Hilaire Belloc: Islam's a heresy of Christianity

Charlotte Observer ^ | 5.17.04

[ambrose]

Posted on Mon, May. 17, 2004

Hilaire Belloc: Islam's a heresy of Christianity Poet and historian saw continuing -- and dangerous -- vitality in the Muslim faith

TOM ASHCRAFT

Special to the Observer

Americans have had the luxury of being far removed from the centuries-old turmoil of the Islamic world. Because of the war in Iraq and other events, however, that is a luxury we no longer enjoy.

Several informative books on Islam have recently come out, including Srdja Trifkovic's "The Sword of the Prophet," Karen Armstrong's "Islam: A Short History" and Michael Sells' "Approaching the Qur'an." But perhaps the most succinct, insightful views, especially for Christians, were written about 70 years ago by Hilaire Belloc.

Belloc (1870-1953) was a French-born poet, writer and historian. Educated at Oxford and a naturalized British subject, he served from 1906 to 1910 as a member of the British House of Commons. His wife, Elodie Hogan, was an American from Napa, Calif.

In the 1930s he wrote "The Great Heresies," a history of what Belloc, a Catholic, deemed the five main heresies since the advent of Christianity. In the second slot, between Arianism (fourth century) and Albigensianism (12th-13th centuries), he put "The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed."

A heresy outside the Church

Unlike other heresies, he wrote, Islam was the only one to arise outside rather than within the Church. He said Mohammed, a camel driver, sprung from pagans of the "Arabian wilderness." As is well known, Mohammed was born about 570 in Mecca and later fled to Medina, both in present-day Saudi Arabia.Belloc says that, rejecting pagan notions, Mohammed insisted upon ideas which were at the heart of Christianity: the unity and omnipotence of God; God's personal nature, all-goodness, timelessness and providence; his power as the origin of all things and his sustenance of all things by his power alone; the world of good spirits and angels and of evil spirits in rebellion against God, with a chief evil spirit; the immortality of the soul and its responsibility for actions in this life, with punishment and reward coming after death.

Mohammed, Belloc says, "gave to Our Lord [Jesus] the highest reverence. ... On the day of judgment ... it was Our Lord, according to Mohammed, who would be the judge of mankind, not he, Mohammed. The Mother of Christ, Our Lady, `the Lady Miriam,' was ever for him the first of womankind."

As described by Belloc, a heresy is the "dislocation of some complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein." But it has "creative power" and survives by the truths it retains. The novelty introduced by Mohammed was "a full denial of the Incarnation."

Belloc says, "He taught that Our Lord was the greatest of all the prophets, but still only a prophet: a man like other men. He eliminated the Trinity altogether." Islam was thus founded upon an alluring "simplification" of the Christian creed.

An astonishing success

After Mohammed's death in 632, Islam became an astonishing success in the Mideast, then swept west across north Africa, and overtook the Iberian peninsula and part of France, before being stopped by Charles Martel near Poitiers in 732. According to Belloc, this happened not only because Muslims won military battles in Christian lands but also because their ideas were ripe for social victory.

In the early Middle Ages, the Greek-Roman world of the eastern Mediterranean, Belloc says, had become a "tangle wherein the bulk of men were disappointed and angry and seeking for a solution to the whole group of social strains." Belloc specifically points to widespread indebtedness, usury, slavery, endless Christian theological controversy, heavy imperial taxation and control, and "the tyranny of the lawyers and their charges."

Enter Islam. In theory it promised -- for those affirming Mohammed as the prophet of God with divine authority -- freedom for the slave, an end to usury and debt, elimination of imperial taxation, justice without buying it from lawyers, the brotherhood and equality of man under Allah. In short, Islam seemed to offer "a new spirit of freedom and relaxation."

Belloc points out that unlike most heresies, Islam, whose military power has waxed and waned, never lost its internal vitality. He says, "Missionary effort has had no appreciable effect upon it. It still converts pagan savages wholesale." It retains the Quran, "its organized system of prayer, its simple doctrine."

In such continuing vitality Belloc saw recurring danger for the West. Writing in the mid-1930s, he predicted the possibility of "that terror under which we lived for centuries reappearing." He worried about a future "revival of Mohammedan political power, and the renewal of the old pressure of Islam upon Christendom." Belloc never claimed to be a prophet, but his worries have arrived in our day.

Tom

Ashcraft

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observer columnist Tom Ashcraft is a Charlotte lawyer. Write him c/o The Observer, P.O. Box 30308, Charlotte, NC 28230-0308, or at TAshcraft@compuserve.com.

