Lukas Wick studied Arabic literature, Islamic studies and philosophy in Geneva and Damascus, received his PhD in Bern on Muslim theology and the constitutional state, and writes on topics related to Islam.
He has now published 'The Challenges of Islam' in. Ediciones Palabra. He notes that people do not take the content of Islam seriously, and suggests that it would be good to recognize that "Islam is very different, incompatible with a Christian worldview in many respects, and to express this openly and honestly in dialogue."
Share with Rémi Brague that Islam and Islamism are two varieties of the same religion, both with the intention of bringing the world under the rule of Allah, and that they differ only in the means and patience to achieve this goal.
In conclusion, he states that the progression of Islam is a great opportunity to deepen our history, our fundamental values and our Christian roots.
First of all, the genesis of your book, what led you to write it. Is it just the ignorance you warn about Islam? There seems to be more to it. With immigration, Islam is spreading.
- 2-3 years ago I organized a series of lectures on Islam. Afterwards, I was asked to edit my remarks for a wider audience. The result is the little book 'The Challenges of Islam'. However, I have been studying the Muslim faith and its intellectual history for more than twenty years, particularly in my thesis on 'Islam and the Constitutional State'. In view of large-scale Muslim immigration and the countless outbreaks of Islamist violence in recent years, we cannot avoid an intellectual debate on Islam. With my book, I am addressing first and foremost a broad public and not a small circle of experts.
You point out the challenges posed by Islam to theology, anthropology, law and politics. And you say that "we must take Islam as it is, without softening it or trying to adapt it to our sensibilities". Explain a little.
- In public discourse, I often find that the content of Islam is not taken seriously. People try to gloss over the unpleasant aspects and align them with the Western conception of personhood, freedom and human rights, but in doing so they openly misrepresent the content of the Qur'an.
It would be much more effective if people would not constantly try to find parallels and common denominators, but would recognize that Islam is very different, incompatible with a Christian worldview in many respects, and express this openly and honestly in dialogue.
For example, the differences between the Christian God and Allah according to the Koran, the relationship with God, the graduation in the dignity of man, the authority of man over woman, etc.
- The concept of God fundamentally distinguishes the Christian faith from Islam. Christians believe in a triune God. God is love, reveals himself to man, allows him to participate in his inner life and even approaches him in Jesus Christ. Islam, on the other hand, has a concept of Allah that hardly differs from a philosophical image of God. Although Allah is the one God, he ultimately remains distant from man. The fear of God is enormous in Islam, as he constantly threatens terrifying punishments in the Qur'an. It is logical that these differences are also reflected in the concept of man and his dignity.
The challenges of Islam
In the social order, a political order that separates the spiritual from the temporal plane is not conceivable. Perhaps it may be of interest to comment on the concept of holy war or 'jihad', with its quotation of the Egyptian Jesuit Samir Khalil Samir.
- During my doctoral thesis, I analyzed a book by Mahmut Shaltut. He was Sheikh of al-Azhar between 1958 and 1963 and thus the highest authority in Sunni Islam. In one passage he writes that politics and religion cannot be separated in Islam, just as you cannot separate a person's head from his body without killing him. All attempts to ignore this theological requirement are dishonest. Although the political reality of Islamic countries is often very different, the unity of politics and religion remains the ideal to strive for in Islam.
The same can be said of jihad. The supposed difference between "greater jihad" and 'lesser jihad' lacks any historical basis. The idea that the greater jihad is the ascetic struggle against evil inclinations, for virtue and self-improvement, as advocated by some Sufis, and that the lesser jihad is a defensive struggle against the enemies of Islam, is pure illusion. Omar Abdel-Rahman, leader of the terrorist organization al-jama'a al-islamiyyaHe rejected it as ridiculous in an extensive dissertation at the University of al-Azhar. Islam has this militant dimension. It does not have to express itself always and everywhere in a warlike jihad, but the objective of the conquest of the world does not disappear for that reason.
Let's talk for a moment about religious freedom, and violence and the threat of violence, jihadism. What is your thesis?
- Religious freedom is ultimately the crucial issue. A democracy cannot do without it. However, a democracy can only guarantee it if its citizens are inwardly convinced of the value of this freedom. Ernst-Wolfang Böckenförde, the late German constitutional judge, once succinctly said: "The liberal, secularized state lives on preconditions that it cannot guarantee itself.
Therefore, if more and more people among us do not recognize this freedom, it will erode and may even disappear altogether at some point. We also see this with other rights that are increasingly eroded for other reasons (freedom of conscience, right to life, freedom of expression).
Muslim immigrants are often the first victims of the decline in the number of immigrants. freedom of religion. The social pressure and threat of violence to which they are exposed is making it impossible for them in countless European cities to exercise their religious freedom and, possibly, to move away from Islam and towards other religions.
Your book indicates that it is important to distinguish between the doctrine of Islam (normative dimension), and the followers of Islam (effective dimension). Many Muslims in Western countries do not practice their religion and would not want to live under an Islamic regime. Is this the case?
- Islamic norms can hardly be reformed. The inviolability of the Koran, tradition and the weight of history are insurmountable mortgages. However, many Muslims in Europe often have only a vague idea of Islam and invent something that they then sell as "the" Islam. They try to adapt and meander between their traditional beliefs and the comforts of modern consumer society. They represent the silent majority who neither desire Islamic rule nor go to holy war.
However, fundamentalist believers, in particular, are attempting to take control of interpretation and reach a staggering number of rootless and meaning-seeking youth through modern communication platforms. Surveys indicate that an alarmingly high number of young people desire an Islamic order under Shariah. Unfortunately, history teaches us that small and well-organized groups can achieve a lot. We must be vigilant.
Two questions to conclude. First, you do not believe in a process of "softening Islam and its doctrine", because, following Rémi Brague, the difference between Islamism and so-called moderate Islam is one of degree, rather than of nature.
- Islam cannot be weakened without denaturing it. Those who truly believe that the Koran was revealed by Allah in pure Arabic have little room for interpretation. The so-called fundamentalist Muslims are, therefore, more coherent Muslims. They organize their lives entirely according to the Koran and make no concessions, even if this irritates our sensibilities. In my opinion, Rémi Brague sums it up well. Islam and Islamism are two varieties of the same religion, both with the intention of submitting the world to the rule of Allah. They differ only in the choice of means and in the patience to achieve this goal, but not in their content.
Second issue, and last question. The West is weak intellectually and, above all, spiritually, and Islam is expanding. His thesis is that we are facing a great opportunity for the old continent, and for Christians, to deepen our history, our fundamental values and our Christian roots. How to achieve this?
- It would be too easy to stigmatize Muslims and Islam. Despite its highly problematic and frightening aspects, the presence of Islam offers us a good opportunity to become aware of the specificity of the Christian worldview. Islam is a wake-up call to bourgeois Christianity and to the countless non-Christians or ex-Christians.
Our culture continues to be strongly characterized by Christian ideas, which are reflected in everyday life and in our political institutions. The Christian foundations of the West and their very specific manifestations are today threatened, on the one hand, by Islam and various dictatorships, which reject these foundations, and on the other hand, by a secular, indifferent or even anti-religious "elite" that wants to get rid of these foundations. The intellectual debate with Islam is an opportunity to take the Christian heritage seriously instead of managing it like a museum.
