{"id":15394,"date":"2015-03-24T07:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T20:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=15394"},"modified":"2015-03-22T22:58:00","modified_gmt":"2015-03-22T11:58:00","slug":"the-five-faces-of-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2015\/03\/24\/the-five-faces-of-islam\/","title":{"rendered":"The Five Faces of Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the CMS Summerview Conference Tasmania this year we had the pleasure of hearing Dr John Azumah speak.\u00a0 Here are some my notes from one of his talks (my notes are not the responsibility of Dr John Azumah, although any credit is due to him!). <\/em><\/p>\n

I found this helpful in educating\u00a0me\/us in the task of meeting people ‘where they are’ and not presuming to understand them simply because they are ‘Muslim’ or\u00a0‘Christian’ or ‘atheist’.<\/em><\/p>\n

The idea of different ‘faces’ of Islam prevents the simplicisms of believing and saying “all Muslims are ….” Rather, Muslims are people for us to get to know, seek to understand, with whom to build the common good and to love in Christ.<\/em><\/p>\n

Islam is diverse \u2192 Islams<\/em><\/strong>
\nThe Challenge of Islam: Ebrahim Moosan: good and bad Muslims.\u00a01.6 billion Muslims<\/p>\n

1. The Missionary Face of Islam<\/strong>
\npro Islam and anti-Christians\/anti-Jews polemics (in the Qur’an) \u2013 this is built into Islam
\nNote:\u00a0 Christianity sees itself as post Jewish (and Islam sees it itself as post Christian)
\n\u201cDawah\u201d Islamic Mission 7th Century to 19th Century energised by Christian missions and financed by petro dollars\/Muslim Governments.
\n\u201cMissionary Face\u201d\u2013 eg. Ahmed Deedat, South Africa<\/p>\n

2. The Mystical Face<\/strong>
\nBill Musk, \u201cThe Unseen Face of Islam\u201d of Quranic Islam in Africa and Asia
\nSufism, folk Islam, takes the supernatural seriously, dreams, exorcism, visions
\nIslamic Spirituality.
\nSimilar to Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity. Experiential. Less influence of Bible\/Qur’an among mystics
\nMystical Face: Rumi 13th Century, Persian, Shakespeare of the East inspired by Christian mysticism.<\/p>\n

3. The Ideological Face<\/strong> (Political Face)
\nClaims the public place for Islam: Islamic State governed by\u00a0Sharia Law.
\nGod\u2019s will has to be implemented in God\u2019s earth and Muslims (those who submit to God)\u00a0are the ones empowered by God to bring in God\u2019s rule.
\nNo “Caesar’s coin” of Jesus’ teaching in Islam. No sharing between Caesar and God because Caesar belongs to God.
\nIdeological Face: Gumi: \u201cPolitics is more important than prayer\u201d<\/p>\n

4. The Militant Face<\/strong>
\nSeeks to achieve political ends through violence and warfare.
\nISIS, Boko-Haram, al-Qaeda
\nQuote Qur’an and Islamic texts and romantised history and take Jihad into their own hands.
\nThey do not follow rules for declaring Jihad e.g. by a Muslim Ruler (Some similarity\u00a0to Just War theory)
\n\u201cMilitant Face\u201d: reformist rebellions wishing to \u201cpurify\u201d Islam, and therefore theocracy essential and\u00a0democracy must be gotten rid of.
\nInspire fear, use conspiracy, lies and propaganda, exploit\u00a0weak and corrupt state institutions.
\n95% of victims of Militants are Muslims e.g. Pakistan
\nMany Muslims become disillusioned by Militant and Ideological Islam.<\/p>\n

5. The Progressive Face
\n<\/strong>Reformers: self-critical, open to other world views.
\nStruggle for the soul of Islam
\n\u201cProgressive Face\u201d: Makmud Tahar(?), hung in 1985 for blasphemy.
\nCritical re-read of Islamic texts\/ source books, defends rights of minorities, promotes gender equality.
\nReformers quote Calvin, Zwingli (Christian Reformers)
\nSeen in Turkey, Iran, Sudan, Indonesia, South Africa West<\/p>\n

*To listen to Dr John Azumah’s talks and also to hear Archbishop Glenn Davies, please chick here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the CMS Summerview Conference Tasmania this year we had the pleasure of hearing Dr John Azumah speak.\u00a0 Here are some my notes from one of his talks (my notes are not the responsibility of Dr John Azumah, although any … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15394"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15394"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15401,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15394\/revisions\/15401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}