One of
the commonalities shared by all three of the Abrahamic monotheist
religions is the concept of the prophet. While differing in form and
emphasis from tradition to tradition, prophets and prophethood occur
in each. As the youngest of the three (chronologically speaking),
Islam makes certain departures from biblical prophethood while
retaining a strong sense of social justice. In what follows, I will
examine the Prophet Muhammad's role as a prophet and social justice
reformer, in ways both similar to and distinct from biblical notions
of prophethood and social justice.1
I will compare and contrast the bible and the Qur'an on these
subjects, using the biblical example of the prophet Amos for
illustration. I will conclude that Islamic and biblical forms of
prophethood are similar and should give us cause to consider the
nature of divine wrath as a theological response to concrete
injustices.
1Please
note that the lack of the proper adage “Peace be upon him” is
omitted hereafter not out of disrespect, but in the interest of
saving space and not bogging down the voice of the paper whenever
his name is mentioned.
Before
beginning, I would like to provide some context as to why the topic
is of interest to me. This is ultimately in service of the paper, as
I believe it will shed some light on why I called Islamic prophethood
more overtly theological. As a student of biblical theology, I have
gone through several expected phases; a phase of learning and
exposure, a phase of integration, a phase of dogmatism, and a phase
of introspection and self-critique. At present, I find that the thou
shalt's and thou shalt
not's of religion are not as
interesting or motivating as the deep need for social justice that
inspires religion. The three Abrahamic religions share this starting
place. Put briefly, Judaism protests latifundialization (which will
be defined later), Christianity protests the centralization of the
Jewish temple and the mistreatment of the marginalized, and Islam
protests the abuse of poor and the loss of the tribal ethic in
organized society. I can no longer read the Hebrew scriptures with a
literal interpretation, and subsequently, much of the magic is lost.
But I've learned that it is possible to interpret these scriptures as
emphasizing a rigorous sense of social justice, particularly in the
biblical prophets, and I would argue that social justice should
always take priority over doctrinal adherence. Part of what I find so
interesting about the origins of Islam is that it is, in a way, a
prophetic reaction to the spirit of latifundialization, albeit in a
different form. It is with this in mind that I now turn to the
biblical prophet Amos, to seek out the connection between prophethood
and social justice. Later on, this connection will inform our
examination of Islamic prophethood.
Amos
is a prophetic Hebrew text, one of the Nevi'im,
meaning the plural of the Hebrew word for prophet/spokesperson, Nevi.
The Nevi'im is a
collection of prophetic writings that stands as its own division in
the Hebrew scriptures, alongside the Torah
(instruction/law) and Ketuvim
(writings, what we might call
wisdom literature). Together they comprise the canon, the Tanakh,
which stands as an acronym for the three. Of all the prophetic texts,
Amos is the most straightforward and simple.2
There
is little that can illuminate Amos' historical conditions beyond its
age as an older biblical text preceding the fall of the North Kingdom
of Israel. Being so old, it is no surprise that it may have been
subjected to multiple editors, making it unreadable as a first person
account from an 8th
century BCE prophet.3
What can be inferred about the historical conditions, however, is
that it was a time of economic difficulty, ritual infraction, and
latifundialization.
The
concept and historical realities of latifundialization are key to
understanding the prophetic genre, of which Amos is a part.
Latifundialization is a tale as old as time, the consolidation of
power by a privileged elite over the common people, leading to
economic disparity and poor quality of life for the poor, landed or
otherwise. Possibly as a result of the collapse of the city state
system in the eastern mediterranean, people dispersed into the
eastern highlands to form subsistence settlements. Rather than work
the farm of a king or aristocrat, people worked their own farms,
called nachălâh
(phonetic:
nahk-al-aw),
meaning possession, inheritance, property, portion, and heritage. It
is consistently used to denote the plot of land for which each
person/family is divinely ordained, a promised land for each person
willing to tend it.4
It was not permissible to sell one's nachălâh,
as it was given by God and Moses. Rather than integrate into a larger
economy, settlements subsisted on what they grew themselves. This is,
in many ways, reactionary to the integrated yet oppressive economy of
the once prominent city state system.
