COMMUNICATING THE WORD Previously Published Records of Building Bridges Seminars The Road Ahead: A Christian-Muslim Dialogue, Michael Ipgrave, Editor (Church House Publishing) Scriptures in Dialogue: Christians and Muslims Studying the Bible and the Qur’a¯n Together, Michael Ipgrave, Editor (Church House Publishing) Bearing the Word: Prophecy in Biblical and Qur’a¯nic Perspective, Michael Ipgrave, Editor (Church House Publishing) Building a Better Bridge: Muslims, Christians, and the Common Good, Michael Ipgrave, Editor (Georgetown University Press) Justice and Rights: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, Michael Ipgrave, Editor (Georgetown University Press) Humanity: Texts and Contexts: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, Michael Ipgrave and David Marshall, Editors (Georgetown University Press) For more information about the Building Bridges seminars, please visit http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/networks/building_bridges Communicating the Word Revelation, Translation, and Interpretation in Christianity and Islam A record of the seventh Building Bridges seminar Convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rome, May 2008 DAVID MARSHALL, EDITOR georgetown university press Washington, DC ᭧ 2011 Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Communicating the word : revelation, translation, and interpretation in Christianity and Islam : a record of the seventh Building Bridges seminar convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rome, May 2008 / David Marshall, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58901-784-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Islam—Relations—Christianity—Congresses. 2. Christianity and other religions—Islam—Congresses. 3. Revelation—Islam—Congresses. 4. Revelation—Christianity—Congresses. 5. Koran—Criticism, interpretation, etc.—Congresses. 6. Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc.—Congresses. I. Marshall, David. BP172.C537 2011 261.2Ј7—dc22 2011006189 ⅜ϱ This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. 1514131211 98765432First printing Printed in the United States of America Text from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Contents Participants vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi David Marshall Part I: Particularity, Universality, and Finality in Revelation 1.1 Particularity and Universality in the Qur’a¯n3 Seyed Amir Akrami 1.2 Particularity, Universality, and Finality: Insights from the Gospel of John 14 Daniel A. Madigan 1.3 Revelation in Israel: Deuteronomy 7:1–11; Isaiah 49:1–6 26 Ellen F. Davis 1.4 Revelation in Israel: Qur’a¯n 2:47–57; 5:44–48 33 Osman Bakar 1.5 Revelation in Christ: 1 John 1:1–4; Matthew 28:16–20; John 16:12–15 37 John Langan 1.6 Revelation in the Qur’a¯n: Qur’a¯n 6:91–92; 25:32; 21:107; 38:87; 33:40 44 Asma Afsaruddin Part II: Translating the Word? 2.1 Translating the Qur’a¯n59 Muhammad Abdel Haleem 2.2 Translation and the Incarnate Word: Scripture and the Frontier of Languages 70 Lamin Sanneh v vi Contents 2.3 The Body of Christ: 1 Corinthians 11:23–27 and 12:12–13, 27 83 Daniel A. Madigan 2.4 An Arabic Qur’a¯n: Qur’a¯n 12:1–2; 14:4; 16:103; 26:192–99; 46:12 88 Muhammad Abdel Haleem 2.5 The Divine and Human Origins of the Bible: Exodus 32:15–16; Jeremiah 1:9; 2 Timothy 3:16–17; Luke 1:1–4; 1 Corinthians 7:10–13; Mark 5:41 92 John Azumah 2.6 The Self-Perception and the Originality of the Qur’a¯n: Qur’a¯n 2:23–24; 3:44; 10:15; 69:38–47 98 Abdullah Saeed Part III: Methods and Authority in Interpretation 3.1 Authority in Interpretation: A Survey of the History of Christianity 107 John Langan 3.2 Authority in Qur’a¯nic Interpretation and Interpretive Communities 115 Abdullah Saeed 3.3 Reading Scripture in the Light of Christ: Matthew 12:1–8; Luke 24:44–49 124 Susan Eastman 3.4 Interpreting the Qur’a¯n: Qur’a¯n 3:7; 2:106; 16:101; 31:20 133 Muhammad Abdel Haleem 3.5 The Use of Scripture in Generous Love 142 Michael Ipgrave 3.6 The Use of Scripture in A Common Word 153 Reza Shah-Kazemi Conversations in Rome 163 David Marshall Afterword 175 Rowan Williams Index 181 Participants Muhammad Abdel Haleem King Fahd Professor of Islamic Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Amin Abdullah Rector, State Islamic University (Universitas Islam Negeri), Yogyakarta, Indonesia Asma Afsaruddi Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Department of Classics, University of Notre Dame, Indiana Seyed Amir Akrami Lecturer, al-Mahdi Institute, Birmingham, UK John Azumah Senior Research Fellow, Akrofi-Christaller Memorial Centre, Akropong- Akuapem, Ghana Osman Bakar Professor of Islamic Thought and Civilization, International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), Kuala Lumpur Ellen F. Davis Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina Susan