respect paid to the institution of prophethood in Islam, both for the major and minor prophets, is not shared by the Christian scripts. The Old Testament contains many accounts of major acts of sin committed by the prophets. The life style of the prophets depicted in these stories very often does not resemble that of God’s chosen people, contrary to their counterparts in the Qur’an. Consequently, it is very difficult for a Christian individual to feel the same high respect that a Muslim feels for the prophets. Therefore, calling Jesus a prophet in an attempt to find a common ground with Christians backfires for two reasons; first anything less than divinity for Jesus is not acceptable to a Christian mind; second the institution of prophethood is not as lofty for a Christian as it is for a Muslim.

Where is the common grounds regarding this matter? As mentioned above, the divinity of Jesus should not be addressed by the Muslim side at all. Neither should they insist on calling Jesus a prophet. A more productive approach for the Muslim side would perhaps be to emphasize the fact Islam recognizes Jesus as the promised Messiah and as the Word of God (Kalematullah, Qur’an: 4:171), and that he has been strengthened with the Holy Sprit (Ruh-ul Qudus, Qur’an: 2:87 and 2:253). He indeed has a very special place among the other prophets in the Qur’an.

The authenticity of Holy Scriptures

Christians have a diverse opinion as to how much and what parts of the Bible were inspired by God. The opinions on this matter extend from those who believe that each and every word in the Bible is inspired and hence binding to those who value the words of Jesus above the rest, as those are indicated in red ink in the “red lettered” Bible. Most Christians are probably of the opinion that even though the actual quotations from Jesus in the red lettered New Testament are few, the Bible is inspired by God in its entirety. Even the ones who do not agree with this statement would at least believe that the Bible is a book of good guidance as a whole. One way or another, the definitions of what is the Word of God, what is inspired, and what is from holy men who proclaimed the divine message throughout history are not profoundly important concepts to the faith of a Christian on the personal level. What matters is the fact that the Bible was written by so many authors over a period of thousands of years and that they all confirm each other. This is what it makes the Bible good guidance.

For the Muslims, however, it is simply not acceptable to found a religion on information that is doubtful in its authenticity. Religious principles can only be derived from the Holy Qur’an, every word of which is believed to have been revealed, and the examples from the life of Prophet Muhammad. Thus, Muslims again approach the Christian Scriptures on the matter of authenticity with severe criticism. In general, Christians do not see the need for a word by word authenticity in a religious Scripture for the foundations of the religion to be strong. In fact, they think that this is hardly possible as the Bible was written by 66 different authors. It is very much expected and acceptable that some parts of the book should be the words of holy men who committed themselves to spreading it to others, in the form of letters and such, mixed with the inspired words by God. Word by word revelation, as happened with Muhammad, on the other hand, is a new concept that Christians only become familiar when they talk to their Muslim friends. Therefore, the Muslim challenge to the Christian mind on this matter does not mean much more than the fact that it is another point which Muslims use to attack the foundations of Christian faith.

A more productive approach in a Muslim-Christian dialogue would be to point out the fact that the very fundamental tenets of the Christian faith are shared in the teachings of the Qur’an. The Ten Commandments revealed to Moses are laid out and detailed in the first several chapters of the Qur’an. The message of Jesus , the love and compassion that he had for others, regardless of who they were, his embracing of even the lowest in rank in the society and the giving of the glad tidings to the pious; all of these principles were also preached by Prophet Muhammad. Emphasizing the parallelism between the Bible and the Qur’an in the spirit of their teachings and not in their wording would be a much more productive approach than scrutinizing these books for authenticity in expectation that our Christian friends will have a higher respect for the Qur’an.

The selection of terminology

Furthermore, simple mistakes made in the selection of terminology can be misleading. The same word in the English language can bring quite different concepts and connotations to the minds of Muslims and Christians. Obviously the selection of the language determines the terminology. Each Biblical word in English has a long history in the minds of the people who speak this language. It is impossible not to get caught up in these connotations when Biblical terms are used to translate Qur’anic concepts into the English language. For instance, each of the words “grace,” “Lord,” and “saint” have deeply rooted meanings in the Christian tradition, which may be used as translation of Arabic words “ihsan,” “Rab,” and “wali.” However, these English and Arabic words do not overlap exactly in meaning. Islamic concepts like “rububiyah” are impossible to translate with one word. If one uses a made-up word to translate these Islamic terms, then the translation loses its religious flavor and its influencing power on the reader. On the other hand, if Biblical words are used, then it becomes impossible for the Christian mind not to get caught up in the Biblical connotations of these words. Therefore, one should not think that conveying Islamic concepts to Christians is a matter of having perfect translations. It will take many years before Islam establishes its own vocabulary in the English language amongst the native speakers of this language with well-understood meanings, as it did in many other cultures throughout the history. Considering the short history of indigenous Muslims in the West, particularly in English-speaking countries, the growth of Islamic media and their circulation is very encouraging.

Concluding remarks

Sincere efforts of dialogue should always start by learning the other party’s fundamentals of faith and what is most dear to them. Christian-Muslim dialogues, in our opinion, can be much more productive if the four points discussed above are carefully addressed during these meetings. First, Muslims should be very sensitive when discussing the personality of Jesus, who is not just a prophet to Christians, but everything that Christianity is built on. It should be clearly spelled out that calling Jesus a prophet is literally attacking the very foundations of Christianity and it should be avoided. Furthermore, the Trinity is a concept that is misunderstood by Muslims. It is in fact true, as often pointed out by Muslims, that Christian clergymen have difficulty explaining the concept of Trinity to themselves. But, this does not mean that the subject of Trinity, particularly the divinity of Jesus is a trivial matter to the followers of the faith. On the contrary, it is something very important and something taken to heart without question by the Christians. It is an issue of faith rather than reasoning. Therefore, Muslims should not try to explain this point with logic. There is nothing to be gained on this point in terms of finding a common ground with Christians and it will be a deal breaker if insisted upon.

The Christian side can also do their homework by paying attention particularly to the concepts of prophethood, and the Attributes and Names of God in Islam. As they study Islam, it will become clear that a prophet has a much loftier place in the mind of a Muslim than it ever has to a Christian. Also, the Attributes of Allah mentioned in the Qur’an are not different than those in the Bible, but only there is more information about who God is in the Qur’an than there is in the Bible. The faith that Muslims have in the prophets of the Old Testament and the second coming of J esus are two more crucial points that Christians can quickly discover to their surprise. Dwelling on these points first before the problematic ones listed above may be a good starting point for successful dialogue.