But prior to the collapse of the
Northern Kingdom at the hands of the Assyrian empire, Israel enjoyed
the peak of its golden age (ironically named the Silver Age of
Israelite history). Paul Shalom writes that during this period:
“Israel reached the summit of
its material power and economic prosperity as well as the apogee of
its territorial expansion. . .This geographical expansion,
accompanied by thriving commerce and trade, resulted in an affluent
society composed of a small, wealthy upper class. . .This opulence
was accompanied by a panoply of pomp and ceremony and by an intensive
and zealous religious life that was concretized both in a lavish cult
and in elaborate rites that took place at the main northern shrines
(Amos 4:4-5; 5:21-23). For the Israelites, all signs pointed to God's
unlimited beneficial favor. His protection was assumed to be
unconditional, and thus they felt totally secure in the present and
thoroughly confident in their future.”5
Amos, as an observant outsider
skilled in rhetoric, prophesied against this mentality of affluence
and self-assured confidence, which was detrimental to the poor. With
prosperity came industry and economic infrastructure that placed
demand on production and saw nachălâh
as irrelevant in the face of tangible profit. Farmland became
invaluable to this end, leading to many subsistence farmers being
pressured off their plots of land and into poverty. Meanwhile, the
gilded rituals of the Israelite cult continued, the rich making
lavish gestures of piety while the poor looked on. Amos saw this as
an affront to the covenant between God and his people, a mentality of
sin that accelerated the coming of the day of the Lord, which would
bring certain punishment and doom.6
Alongside later figures in the prophetic tradition, Amos prophesied
against these social and cultic evils, likely in the form of speeches
to uneducated listeners.7
With vitriolic scorn, Amos invoked the image of a God moved to
implacable wrath as a theological response to the concrete injustices
of the Northern Kingdom.8
We can see that biblical prophethood (insofar as Amos is a
prototypical example of the genre of classical prophecy) is largely
concerned with social injustice and the mistreatment of the poor. It
will now be shown that Islam began in similar circumstances, and that
Islamic prophethood shares similar concerns, albeit in different
terms.
To begin with, prophethood in
Islam has etymological ties to biblical prophethood. The word Prophet
is nevi in Hebrew and nabi in Arabic. It is not
outside the realm of possibility that there was, at least on a
linguistic level, a degree of influence from
monotheistic/henotheistic Judaism in the Arabian peninsula. As Reza
Aslan writes:
“Most scholars are convinced
that by the sixth century C.E., henotheism had become the standard
belief of the vast majority of sedentary Arabs, who not only accepted
Allah as their High God, but insisted that he was the same god as
Yahweh, the God of the Jews.”9
In fact, Jewish influences were
so prevalent that most Arabs believed that the Ka'ba, the
mysterious black stone structure in Mecca that has always served as
the cultic center of Arabic organized religion, was built by Adam,
destroyed during the flood, rebuilt by Noah, and then rediscovered by
Abraham when visiting Ishmael and Hagar after their banishment at the
behest of Sarah.10
Needless to say, the Arab account of the origin of the Ka'ba
is heavily populated by biblical figures and concepts. The Ka'ba
before and during
Muhammad's time housed idols for the sedentary and beduin Arabs of
the entire Hijaz
(or Western Arabian peninsula), making it a distinctly Arabic
landmark; if such an Arabic cultural symbol as the Ka'ba
was thought to be
founded and attended by key biblical figures, then it is a clear sign
that biblical stories, concepts, and monotheistic tendencies had
trickled into the collective Arabian consciousness. The same
inevitably became true of Christian beliefs and stories, of which the
Qur'an appears very familiar.11
Islam
was not only receptive to biblical notions of prophethood, but it
also innovated upon them, most notably in the distinction drawn
between nabi (prophet)
and rasul (messenger).12
Similar to how apostles outrank prophets in importance in
Christianity, a messenger outranks a prophet in Islam.13
For example, Qur'an 22:52: “We have never sent any messenger or
prophet before you [Muhammad] into whose wishes Satan did not
insinuate something, but God removes what Satan insinuates and then
God affirms His message.” Whenever a messenger or a prophet are
mentioned in the same sentence, the messenger takes precedence and is
spoken of first, the implication being that the messenger has vital
purpose and the prophet, comparatively speaking, does not.14
Moreover, the titles of messenger and prophet may refer to the same
person: “Mention too, in the Scripture, the story of Moses. He was
specially chosen, a messenger and a prophet.”15
Evidently, the messenger and the prophet represent two different but
related roles. Moses was both rasul
and nabi,
as were Abraham, Jesus and most notably, Muhammad. All rasul
are nabi,
but not all nabi are
rasul.