Eastman Assistant Professor of the Practice of Bible and Christian Formation, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina Michael Ipgrave Archdeacon of Southwark, Church of England vii viii Participants John Langan Rose Kennedy Professor of Christian Ethics, Georgetown University, Washington, DC Daniel A. Madigan Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Theology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC Jane Dammen McAuliffe President, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania Sohail Nakhooda Editor-in-Chief, Islamica Magazine Ng Kam Weng Research Director, Kairos Research Centre, Kuala Lumpur Mehmet Pacaci Ankara University, Turkey Abdullah Saeed Director of Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia Lamin Sanneh D. Willis James Professor of Missions & World Christianity and Professor of History, Yale University Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut Recep S¸entu¨rk Professor of Sociology, Centre for Islamic Studies, Istanbul Reza Shah-Kazemi The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London Mona Siddiqui Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding, University of Glasgow, UK Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Timothy Wright Abbot Emeritus of Ampleforth Abbey, UK, and Adviser to the Abbot Primate on Benedictine-Muslim Relations Acknowledgments any thanks are once again due to John J. DeGioia, president of George- Mtown University, for generous support of the seventh Building Bridges seminar in Rome and also of the publication of this record of that seminar. Thanks also to Richard Brown and the staff of Georgetown University Press for their commitment to the Building Bridges process. It is a pleasure to work with them. ix This page intentionally left blank Introduction DAVID MARSHALL eginning in January 2002, the series of Building Bridges seminars, con- Bvened and chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, has covered a wide range of themes at the heart of Muslim-Christian dialogue. This book offers a record of the seventh seminar, held from May 6–8, 2008, at Villa Palazzola, near Rome, formerly a Cistercian monastery and now owned by the Venerable English College. Whereas all previous seminars had included a public dimen- sion, with lectures open to the public as well as closed sessions attended just by seminar participants, this seminar happened entirely in private. While this provided an ideal environment for twenty-two Christian and Muslim scholars to engage in open and far-reaching dialogue, it is all the more important that through this publication some account of the seminar’s proceedings should be made more widely available. The seminar focused on three themes: revelation, translation, and interpreta- tion. Each of these themes was explored through both a pair of lectures and the study alongside each other of relevant Christian and Muslim texts (mainly scriptural) that had been chosen before the seminar in consultation with a num- ber of participants. Following normal Building Bridges practice, a large amount of time was dedicated to discussion of these texts in groups of about seven members each. Before the group discussions a brief introduction was given to the texts in question. This book reproduces the lectures and the introductions to the selected texts, together with the texts themselves. No attempt is made to give a detailed record of the group discussions, although toward the end of the volume (in ‘‘Conversations in Rome’’) there is an account of the main themes of these discussions and also of the seminar’s plenary sessions. In part I (‘‘Particularity, Universality, and Finality in Revelation’’), Seyed Amir Akrami, referring to a wide range of Qur’a¯nic texts, addresses the relation- ship between the particularity of Islam as a specific religious tradition and the xi xii Introduction universality of isla¯m, by which he means ‘‘the essential core of beliefs, attitudes and behaviors’’ underlying Islam and other religious traditions. His conclusion is that there is no contradiction in the Qur’a¯n’s affirmation of both the particu- larity of Islam and the universality of isla¯m. Daniel Madigan identifies four textual ‘‘hooks’’ in John’s Gospel on which to hang reflections on creation, the particularity of the incarnation, the finality especially associated with the cross, and the coming of the Spirit to guide believers into all truth, noting that, as that process of guidance is ongoing, ‘‘finality is begun, but not yet finished.’’ Madi- gan concludes that the particularities of the two faiths are what make us what we are ‘‘and who we are is where dialogue begins.’’ In both the Bible and the Qur’a¯n the ultimate revelation, whether seen as coming in Christ or in the Qur’a¯n itself, does not arrive without a prehistory of revelation.