[Steve_Seattle]

Belloc was an interesting character and an engaging writer - there are few Catholics left like him - but his scholarship is often criticized by left-leaning Catholics, among others. Since Mohammed was never a Christian to begin with, I'm not sure it is helpful to call Islam a Christian heresy. However, there were Christians at the time of Mohammed who took the same view as Belloc.

[Spirited]

God never called Ishmael a bastard and the culture of the day allowed a man to have an heir in just the way Ishmael was born and it was not and cannot be considered illegitimate. Sarai gave Hagar to Abram "to be his wife".
"Gen 16:3 And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife."

In fact among the sons of Jacob/Israel a number were by the servants of his wives are they also bastards?

God went to a lot of trouble to preserve whom you call a "bastard" son of Abraham.
Gen 21:17 And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he [is].

Gen 21:18 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation.

Gen 21:19 And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.

Gen 21:20 And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.

Gen 21:21 And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt."

God recorded (Gen. 25) the names of the sons of Ishmael and did not dishonor them of whom by His own promise He "would make a great nation".

Hagar was Egyptian and many times God saved the "oracle people" even the progeny of Jacob/Israel (including Jesus) by sending them into Egypt as a place of refuge.

We may not like what the sons of Ishmael did with their gifts from God but we do not have the freedom to accuse Ishmael in an unrighteous manner. The Word requires us to judge righteous judgment.

If you ask an Ishmaelite who is his father, he is likely to know that it is Abram. Our question then becomes why he and his people no longer serve or honor the God of Abram.

The servants of Allah are reprehensible enemies of the children of the living God but see it or not Our God Reigns!

[birg]

re:between Arianism (fourth century) ..

I guess that group could also consider aspects of Christianity (Roman) as heretical regarding issues of Mary.

[NYer]

In the early Middle Ages, the Greek-Roman world of the eastern Mediterranean, Belloc says, had become a "tangle wherein the bulk of men were disappointed and angry and seeking for a solution to the whole group of social strains." Belloc specifically points to widespread indebtedness, usury, slavery, endless Christian theological controversy, heavy imperial taxation and control, and "the tyranny of the lawyers and their charges."

As the French would say - The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list

[johnb2004]

Islam is just a cheap ripoff of Christianity.

[vanmorrison]

Let's forget all of this new age nitpicking about what to call these heretics. I'll stick with the terms that Belloc used, such as Moslem, Mohammedanism, and just plain Murderers.

[js1138]

Indiana Jones never trusted Belloc.

[Restorer]

The Arian "heresy" never was particularly popular in the East, where Islam spread fastest.

The Nestorian and Donatist "heresies," which had other areas of similarity with Islam, were a lot more popular in Syria, Egypt and North Africa.

The only area that Islam conquered early on that was significantly Arian (that I'm aware of) was Spain.

[what's up]

My understanding was that the seeds of Arianism were taught by Lucian, who was from Antioch and this is where the original Arian teachers were educated.

Arius himself was a priest of Alexandria. It was there that he had the hot controversy with the bishops, one of whom was Athanasius, his primary opponent.

The big council was in Nicea, but my understanding is that most of the belief and teaching was from the East.

[Restorer]

My understanding is that the Arian controversy among native Christians in the Eastern part of the Empire was over before 400, a long time before Mohammed showed up.

There were still Arians around for a long time after this, but most of them were barbarian invaders such as Goths and Vandals. The Franks took their first big step towards dominating western Europe when they converted under Clovis to the "orthodox" form of the Christian faith, gaining allies among the church and natives.

I've been unable to find any references to Arianism being active in the East or in North Africa in the time of Mohammed or his immediate successors.

[what's up]

Right...I was responding to your point that Arianism was never popular in the East; for the reasons I posted above, I believe it was.

The Vandals in North Africa were Arians. They were conquered by Justinian about 100 years before the Muslim invasion. Shortly after, Spain's king also converted from Arianism to Catholicism (both took place in the 500's).

It's true that Arianism was not a major religion in either place when the Muslims invaded; however, the seeds of heretical trinitarian teaching had taken root which I believe was fertile ground for Islamic teaching.

[F.J. Mitchell]

"because Islamics are bastards."

Not to mention SOB's and MF's!!

[Victoria Delsoul]

Belloc points out that unlike most heresies, Islam, whose military power has waxed and waned, never lost its internal vitality. He says, "Missionary effort has had no appreciable effect upon it. It still converts pagan savages wholesale." It retains the Quran, "its organized system of prayer, its simple doctrine."

That's what it is, indeed.

[TexanToTheCore]

bttt