Rasul
bear messages from God,
which invariably become scripture. In this sense, the people to which
a rasul appeared
and bore a message became people of the book. The Christians and Jews
had become people of the book, but the Arabs had not. It is tempting
to speculate that part of what motivated the formation of Islam was a
desire to be part of a broader community of believing monotheists
sharing the same stories. This was part of Muhammad's goal after the
Hijra, the
expulsion from Mecca and the move to Medina. This desire for
community, unfortunately, became frustrated by various
socio-political and partisan factors, which fall beyond the scope of
this paper.
It
is worth noting that Islam is the only one of the three Abrahamic
monotheisms to imply the prophetic significance of a woman. Hagar,
the biblical wife of Abraham who was cast out by Sarah and left in
the wilderness, is revered as a matriarchal figure. “As 'the mother
of Arabs,' she not only gave birth to Ishmael but was herself a
faithful messenger appointed by the one God.”16
While not included in the Qur'an, Hagar is present in a collection of
hadith,
the reports
or stories
which people told of Prophet Muhammad and his legacy. While not
strictly authoritative, these stories serve as extra-Qur'anic
literature that enriches the Islamic tradition. Of great interest is
the following: “[The story of Hagar] appears in a number of
overlapping traditions in the hadith,
book 15:9, called The
Anbiya (Prophets).”17
While not named nabi or
rasul,
Hagar is spoken of in nearly prophetic terms. Furthermore, she gave
birth to Ishmael, whose name meant “God listens” or “God
hears.” In a sense, Hagar delivered a message, that is, she was
rasul.
No other Abrahamic tradition uses prophetic language in reference to
a biblical woman as Islam does.
This
is key to an understanding of social justice in Mecca at the time of
Muhammad; the plight of women and orphans in society were of central
interest. This is because the Quraysh, the ruling tribe who
controlled Mecca and financially benefitted from the Ka'ba
as a holy site, were
more concerned with the accumulation of wealth than with providing
for the poor.18
Meccan society in the 6th
century CE was highly stratified, with wealthy Quraysh tribesman,
along with any clan or enterprising family that succeeded in
profiting alongside the Quraysh, on top. The city economy centered
around the Ka'ba and
its significance as a pilgrimage site. After all, the idols and holy
symbols of all tribes in the hijaz
were housed in the Ka'ba,
meaning that any pilgrim seeking to pay respects would be obliged to
pay the Quraysh for access. This ownership of pilgrimage rites put
the Quraysh tribe at the top of a lucrative religio-economic system
that was polytheistic, but with strong henotheistic concepts floating
around in the air.19
Like
the affluent northern kingdom against which Amos prophesied, Meccan
society was pious but uncharitable. Widows and orphans suffered the
most under this system. The social egalitarianism that once dominated
Arab beduin life was non-existent in sedentary Meccan society,
meaning that anyone unable to turn a financial profit was vulnerable
to abuse. As with Canaanite farmers forced off their nachălâh
by the advent of
industrial demand, orphans and widows were forced to borrow money at
high interest to survive, which resulted in debt and slavery.
Muhammad was keenly aware of this, being himself an orphan who only
survived by the charity and goodwill of others.20
Polygamy was common, which meant that some wives were neglected in
favor of others. In general, women were denied inheritance and often
mistreated, and as noted above, the other Abrahamic religions did not
always speak warmly of the women in their texts, and they most
certainly did not apply prophetic language to them. It was in this
setting of inequity and socio-economic oppression that Muhammad, who
was a quietly pious man in adulthood, is said to have experienced a
revelation from God.
