View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository THE CALL TO RETRIEVAL Kenneth Cragg's Christian vocation to Islam A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Theology Faculty of Arts University of Birmingham 1987 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. SYNOPSIS The career of the Anglican scholar and bishop, Kenneth Cragg, focusses attention on the Christian understanding of other faiths in general and of Islam in particular. Cragg has been a leading exponent of a particular missionary approach to Islam, emphasizing that there is a 'mission to Islam' as much as a mission to Muslims. To this end he interprets Islam as pointing in its deepest meaning towards Christianity, a course which has aroused both admiration and opposition among Christians and Muslims alike. I attempt to show that his theology is strongly influenced by distinctive Anglican traditions, and nourished by one particular Arab Christian source. Cragg, however, resists any easy classification, and faces the accusation of theological evasiveness as well as hermeneutic sleight of hand. His writings show a remarkable consistency over thirty years and point to possibilities for reconciliation between deeply rooted religious antagonisms. A further significance of Cragg is his awareness of contemporary secularity in its interaction with and impact upon religious belief. Here again his conviction that the deepest convictions of unbelief are at heart religious needs to be tested. The central question is whether he illegitimately 'christianises' Islam, and by extension, other faiths and ideologies. His keyword is 'retrieval', but there are attitudes and beliefs that cannot be retrieved, only abandoned. Few would quarrel with the ethics he advocates, but the question remains whether his theological method can be accepted as valid. DEDICATION To David Kerr and the staff of the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at the Selly Oak Colleges, in recognition of strenuous efforts at the work of understanding. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I here acknowledge with gratitude immense personal help and kindness from Bishop Kenneth Cragg, who allowed his reservations about the value of this exercise to be overcome by regard for the struggles of a would-be scholar. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES These are given in the body of the text (enclosed in square brackets) in two forms: 1 references to general works by author, date and page number eg. [Fyzee 1976:48] 2 references to works by Kenneth Cragg by the initials 'KC', followed by the date and abbreviated title, or the article number, and page number eg. [KC 1986 Call 243] or [KC 82:3] All biographical information about Kenneth Cragg has been taken either from Crockford's Clerical Directory 1977-1979 (London: OUP 1979), from Who's Who?, or from his personal conversations with the author between November 1980 and November 1986. TRANSLITERATION The system used in the text is essentially that of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, but with the normal English-language substitution of j for dj, and q for k. Diacritical marks are not used in proper names. THE CALL TO RETRIEVAL Kenneth Cragg's Christian Vocation to Islam page no. 1 The Formative Influences: British Theology, Arab Christianity and Idealist Philosophy A A Career in Encounter with Islam 1 B Theological Conservatism and its Alternatives 13 C The Importance of Lebanon 27 2 The Theological Basis: God and Man A The Reciprocity of God and Man 37 B The Knowability of God 47 C The Khalifate of Man 61 D Theodicy and Self-Wronging 69 E Christology 78 3 Themes in his writing: Prayer, Faith and Orthodoxy A A God to Worship 83 B The Spirit in Islam 93 C The Theology of Religion 103 4 Themes in his writing: Truth and Power A The Theme of Custody 115 B Truth in the Custody of Power 129 C Morality and the Collective 141 D God's Omnipotence: The Sacred and the Secular 150 5 The Theological Goal: Christian Mission to Islam A Cragg's Missionary Inheritance 153 B The Concept of Retrieval 165 C The Mission to Islam in Action 175 6 The Question of Criteria in Interpreting Islam A How the Reviewers see Him 188 B Techniques of Interpretation 200 C Cragg's Interpretation of the Qur'an 209 D How Cragg anthologises Islam 222 7 Vocations Beyond Islam A Encountering Judaism 228 B Hinduism and Buddhism 240 8 A Vocation for All? 250 Bibliographies General 264 A Bibliography of Kenneth Cragg: Books & Translations 278 Contributions to Books 281 Major Articles & Reviews 283 Other Publications & Unpublished Work 288 