Kuyper on Islam

This is a translation of two excerpts from Abraham Kuyper's “Om de Oude Wereldzee”, originally published in 1908. In the original Dutch, the excerpts are titled “Voorrede” and “Het Raadsel van den Islam”. Kuyper was a Dutch Neo-Calvinist theologian, politician and church leader. He was briefly the prime minister of the Netherlands. Kuyper's two-volume work “Om de Oude Wereldzee” (Around the Ancient Mediterranean Sea) contained his impressions of the Middle East, North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. It was something of a best seller in Holland, probably because little other information in the Dutch language about these areas was available at the time. The excerpts translated here contain Kuyper's more general reflections on Islam, its history and its future. They take the reader far beyond the author's personal travels around Mare Nostrum.

Kuyper 's description of Islam is pretty standard for an educated Christian Westerner of the early 20th century. Islam is fanatical, intolerant, war-prone, sensual, anti-woman, stands on a lower ethical level than Christianity, and recognizes no distinction between religion and politics. His more specifically theological critique argues that Islam, underestimating the sinfulness of humanity, doesn't leave any room for a redeemer or the light of the Holy Spirit. Kuyper is uncomfortable with the fact that Islam replaced Christianity almost everywhere in the Middle East and North Africa. How can the lower replace the higher? How can history go backwards, so to speak?

Kuyper reaches the conclusion that while the Western powers are dominant for now, they have never won the hearts of their Muslim subjects, and never will. Islam will awaken, probably in the form of Pan-Islamism. Only a small minority of the Muslim population will become secularized and Westernized. Christian mission to the Muslims is doomed to failure, since most Muslims will never change their minds. At the time, the predominantly Muslim nation of Indonesia was a Dutch colony, and Kuyper bemoans the lack of missionary progress there. The author never explicitly predicts a global conflict between the Christian (or secular) West and the world of Islam, but this is surely his bottom line.

At the very end of the excerpt, Kuyper writes: “The millions of Christians who came under the rule of the Sultan during the seventh and eighth centuries, have almost all converted to Islam. To the contrary, Muslims who currently are ruled by Christian powers have fully persevered in their faith.” He also says: “But even if Islam for the time being has no chance for world dominion, it will never let go of this ideal. The earthly character of this ideal has put its stamp on all its adherents that can never rise above its contradiction with our culture.”

Kuyper never says what should be done about the mysterious success of Islam, but is confident that somehow it's all part of God's plan. Perhaps the Christians need to be chastised, with Islam being God's method to punish his recalcitrant people? Kuyper never calls Muhammad a fraud, but believes that he had genuine spiritual experiences. He also discusses the Sufis and the Shiites. Apart from its mysticism, another positive trait of Islam is its monotheism. However, being generally on a lower ethical level than Christianity and several centuries behind the West in terms of progress, the overall role played by Islam is nevertheless a negative one. Curiously, “The Mystery of Islam” is translated by a Islamophile and pro-Marxist scholar who nevertheless defines himself as a Kuyperian while constantly “correcting” Kuyper in the notes. This makes for some funny reading!

Unfortunately, the tendencies described by Abraham Kuyper are still present. The Arab Spring, the attempts to introduce Western-style parliamentary systems in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rise of Erdogan in Turkey shows that not even democratization and modernization has affected the common people's belief in (usually conservative) Islam. Even Muslim groups which ally with the Western powers are highly conservative on their home turf. A large minority of Muslims goes further and supports outright militant Islamism. Shia Muslim “Persia” (Iran), which Kuyper wrote off as too weak to be of any consequence, plays a central role in today's Muslim world. On the other hand, Christianity might be stronger in Africa than Islam, a development not foreseen by Kuyper. The translator mentions a meeting with a Black South African who was a Kuyperian!

If you like apocalyptic screeds, “The Mystery of Islam” probably contains too little meat, and the text isn't the most exciting read overall either, but it does raise a few disturbing questions about “the clash of civilizations” (and perhaps the current state of Neo-Calvinism). In the end, I give it three stars.