Of
the man Muhammad, little can be said with historical accuracy. Even
the date of his birth is uncertain, though most are content with
putting it at 570 CE. However, it is easy to see from a literary
critical method perspective that he was groomed in the literature for
prophethood. The sīra,
the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, is full of stories that intend
to present Muhammad in a prophetic light.21
For example, one story of Muhammad as a boy details his being
selected out of a group by the Christian monk Bahira, who possessed a
book of secret prophecies. Upon examining the boy, Bahira proclaimed
that Muhammad was “the Messenger of the Lord of the Worlds,” nabi
and
rasul.22
Aslan interprets such stories as having the function of prophetic
topos,
which is a literary hallmark of prophetic literature. Just like all
significant biblical figures before him, Muhammad was given a
significant gravitas in the form of written text. There were signs
and omens surrounding him before he was even ten. As a consequence,
the Qur'an is often interpreted in light of the sīra.
A key theme of the Qur'an is the intimate connection between Muhammad
and God's revelation in the form of recitation, meaning that it is
difficult to accurately reconstruct Muhammad's life with non-Qur'anic
material.23
It is also problematic to do historical critical analysis of the
Prophet when so much of the literature is more interested in
legitimating him as nabi
and
rasul
alongside the likes of Abraham, Moses and Jesus than in providing
accurate historical content for the sake of posterity. This is not
surprising in ancient literature, religious or otherwise. The Qur'an
likely developed organically as the result of multiple voices
speaking to the significance of one man's message, but the
hermeneutic emphasis ultimately falls on significance of Muhammad's
voice as rasul.
When
Muhammad began to do the work of a messenger, reciting the words
revealed to him by God, it unsurprisingly sparked the wrath of the
Quraysh, who perceived it as a challenge to the religio-economic
system they built.24
This was not because Muhammad was attempting to introduce an
uncompromising monotheism, as monotheism was not in itself a shocking
concept in Mecca. Rather, it is because of the shahahad,
the Islamic profession of faith: there is no god but God (meaning
that there was no earthly intermediary, no Quraysh or Ka'ba,
between the believer and God) and Muhammad is His prophet (Muhammad
is the rasul,
the one bearing a message from God). Muhammad was claiming no
authority in himself, only that he was commanded to recite what had
been revealed to him. This was a direct affront to the authority of
the Quraysh as the keepers of the Ka'ba.
The challenge was
twofold: it was a theological announcement that the Meccan
religio-economic system was without essential worth and it was a call
for social reform. As Ahmed Afzaal wrote in his article, The
Origin of Islam as a Social Movement:
“Contemporary
sociological research often distinguishes between religious movements
and social movements, but it is not possible to adequately capture
the life and career of Prophet Muhammad in terms of only one of these
frameworks. . .the socio-political aims of Prophet Muhammad's
struggle were the necessary and inevitable – yet mostly implicit
and tacit – consequences of his religio-ethical vision. . .the kind
of religio-ethical reforms Prophet Muhammad wished to implement in
his society were of such a nature and scope that they would not have
been possible without active engagement with socio-political
structures and processes.”25
In
other words, the shahadah
and the public preaching
of Islam in Mecca were not exclusively theological. Embedded in the
message Muhammad bore as rasul
was a cry on the behalf
of the poor. Muhammad's prophethood, like that of Amos, had concrete
socio-economic goals, namely reforms that would result in an
improvement in the quality of life for those unjustly mistreated by
the entrenched infrastructure of society. These reforms challenged
the status quo.
The
shahadah was
a call for a religio-ethical system. It condemned ethical wrongdoing
formerly condoned or ignored by society by reminding them of the
reality of judgment and the omnipresent eye of God, who saw and
remembered all.26
In this sense, it was ethical and social in emphasis. But it was also
overtly theological, challenging the religious equivalent of
latifundialization that the Quraysh had established, wherein their
control of the Ka'ba
meant that the people's
worship was not their own; worship could only happen on the terms of
cultic centralization implemented by the Quraysh. Islam's voice was
also a cry against the injustice of not being able to worship freely
and without human intermediaries, not unlike the first spark of the
Christian movement.27
Finally, it was also, like Amos 5:21-24, a warning of God's
omnipotence and omniscience, which would be brought to bear against
sinners in the fires of judgment; it was speaking of divine wrath as
a theological response to concrete injustices in Meccan society.
