Adesegun Hammed Olayiwola recently published a book, “Is Jesus Allah?” with the sub-title “Arab Christians Called God Allah Long Before Muhammed.” I find it to be a valuable book that addresses the issue from a historical path. The book looks at the term “Allah” as a term that well-predates Muhammed. It has been used by Christians, and others, to describe chief deity. However, more of the book looks at Islam as springing out of a centuries old tradition of Christians struggling with the question of “Who is Jesus?” I think the book is definitely worth a read… especially compared to the many books put out by people who don’t really know the subject well, but are good name-calling.

The author asked me to write the Foreward to the book. Here is is:

FOREWARD

David Tracy in his book Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope (page 84) notes that a religion (an admittedly loaded term) is seen as having a vision of Ultimate Reality that has been passed on to its adherents in “religious classics” or sacred scriptures. These scriptures lead to two conflicts. One conflict occurs when the sacred writ demands its followers to break free from the status quo— the “as it always has been.” The other conflict is when adherents attempt to interpret these writings. This type of conflict springs from the fact that we must wrestle out meaning that often is clouded by centuries, language, and our own biases.

Christianity shares a common heritage with Islam in identifying God’s breaking into our world through Abraham and Moses, among others, to reveal a sliver of Ultimate Reality. The two faiths also see God revealing Himself to mankind through Jesus or Isa. With so much in common, it seems strange that enmity has defined much of the historical interaction between Christianity and Islam.

This book, by Adesegun Hammed Olayiwola, addresses the two conflicts expressed by Tracy. First, how do we overcome centuries of conflict in history, language change, and biases to draw out meaning from Scripture particularly as it pertains to that most important question— Who is God? Second, in understanding Scripture, what must we do to pull away from the status quo, following God’s self-revelation not our own traditions?

This book asks the questions of Who is God? Who is Allah? Who is Jesus? Who is Isa? These questions have often been obscured by politics (secular and religious) and factions, and by the challenges of understanding what is revealed in Scripture. If, however, we are able to answer these questions based on God’s revelation, we are left with the next challenge: How should that truth affect our lives and our relationships?

In emphasizing these two conflicts, the author is avoiding the more common path of devolving the conflict into historical wrongs and injustices. As important as they may seem from our perspectives, they must fall away to near meaninglessness compared to the nature of and revelation of our Creator.

Robert H. Munson