Craig Considine Fantasizes about Islamic Tolerance

Rice University sociologist Craig Considine’s writings “highlight the compassion, the mercy of Prophet Muhammad” and his seventh-century Islamic community’s “religiously pluralistic society…steeped heavily in religious tolerance.” Uncritically promoting Considine, London-based Minhaj Welfare Foundation spokeswoman Anam Iqbal made this completely counterfactual assessment during an October 26 podcast.

Consdine is a jihad-appeasing, former sports management student, whose confused interfaith views on Islam Muslims themselves have condemned. This fabulist spoke during a virtual tour for his debunked, new book, The Humanity of Muhammad: A Christian View. As previously examined, in this book and elsewhere he has spun Muhammad’s subjugation of the Arabian Peninsula’s Najran Christians into a story of coexistence, a central example of Considine’s “fantasy Islam.”

After Muhammad’s death in 632, Umar ibn al-Khattab, Muhammad’s second caliph or successor, (reigned 634-644), expelled the Najran Christians (and Arabia’s last Jews) from the Arabian Peninsula, Islamic sources relate. The Christians “were indulging in usury,” traditionally prohibited in Islam, “and were also guilty of activities hostile to Islam.” Thus Iqbal’s assertion is absolutely absurd that Christians during Muhammad’s lifetime had “freedom of expression, freedom to practice their faith.”

Yet Considine brushed over such differences with Iqbal, for “Jews, Christians, and Muslims are monotheists” who are “essentially part of the same religious tribe in many ways” and “quite close, we have similar histories.” Specifically, Christianity’s Jesus and Islam’s Muhammad “are really standing for similar values” and the message “we are all part of the same creation.” “In many ways, Islam is kind of the ultimate Abrahamic religion,” Consdine has concluded, given a chronology of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which questionably claims with the other two faiths a common patriarch Abraham.

Among these three faiths, Consdine wondered “why is there all this Islamophobia, even though we are so close theologically.” Coming from a Catholic background, he has even previously stated that studying Islam “really triggered me to return back to my faith.” His studies prompted Iqbal similarly to worry that some people “feel that religions are mutually exclusive almost,” yet the three Abrahamic “legacies almost built up upon one other and there is so much similarity.”

By contrast, modern Muslims themselves promote accounts of the very covenant Muhammad supposedly concluded with the Najran Christians that are far less tolerant towards particularly Jews. The covenant quotes Quran 5:82, such that for Muslims the “most violent of people in enmity for those who believe” are Jews. Meanwhile the “nearest in friendship to those who believe” are “those who say: ‘We are Christians.’”

The covenant accordingly states that the Christians “proved their devotion, united to wage war against the Jews,” as Jewish tribes came to oppose Muhammad’s Muslim community in Medina. The Christians had been ready “to publicize the cause of Allah, to support it, and to defend its apostles.” Contrary to this Jewish rejection of Muhammad’s prophetic claims, the Christians supposedly “had debunked the evidence which the Jews had relied upon in order to deny and hinder my mission.”

Jew hatred correspondingly suffuses Islamic canons, but Considine has tried to argue that the negative Jew image in Islamic scripture merely refers to the particular conflicts of Muhammad’s lifetime. “The Quran is not saying that Jewish people as a whole for eternity should be condemned. The Quran was talking about a given moment,” Considine has stated, and therefore “there’s a lot of historical context.” As in his book, he often relates a hadith or canonical narrative about Muhammad standing for a dead Jew’s funeral procession, but careful analysis of these Islamic accounts refutes Considine’s interpretation of “Respect all of humanity.”

In general, Considine rejects any association of Muhammad and Islam with aggression, despite centuries of jihadist conquests following Islam’s emergence. Considine has dubiously claimed that Muhammad “was not the aggressor” in any of his fighting and only engaged in “defensive battles, preemptive battles.” Mecca’s 630 surrender to Muhammad’s overwhelming deadly force is for Considine merely a “triumphantly and peacefully return to Mecca.”

Considine only briefly concedes that like the Najran Christians, Jews, Christians, and others ravaged by Islamic imperialism throughout history have had to accept a servile status under their Muslim overlords. Among other tribulations, these non-Muslim dhimmis had to pay the humiliating jizya poll tax. The “technicalities with the dhimmi as well and how it relates to the jizya,” Considine has stated, are “kind of touchy issues.”

Much more appealing to Considine are depictions of Muhammad as a spiritual seeker exploring religious with diverse companions. In this vein Considine interprets unverified Muslim accounts of Muhammad’s relationship with Waraqa Ibn Nawfal, the Christian uncle of Muhammad’s first wife, Khadija. These two men “were probably talking about really deep stuff,” Considine has stated.

Someone who undoubtedly talked “about really deep stuff” was Considine’s fellow Catholic, St. John of Damascus (675-753). He had an intimate understanding of Islam, reflecting that he grew up under Muslim rule to become a high-ranking official in the Umayyad caliphate. His writings on heresies offend Considine for their deconstruction of Islam’s errors, but the Vatican named this venerated theologian a doctor of the church in 1890.

Nonetheless, Considine has condemned that John of Damascus “was saying some pretty outrageous things about Muhammad that I think anyone would rightly be concerned with.” Unimpressed by the Damascene (while misdating his writings to the years 637-640), Considine in his magisterial judgment believes that any negative appraisal of Islam is the result of ignorance. Not having met Muslims or studied Islam, many Americans “are not liking something that they have never even tried or never even seen.”

If John of Damascus will not change Considine’s mind, perhaps no one will. He gives every indication of being hopelessly committed to conforming himself to the superficial spirit of the contemporary age. Others would do well to ignore him and rely upon more time-tested authorities.