Writings about Kenneth Cragg & Major Reviews of his books 292 CHAPTER ONE THE FORMATIVE INFLUENCES: BRITISH THEOLOGY, ARAB CHRISTIANITY AND IDEALIST PHILOSOPHY A A Career in Encounter with Islam Albert Kenneth Cragg was born on March 8th, 1913, the younger son of Albert and Emily Cragg, a devout couple of Evangelical Anglican conviction. He was educated at Blackpool Grammar School, and Jesus College, Oxford, where he read Modern History, narrowly missing first class honours. His elder brother Herbert had already preceded him to Tyndale Hall, Bristol, and into the ministry of the Church of England, and in 1936 Kenneth was ordained to serve in the parish of St Catherine's, Higher Tranmere, Birkenhead, in the diocese of Chester. Cragg's first professional role was as a pastor. But he did not neglect study during his curacy, and in 1936 successfully submitted an essay for the Ellerton Theological Prize at Oxford University on the subject of 'The Place of Authority in Matters of Religious Belief.' In 1939 he fulfilled long-cherished hopes by beginning his missionary service in Lebanon, under the auspices of the British Syria Mission. After initial language study and teaching in a Bible college he became attached to the American University of Beirut, and founded and ran a hostel for Arab students. The university was seriously short of staff in wartime conditions, so Charles Malik, the head of the Department of Philosophy, invited Cragg to teach in the department. He became the acting head of the department on the departure of Malik to be ambassador in Washington, and proved his philosophical competence by winning a further prize at Oxford University in 1947 with an essay for the TH Green Moral Philosophy Prize on 'Morality and Religion'. In 1947 he and his wife (he married Theodora Melita Arnold in 1940) returned to England so that he could pursue doctoral studies in Islam. In order to help him find sufficient income for his growing family (there were eventually three sons), his old Oxford college presented him to the recently vacated living of Longworth in Berkshire, where he lived while completing his D.Phil. His subject was 'Islam in the Twentieth Century: The Relevance of Christian Theology and the Relation of the Christian Mission to its Problems', and it was presented not to the Faculty of Oriental Studies but to the Faculty of Theology. It is important to note that Cragg's primary academic qualification is not as an orientalist but as a theologian. His supervisor was Dr Ernest Payne, who was learned in Hinduism rather than Islam, and his examiners were HAR Gibb, the Islamicist and Herbert Danby, the translator of the Talmud. On successful completion of the thesis (a massive work of some 300,000 words) he was appointed to the chair of Arabic and Islamics at the Hartford Seminary Foundation, Connecticut, USA, where he remained from 1951-1956. Hartford was the home of the journal The Muslim World, founded by Samuel Zwemer in 1911 (in the wake of the Edinburgh Conference of 1910) as a focus of Christian missionary thought about Islam, and today one of the major English-language periodicals on Islam. From 1952-1960 Cragg jointly edited the journal with Edwin Calverley, his predecessor in the chair of Islamics. In 1956 he published his classic work The Call of the Minaret (revised and reissued in 1986), and left Hartford to be a residentiary canon of St George's Cathedral, Jerusalem (at that time part of Jordan). 'Residential' he was not, however. Two years earlier he had been awarded a Rockefeller Travelling Scholarship (at the suggestion of Wilfred Cantwell Smith), and this had taken him on extensive journeys through the Middle East from Tangier to Baghdad. This experience helped to develop the idea of a Study Programme, which, with the encouragement of the International Missionary Council and Bishop Stewart of Jerusalem now took shape in 1956 as 'Operation Reach'. From 1956 to 1959 he was constantly on the move alerting Christian groups throughout the Middle East and beyond to the issues of Christian engagement with Islam and with Muslims, and holding Summer Schools on Islam at St George's College, Jerusalem. This period of intense travel ended with the appointment of Cragg, now known internationally as a Christian interpreter of Islam, to St Augustine's College, Canterbury. He was a Fellow from 1959, and Warden from 1961. The missionary scholar had moved into a position of ecclesiastical leadership. His colleague and predecessor as Warden was Kenneth Sansbury, subsequently Bishop of Singapore and then General Secretary of the British Council of Churches.