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From Islam to Christianity Wilkins, Agnes Angela (2018) From Islam to Christianity: A Study in the Life and Thought of Hassan Dehqani- Tafti and Jean-Mohammed Abd-El-Jalil in the Ongoing Search for a Deeper Understanding Between Christianity and Islam. Doctoral thesis, York St John University. Downloaded from: http://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/3632/ Research at York St John (RaY) is an institutional repository. It supports the principles of open access by making the research outputs of the University available in digital form. Copyright of the items stored in RaY reside with the authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full text items free of charge, and may download a copy for private study or non-commercial research. For further reuse terms, see licence terms governing individual outputs. Institutional Repository Policy Statement RaY Research at the University of York St John For more information please contact RaY at [email protected] FROM ISLAM TO CHRISTIANITY: A STUDY IN THE LIFE AND THOUGHT OF HASSAN DEHQANI-TAFTI AND JEAN-MOHAMMED ABD-EL-JALIL IN THE ONGOING SEARCH FOR A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM Sr Agnes Angela Wilkins OSB Submitted in accordance with the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy York St John University School of Humanities, Religion and Philosophy June 2018 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference had been made to the works of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material. Any reuse must comply with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and any licence under which this copy is released. © 2018 York St John University and Sr Agnes Angela Wilkins OSB The right of Sr Agnes Angela Wilkins OSB to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful to my supervisors, in particular Professor Pauline Kollontai for much support and encouragement, especially at difficult times, and for educating me to think more critically, deeply and widely. I wish also to thank my second supervisor Professor Sebastian Kim for some important contributions he has made. I must also thank Professor Julian Stern for pastoral support throughout and for timely help with computer difficulties. I also wish to acknowledge the friendly reception I have always received on my visits to York St John University. Kathryne Taheri has generously given of her expertise and many hours of her time to the translation from the Persian of Hassan’s Chimes of Church Bells, for which I am truly grateful. I wish also to thank profoundly Margaret Dehqani-Tafti for the gift of books and for valuable support and prayers. It was through her that I came to ‘know’ her husband, the bishop. She was always more than willing to answer any of my questions, but sadly died before she could see the completion of my work. I am also hugely indebted to Jane Dammen McAuliffe for the gift, for our monastic library, of the six volume work, Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an, of which she is the General Editor, and also for other valuable books, including her own translation of the Qur’an. I am very deeply indebted to Professor Maurice Borrman M.Afr. who has rendered me invaluable assistance throughout the past seven years of study, through gifts of books and material on Abd-el-Jalil which would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for me to access, and for his constant support and encouragement, which he gave regularly until his death on 26 December 2017. I am indebted to Anthony O’Mahony for initiating me into the dialogue with Islam, by means of a challenging lecture, and for encouragement along the way. I wish also to thank Gabriel Said Reynolds, Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology at Notre Dame University, USA, who since our providential meeting in Rome in 2014 has introduced me to the world of Qur’anic Studies. I have valued his support and friendship since that time, as well as gifts of helpful books and his own papers. Last but not least I am indebted to my long-suffering monastic community. I must mention in particular Abbess Andrea Savage for allowing me to embark on a long period of study and research at a time of great community upheaval when we had just moved from Worcester to North Yorkshire. I am also grateful to Sr Philippa Edwards, our monastic librarian, for allowing me to use my library assistant time for study when I was under pressure; also to Sr Benedicta White who as community bursar obtained for me quickly and efficiently any book I have needed; and finally to Sr Julian Falkus who has rendered valuable and timely assistance with computer difficulties. I would like to dedicate the thesis to the memory of Margaret Dehqani –Tafti (d.2016) and Fr Maurice Borrmans M.Afr.