The
similarities and differences in biblical and Qur'anic prophetic voice
should be evident by this point; 1) both speak from the ground up,
condemning different forms of latifundialization from the perspective
of the poor and not the rich, 2) both are reflections on the
behavioral and historical state of society, 3) both invoke images of
God's wrath and indignation at the socio-religio-economic injustices
committed by society, 4) the Prophet Muhammad prescribes a fleshed
out religio-ethical system where Amos does not, 5) Islamic
prophethood elaborates on biblical prophethood by adding a
distinction of roles between nabi
and rasul,
of which Muhammad was both, and 6) both invoke images of divine wrath
as a theological response to concrete injustices.28
If there is anything that I
personally take from this comparison/contrast, it is that Islamic
prophetic voice, at its core, is not inconsistent with biblical
prophethood. The emphasis may be different, but they are concurrent
on what concrete points they address. God's wrath is clearly defined
in terrifying detail, and while I may have found this unattractive in
my youth, I now realize how powerful this imagery was to its original
audiences. The bible and the Qur'an both were written in a world
hungry for justice, waiting for the divine wrath of God to address
the wrongs and systemic evils that perpetuated themselves in society.
Whether it is the deluge of Amos or the fire of the Qur'an, prophetic
voice speaks to real injustices suffered by real people, men and
women both. Perhaps a wrathful God has a rightful place in our holy
books. Whether nabi or rasul, prophets bear important
messages, and I find myself more open to the message of the Qur'an
now.
Works Cited:
Brettler,
Marc Z. How
to Read the Bible.
First ed. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2005.
152-160. Print.
Holy
Bible: New Revised Standard Version.
San Francisco, Harper One, 1989.
Shalom,
Paul M. A
Commentary on the Book of Amos.
First ed. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Press, 1991. 1-2. Print.
Aslan,
Reza. No
god but God: The Origins and Evolution of Islam.
First Edition ed., New York City, Random House, 2005, pp. 3-40.
The
Qur'an.
New York City, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Pippin,
Andrew, editor. The
Blackwell Companion to The Qur'an.
First Edition ed., Malden, MA, Blackwell Publishing, 2006, pp.
197-241.
Trible,
Phyllis, and Letty M. Russell, editors. Hagar,
Sarah, and Their Children.
Fir ed., Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2006, pp.
9-152.
Afzaal,
Ahmed. "The Origin of Islam as a Social Movement." Islamic
Studies,
vol. 42, no. 2, 2003, pp. 205-16. JSTOR.
Accessed 11 Nov. 2016. www.jstor.org/stable/20837269
1Please
note that the lack of the proper adage “Peace be upon him” is
omitted hereafter not out of disrespect, but in the interest of
saving space and not bogging down the voice of the paper whenever
his name is mentioned.
2Brettler,
How to Read the Bible, p 160
3Brettler,
p 152
4Exodus
15:17, Numbers 26:53 NRSV
5Paul
Shalom, A Commentary on the Book of Amos, pp 1-2
6Shalom,
p 2
7
Isaiah 5:9; Micah 2:1-2, NSRV
8Amos
5:21-24, NRSV
9Aslan,
No God but God: The Origins and Evolution of Islam,
p 7
10Aslan,
p 3
11Qur'an
– Haleem translation, Surah 5:109-120
12Blackwell
Companion to the Qur'an (BCQ), p 240
131st
Corinthians 12:28-31 NRSV
14BCQ,
p 241
15Qur'an,
Surah 19:51
16Hagar,
Sarah and Their Children (HSaTC), p 9
17HSaTC,
p 152.
18Aslan,
p 24
19Aslan,
p 18-19
20Aslan
p 25
21BCQ,
197
22Aslan,
23
23BCQ,
199-201
24Aslan,
p 40
25Ahmed
Afzaal, The Origin of Islam as a Social Movement, p 205
26Qur'an,
Surah 2:77, 14:38
27Mark
11:15-19, NRSV
28Afzaal,
216"
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