Towards a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology

To be sure the logical impossibility of saying either “yes” or “no” to the incisive question whether the Qur’an can be considered a revelation, together with the commendations of Lumen Gentium, as well as the way “ordinary Muslims” witness to a palpable sense of the presence of God in their lives, should all argue to the rightness (in the sense of a prudential judgment) of extending to them, as a community, respect for their faith in the Qur’an as a revelation. This would represent a step beyond both Lumen Gentium and Nostra Aetate, which urged respect for Muslims but stopped short of acknowledging Islam as an inspired community, or umma. Yet the extension could be a quite natural one, for respecting people for their faith certainly entails respecting its source as they ascribe it.

In this paragraph, on page 184 of his book, veteran interfaith worker Father David Burrell comes as close as any Christian can, while still remaining a Christian, to acknowledge that the Qur’an might be regarded as a revelation from God. The quotation gives a taste of his deep sense of ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, as well as of his Roman Catholic roots, and his scholarly use of the English language. Even with its long sentences, this is not one of the most difficult passages to understand. Some contain unexplained throw-away references to other cultures such as the Jewish nickname of Moses Maimonides as ‘the Rambam’ (I had to look this one up in an encyclopaedia), as well as words and phrases from Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic and other languages.