(d.2017). ABSTRACT The thesis is an attempt to understand Islam from the inside, as a gesture of respect and friendship to Islam and Muslims, in the belief that true dialogue cannot proceed without this. It means admitting the great gulf, despite the good things we have in common, that separates the two religions. Doctrinal differences have been honestly discussed and analysed, with no attempt made to smooth over the difficulties. Two converts from Islam to Christianity, Hassan Dehqani-Tafti and Jean-Mohammed Abd-el- Jalil, whose life stories and writings form the core of the thesis, illustrate perfectly in their different situations the difficulties, even agony, involved in leaving Islam to embrace Christianity. As men who have known both Islam and Christianity from the inside, their writings are particularly valuable to deepen our understanding of Islam. They present a contrast in that one is an Anglican, a bishop and family man, whilst the other became a Catholic and a celibate Franciscan; yet both in their different ways shed much light on their experience of Islam. Kenneth Cragg was very influential in the life of Hassan, and this is given due recognition as Hassan’s writing is explored. The accounts of the life and writings of the two converts are preceded by a study examining the phenomenon of conversion from various secular perspectives and, building on the expressed hopes of the converts, are followed by a look into the future which consists of interdisciplinary approaches to the text of the Qur’an as, for example, in Qur’anic Studies where Muslim, Christian (and other) scholars collaborate together to obtain deeper insights into the holy book of Islam, a development which undoubtedly would have been warmly welcomed by both Hassan Dehqani-Tafti and Jean-Mohammed Abd-el-Jalil. CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 General background…………………………………………………………………………………………. 5 2 Genesis of my research…………………………………………………………………………………….. 8 3 Overall aim and research questions………………………………………………………………….. 11 4 Further research……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 12 5 Current research on conversion from Islam to Christianity……………………………….. 13 6 Plan of thesis…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 16 2 Methodology 1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 18 2 The Insider/Outsider problem…………………………………………………………………………… 19 3 A monastic methodology…………………………………………………………………………………… 21 3.1 Background: monasticism in early Islam…………………………………………….. 21 3.2 Monasticism and Islam: some resemblances……………………………………… 23 3.3 Community life…………………………………………………………………………………… 24 3.4 Humility……………………………………………………………………………………………… 25 3.5 Monastic theology…………………………………………………………………………….. 25 3.6 Appropriational Distortion and Christian de Chergé………………………….. 26 4 Methodological Agnosticism…………………………………………………………………………….. 28 5 Reflexivity …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 30 6 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 32 3 Conversion: An Exploration of its Sacred and Secular Aspects 1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 33 2 Is the secular/sociological approach really necessary?......................................... 34 3 Robin Horton: Conversion to Islam and Christianity in Africa…………………………….. 35 4 Lewis R. Rambo: Understanding Religious Conversion……………………………………….. 38 4.1 The Sequential Stage Model……………………………………………………………….. 40 4.2 A closer look at ‘Consequences’………………………………………………………….. 44 5 Psychological Perspectives…………………………………………………………………………………. 45 5.1 Edwin Starbuck (1886-1947)……………………………………………………………….. 46 5.2 William James (1842-1910)…………………………………………………………………. 47 5.3 Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)………………………………………………………………. 48 6 A theological/religious approach…………………………………………………………………………. 50 7 Conversion from Islam to Christianity…………………………………………………………………. 52 8 Ali Mehmet Mulla-Zadé…………………………………………………………………………………………55 9 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 60 4 Hassan Barnaba Dehqani-Tafti 1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 62 2 A village boy from Taft………………………………………………………………………………………… 62 2.1 Conversion to Christianity and marriage of Hassan’s mother………………..63 2.2 Miss Kingdon the missionary: death of Hassan’s mother……………………….64 2.3 The question of a Christian education…………………………………………………. 65 3 Isfahan………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 66 3.1 Christian history of Isfahan………………………………………………………………….. 67 3.2 Hassan’s education in Isfahan: the influence of Jalil Aqua, a Persian Christian convert………………………………………………………………………………….. 68 3.3 Back to the village and Islamic schooling: the Qur’an is consulted again 70 3.4 Return to Isfahan: health problems………………………………………………………. 71 3.5
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