Book Reviews

Blackwell
Oxford,
The
MUWO
©
0027-4909
XXX
2007
Muslim
Hartford
UKPublishing
WorldSeminary
Ltd

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A Certain Sympathy of Scriptures:

Biblical and Quranic
By Kenneth Cragg
Sussex Academic Press, 2004

In this most recent book by Kenneth Cragg, Anglicanism’s elder statesman

in the arena of Christian-Muslim relations, the “sympathy” to which the title
refers hinges on the fact that both the Bible and the Qur’an develop the theme
of “the caliphate of humankind”: humanity is both creature and custodian: the
One and Only Sovereign Creator God has invested humanity with stewardship
over the very creation of which it is a part. Furthermore, God has sent prophets
to educate humanity — and in so doing, humanity’s dignity. Creation,
creaturehood, and prophethood form “a firm triad of conviction” in both the
Biblical and the Quranic worldviews: in each, “There is a divine stake which
God has invested in humankind, and via the given Scriptures God shares with
them what He has staked in them” (ix). This is a risk God takes deliberately.
It is not taken in jest, and the trust invested in humanity is not futile. Having
reminded us that Bible and Qur’an alike indicate that God’s entrusting of
creation to humanity’s stewardship is a good thing, Cragg asserts that
Christians and Muslims alike need to take very seriously the degree to
which history seems to indicate that it has been a bad thing! He argues
that when they acknowledge that this stewardship has been invested in all
humanity (not just those who look to the Bible for authoritative guidance
on the one hand, or to the Qur’an on the other), Christians and Muslims
will realize that they have a common scriptural basis from which to address
the ills of the 21st century. “Their heaviest task is in the economic sphere,”
Cragg suggests, where the ethic of our common stewardship ought to
“steer the world economies towards greater justice and away from endemic
poverty-making” (91–92).
On his way to making this important point, Cragg rehearses arguments we
have heard from him in his earlier books. In Chapter Two, he reminds us that,
whereas the Biblical and Qur’an bear kindred testimony to God’s Oneness, this

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is “in no way a theological identity between Yahweh and Allah, because the
“predicates denoting them are crucially other” (18). In Chapters Four and Six,
he explores the very different relationships Christians and Muslims have to the
original language of their Scriptures, and the fact that — as communities, they
stand in very different relationship to their canons: the New Testament is a
creation of the early Church, whereas the Qur’an is “a Scripture which its
Ummah possesses but which it did not itself compose”; for Muslims, the
Qur’an is “‘the Word made language’, so that, unlike the New Testament,
it is not the textual token of a revelation more ultimate than itself but the
very text of that revelation as ultimate” (48, 79). In Chapter Eight, noting that
in the Biblical and the Qur’anic worldview alike, God-given human dominion
over creation carries with it the certitude of ultimate evaluation. He contrasts
Christian and Islamic eschatologies, and finds — in terms of imagery and
economy — little “sympathy” between them.
Most importantly for his overall argument, beginning in Chapter Four and
continuing for most of the remainder of the book, Cragg demonstrates that,
when confronted with humanity’s chronic resistance to its vocation of
stewardship over creation, the Qur’an’s response was radically different
from that of the New Testament: where the New Testament, via the Cross,
responded with “a studied renunciation of power and an impulse for the
saving principle of redemptiveness,” the Qur’an, via the Hijrah, responded
with “the deliberate quest for the deployment of power” (38). In each case, the
goal was to keep the community from being overcome with evil, and rather,
to overcome evil with good.
The difference was in the method (39). Semitic faiths, Cragg observes, “are
committed to the seriousness of history, or personhood and of ethics in the
social order.” Our various scriptures make this clear. In each, “divine ends”
have been “invested in human means”. Humanity is invested with a dignity
it keeps betraying. Our scriptures offer contrasting remedies for this. The
Qur’an’s remedy is legal and ritual structure which will help realize God-
consciousness (51). The New Testament’s remedy is redemption via vicarious
love which transforms the heart (52). After Constantine, “power-wield slowly
took possession of ‘the intent of the heart.’” By the time Islam appeared on
the scene, Christianity had become just what Islam would always be. Both
would be trying to achieve a divine end by means of human power — which
means that intolerance is inevitable. “Inter-enmity,” Cragg suggests, “stemmed
precisely from the fact that both Dar al-Islam and ‘Christendom’ were
religio-political expressions, so that strictly doctrinal and intellectual themes
between them were never free of power-interests to find congenial encounter
in their own right.” In the cases of post-Constantinian Christendom and
post-Hijrah Islam alike, “the fusion . . . of power and belief, of politics and faith,

