Criticism of Islam
Criticism of Islam, including of Islamic beliefs, practices, and doctrines, can take many forms, including academic critiques, political criticism, religious criticism, and personal opinions.
Criticism of Islam has been present since its formative stages, with early disapprovals recorded from Christians, Jews, and some former Muslims like Ibn al-Rawandi.[1] Subsequently, the Muslim world itself faced criticism after the September 11 attacks.[2][3][4][5]
Criticism has been aimed at the life of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, in both his public and personal lives.[4][6] Issues relating to the authenticity and morality of the scriptures of Islam, both the Quran and the hadiths, are also discussed by critics.[7] Criticisms have also been directed at historical practices, like the recognition of slavery as an institution[8][9][10][11] as well as Arab imperialism impacting indigenous cultures.[12] The Shafi'i school of thought has been criticized for its support for female genital mutilation. More recently, Islamic beliefs regarding human origins, predestination, God's existence, and God's nature have received criticism for their apparent philosophical and scientific inconsistencies.[13][14]
Other criticisms center on the treatment of individuals within modern Muslim-majority countries, including issues related to human rights in the Islamic world, particularly in relation to the application of Islamic law.[5] As of 2014, about a quarter of the world's countries and territories (26%) had anti-blasphemy and (13%) had anti-apostasy laws or policies.[15] In 2017, 13 Muslim countries had the death penalty for apostasy or blasphemy.[16][17][18] Amid the contemporary embrace of multiculturalism, there has been criticism regarding how Islam may affect the willingness or ability of Muslim immigrants to assimilate in host nations.[19][20]
Historical background[edit]
The earliest surviving written criticisms of Islam are found in the writings of Christians, such as John of Damascus who was familiar with Islam and Arabic, who came under the early dominion of the Islamic caliphate.[21] Other notable early critics of Islam included Abu Isa al-Warraq, a ninth-century scholar and critic of Islam, Ibn al-Rawandi, a ninth-century atheist, who repudiated Islam and criticized religion in general,[22]: 224 al-Ma'arri, an eleventh-century Arab poet and critic of all religions who was known for his veganism and antinatalism[23][24][25][26] Jews similarly passed on criticism on Muhammad by oral-traditions.[27]
There have been several notable critics and skeptics of Islam from within the Islamic world, including the blind poet al-Ma'arri, whose poetry was known for its "pervasive pessimism." He labeled religions in general as "noxious weeds" and believed that Islam does not have a monopoly on truth.[2][28] In 1280 CE, the Jewish philosopher Ibn Kammuna criticized Islam in his book Examination of the Three Faiths.[29][30]
During the Middle Ages, Christian church officials commonly represented Islam as idolatry or a counterfeit religion propelled by Satan. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe, some academics attempted to exoticize Islam by portraying it as an Eastern religion that was distinct from the West and the religions of Judaism and Christianity. Others classified it as a "Semitic" religion, in contrast to the Indo-European religions, which included Christianity. Many academics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries referred to Islam as Mohammedanism,[31] which allowed them to criticize Islam by criticizing Muhammad's actions. Such criticisms rendered Islam as only a derivative of Christianity and not, as Islam itself claims, as the successor of Abrahamic monotheisms, in contrast to the Christian idea of Christ's perfection.[32]
By contrast, many academics nowadays study Islam as an Abrahamic religion in relation to Judaism and Christianity.[31]
Points of criticism[edit]
The expansion of Islam[edit]
In an alleged dialogue between the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (r. 1391–1425) and a Persian scholar, the emperor criticized Islam as a faith spread by the sword.[33] This matches the common view in Europe during the Enlightenment period about Islam, then synonymous with the Ottoman Empire, as a bloody, ruthless, and intolerant religion.[34] More recently, in 2006, a similar statement of Manuel II,[a] quoted publicly by Pope Benedict XVI, prompted a negative response from Muslim figures who viewed the remarks as an insulting mischaracterization of Islam.[35][36] In this vein, the Indian social reformer Pandit Lekh Ram (d. 1897) thought that Islam was grown through violence and desire for wealth,[37] while the Nigerian author Wole Soyinka considers Islam as a "superstition" that it is mainly spread with violence and force.[38]
This "conquest by the sword" thesis is opposed by some historians who consider the transregional development of Islam a multi-faceted and complex phenomenon.[31] The first wave of expansion, the migration of the early Muslims to Medina to escape persecution in Mecca and the subsequent conversion of Medina, was indeed peaceful. In the years to come, Muslims defended themselves against frequent Meccan incursions until Mecca's peaceful surrender in 630. By the time of his death in 632, many of the Arabian tribes had formed political alliances with Muhammad and adopted Islam peacefully, which also paved the way for the subsequent conquests of Syria, Iran, Egypt and (the rest of North Africa) after the death of Muhammad.[31] Islam nevertheless often remained a minority religion in conquered territories for several centuries after the initial waves of conquest, indicating that the conquest of territories beyond the Arabian Peninsula did not instantly result in large conversions to Islam.[b][31]
Other religions' views[edit]
Many early Christian authors viewed Islam as a Christian heresy or a form of idolatry and often explained it in apocalyptic terms.[39] They criticized Islam as a material, rather than spiritual, religion for its sensual descriptions of paradise, even though such descriptions were present in early Christianity, as seen in the writings of Irenaeus, a second-century bishop. The Bible also implies such ideas, such as drinking wine in the Gospel of Matthew. Later, however, the doctrines of the Catholic theologian Augustine of Hippo (d. 430) led to the broad repudiation of bodily pleasures in this life and the afterlife.[40]
Pope Innocent III (d. 1216) thought that many men were seduced by Muhammad for the pleasure of flesh.[40] The Christian apologist G. K. Chesterton criticized Islam as a heresy or parody of Christianity,[41][42] David Hume (d. 1776), both a naturalist and a sceptic,[43] considered monotheistic religions to be more "comfortable to sound reason" than polytheism but also found Islam to be more "ruthless" than Christianity.[44] The Greek Orthodox bishop Paul of Antioch accepted Muhammed as a prophet, but did not consider his mission to be universal and regarded Christian law superior to Islamic law.[45] In his book, The Fountain of Wisdom, John of Damascus (d. 749) claims that Muhammad was influenced by an Arian monk. He also viewed Islamic doctrines as nothing more than a hodgepodge culled from the Bible.[21] Maimonides, a twelfth-century rabbi, did not question the strict monotheism of Islam, but was critical of the practical politics of Muslim regimes and considered Islamic ethics and politics to be inferior to their Jewish counterparts.[46]
Apologetic writings, attributed to the philosopher Abd-Allah ibn al-Muqaffa (d. c. 756), not only defended Manichaeism against Islam, but also criticized the Islamic concept of God. He disregarded the Quranic deity as an unjust, tyrannic, irrational and malevolent demonic entity.[47][48] The Jewish philosopher Ibn Kammuna (d. 1284) reasoned that the Sharia was incompatible with the principles of justice, and that this undercut the notion of Muhammad being the perfect man, "There is no proof that Muhammad attained perfection and the ability to perfect others, as claimed."[29][49]
In his essay Islam Through Western Eyes, the cultural critic Edward Said suggests that the Western view of Islam is particularly hostile for a range of religious, psychological and political reasons, all deriving from a sense "that so far as the West is concerned, Islam represents not only a formidable competitor but also a late-coming challenge to Christianity." In his view, the general basis of Orientalist thought forms a study structure in which Islam is placed in an inferior position as an object of study, thus forming a considerable bias in Orientalist writings as a consequence of the scholars' cultural make-up.[50]