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meant that heart-conviction became rule-allegiance and thus liable to the

forfeiture of its soul-integrity” (62).
This brings us to a conundrum, says Cragg: “There has been no religious
faith that could stay ‘pure and undefiled’ in exclusive partnership with the
organs of political power. Yet good governance is a priceless boon to human
society and a vital dimension of the common welfare, a sphere of liability from
which no religious faith can be exempt.” The answer to the riddle, he says, lies
in the fact that God has entrusted all of humanity (not just our community)
with stewardship over creation. Our religious texts teach us this. None of us
has the monopoly on this trust (64). The very word “religion” denotes “a
commitment to an ultimate integrity in the love of truth and the care of justice
and compassion” (57). Thus, when it comes to politics and power, Cragg is
adamant that religion’s role should be “that of a critical conscience — a role
which will be impossible if there is total inter-alliance and near identity of
Din and Dawlah. For then its capacity to advise, address and accuse the
State will be lost in the vested interests of its own monopoly of the power
structure” (58).
By Kenneth Cragg’s standards, this is a short book. Typical of his writings,
it is dense. This begs the question: who is this book’s audience? In the preface,
Cragg claims that the book’s purpose is to point out common theological
ground which enjoys robust support from Bible and Qur’an alike. Then,
without dismissing or ignoring their particularities, Christians and Muslims
could act together for mutual well-being. The connection Cragg makes (albeit
briefly) between Biblical/Qur’anic notions of human stewardship of divine
creation and global economics is significant. Cragg’s whole argument begs for
exploration of the connection between religious power, Biblical/Qur’anic
notions of stewardship, and the plethora of ecological issues on the table today
— issues of great concern to Muslim and Christian ethicists alike. However,
especially when reading against the backdrop of power rhetoric from
America’s religious right, the Muslim reader is likely to find Cragg’s discussion
of the religion-power equation and far from even-handed, and his assessment
of Islamic eschatology far from sympathetic. Thus, A Certain Sympathy of
Scriptures is an unlikely candidate for reading and discussion by an interfaith
study circle. Furthermore, this book is more of a reflection than a recipe. It falls
short of proposing a clear way forward for Muslims and Christians who do
wish to work together (or do so already) — other than to say: here is the
scriptural warrant for your effort.
Strategically, the notion that Christians and Muslims might engage in
mutual study of their respective scriptures is a good one. It is heartening to
find more and more Muslim non-specialists willing to dig into the New
Testament, and especially since 9/11/01, Christians have been more interested

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in finding out what the Qur’an really says. However, they will find a more
straightforward guide in the books like John Kaltner’s Ishmael Instructs Isaac
(Liturgical Press, 1999), or in projects like Scriptures in Dialogue: Christians
and Muslims Studying the Bible and the Qur”an Together (edited by Michael
Ipgrave) — the report of the Building Bridges Seminar convened in Qatar by
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in April, 2003 (Church House
Publishing, 2004).
Rhetorically, this short book is quintessential Cragg — laden as it is with
his hallmark alliteration, long, carefully cadenced, complex sentences, and
phrases which turn back upon themselves (for example, on page 49: “The
spiritual telling was bound up in with the political taking”; or, from page 79:
“ . . . it is not the textual token of a revelation more ultimate than itself but the
very text of that revelation as ultimate”). Arabic terms pepper almost every
page — sometimes figuring in word-plays. Where seasoned readers will deem
all of this poetic and delight in it, novices, seminarians, church-based Adult
Education participants, and many Continuing Education students for whom
The Call of the Minaret is a challenging read — albeit one they usually report
is worthwhile — are more likely to be off-put by it, deeming it convoluted and
abstruse. That said, Cragg aficionados will enjoy hearing from him yet again.

Lucinda Allen Mosher

Fordham University
New York

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The Shi‘is of Iraq

By Yitzhak Nakash
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Since the American invasion of Iraq, scholars of different disciplines have

tried to comprehend the multitudinous forces that make up the religious and
socio-political climates of the country. Nakash’s book is an invaluable and
significant addition to the sources on the topic. The primary focus of Nakash’s
work is the political history and religious underpinnings of the Shi‘is of Iraq.
The themes in the book vary from the conversion of the tribesmen to Shi‘ism
in the 19th century to the formation and consolidation of a distinct ethnic and
cultural identity of the Iraqis in the modern period. Nakash also examines

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