IN the preceding sections of this series we examined how Frithjof Schuon was prepared to ascribe validity to those religions which emerged out of an earlier form. As a result, we shall now set aside the Jewish faith and focus on the differing viewpoints of Christianity and Islam.

Schuon asks what it is that actually constitutes their respective “points of view,” reminding his readers that whilst in the physical world it is possible to view an object from various angles – thus providing the observer with a slightly different perspective each time – the object itself remains the same:

Now if everybody admits that such is the case in the physical world, which is but a reflection of spiritual realities, how can it be denied that the same relations exist or rather pre-exist in the spiritual realm? Here, the heart organ of Revelation, corresponds to the eye; the Divine Principle, dispenser of light to the sun; the Intellect to light; and the Realities or Divine Essences to the objects of vision. (p.106)

Unlike the individual, who always retains his or her particular way of viewing something in the physical world, spirituality is more transcendent to the degree that it does not remain passive.

Establishing correspondences between religions in a superficial context is next to useless, Schuon insists, because although it may be interesting from the perspective of Comparative Religion one cannot examine the purely external facets without taking into consideration the internal aspects at the same time:

In order to grasp a religious point of view, it is necessary to perceive the unity by which all its constituent elements are necessarily coordinated; this unity is the unity of the spiritual point of view that is the germ of the particular Revelation. Needless to say, the first cause of a Revelation cannot be assimilated to a point of view any more than light can be said to depend on the spatial situation of the eye; what constitutes every Revelation is the encounter of a unique Light with a limited and contingent sphere, which represents as it were a plane of spiritual reflection, in the absence of which there could be no question of Revelation. (p.107)

It is further argued that the Western mentality is essentially Christian, even to the extent that it can remain relatively untouched by ideologies. Despite the imperfections that increase in accordance with each new generation, that which is inherited from two thousand years of spiritual belief has shaped Occidental psychology to the extent that it is often apparent in a more unconscious regard. Consider for a moment, if you will, the fact that both the architects and modern adherents of Communism present their political ideals as something that is diametrically opposed to Christianity. In reality, and the examples are those of the present writer, the two belief-systems have a mutual adherence to what may be described as the linear version of history. This flows in a vertical fashion and relies on several developmental stages: so-called Primitive Communism may therefore be equated with the primordial bliss of the Garden of Eden; the violence of the Crucifixion with Capitalist oppression; the Second Coming of Christ with the tumultuous nature of Marxist insurrection; and, finally, the reward of Heaven with the attainment of Communist Utopia.

As Schuon notes, it is possible to identify a deep-rooted collectivity in the way that the Western psyche reacts to Islam and this applies to both Christians and non-Christians alike. Indeed, it betrays a certain universality:

Even the errors of philosophy would not be conceivable if they did not represent the negation of certain truths, and if those errors were not direct or indirect reactions against certain formal limitations of religion; from which it can be seen that no error, whatever may be its nature, can lay claim to complete independence with regard to the traditional conception that it rejects or disfigures. (p.108)

A religion is not a haphazard assemblage of “arbitrary conventions,” he argues, but a spiritual organism. Externally, it appears as a social phenomenon, but internally things are far more teleological in that there is a profoundly Divine influence.

Moving on, when it comes to comparing and contrasting the elements of Christianity and Islam we must take into consideration the misapplication of certain terminology:

The habitual want of comprehension of the ordinary representatives of either religion with regard to the other extends to almost insignificant details, such as, for instance, the term “Mohammedan” applied to Moslems, an expression that is an improper transposition of the term “Christian.” The latter expression is perfectly applicable to the adherents of a religion that is based on Christ and that perpetuates Him in the Eucharist and the Mystical Body. The same does not however, apply to Islam, which is not based directly on the Prophet but on the Koran, thus on an affirmation of Divine Unity, and which does not consist in a perpetuation of Mohammed but in a ritual and legislative conformity of man and society to the Koranic Law and therefore to Unity. (pp.108-109)

Schuon also highlights the case that whilst Christianity relies on “facts,” Islam is based more on “ideas” and thus circumnavigates the West’s strong reliance upon history. For Christians, everything revolves around specific events such as the Incarnation, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, while Muslims are purely focussed on Allāh as the Divine principle. As the Swiss himself explains, the

idea of God made Man is at the centre of Christian doctrine; the Son, Second Person of the Trinity, is man universalized; Jesus Christ is God individualized. Islam does not give the same predominance to the mediator, the latter does not absorb everything, and it is exclusively the monotheistic conception of Divinity that takes the central place in Islamic doctrine and dominates it throughout. (p.109)

It is suggested that Christians (not to mention Jews) may look upon this Islamic interpretation as an exercise in pleonasm, i.e. an attempt to embroider a more superior image of their own religion, but Schuon is adamant that such an approach has been formed wholly by Revelation and is not a consequence of Muslims trying to outdo their spiritual predecessors.

Unlike Islam, which is centred on an all-encompassing Divine Unity, Christianity has never been able to impose itself upon human society in the same fashion. The laity, for example, has always performed a very passive role in the religion and yet within the Islamic world

every man is his own priest by the mere fact of being a Moslem; he is the patriarch, imām, or caliph of his family; in the latter is reflected the entire Islamic society. Man is in himself a unity; he is the image of the Creator whose vicar (khalifah) he is on earth; he cannot accordingly be a layman. (p.110)

The individual, the family and the entire Muslim society are therefore part of that same Divine Unity, a deeply practical experience that simply fails to manifest in Christian relations to the same extent. By contrast, Schuon presents Christianity’s message of Redemption as a form of “polytheism” in terms of its non-incorporation within the fullness of the Divine. It certainly appears as an important theoretical device, but the religion’s dependence upon the aspects of the Holy Trinity means that God involves himself in the affairs of the world. Within the Islamic religion, of course, the Divine strategy involves maintaining unity at the highest level:

God affirms Himself by His Unity; He does not become incarnate by virtue of an inner distinction, nor does He redeem the world. He absorbs it through Islām. He does not descend into manifestation. He projects Himself therein, as the sun projects itself through its light; and it is this projection that permits humanity to participate in Him. (p.111)

Whilst it would be difficult to deny that the Bible is written in the form of a history, advocates of the Qur’an would argue that their holy book is composed in the Arabic language of Revelation. The former, which is no longer a Semitic text, appears foreign by comparison and is certainly not in keeping with the language spoken by Jesus and His Apostles. Christians, in response, will argue that Muhammad is nothing more than a man but for Muslims he is completely subordinate to the Qur’an itself.

Christianity is a “centre,” Schuon says, whilst Islam is an indivisible “block” in which each individual is autonomous and yet still completely united with his or her religious brethren. The difference between the two seems to involve the notion that the latter has the ability to penetrate more deeply into the heart and soul of its adherents:

The faith of a Christian is of another nature: it attracts and absorbs the soul rather than enfolding and penetrating it. Regarded from the Moslem point of view, which concerns us here, the Christian is only linked to his religion through the sacraments; he is always in the position of being relatively excluded and he maintains at all times a receptive attitude. In the supreme symbol of Christianity, the Cross, its arms branch off indefinitely from the centre while remaining connected with it; the Kaaba, on the other hand, is reflected as a whole in the least of its parts, each one of which, by its substance and internal cohesion, is identical with the other parts and with the Kaaba itself. (p.112)

In a wider context, Schuon does not discount the idea that there are a great many similarities between Christianity and Islam but warns against applying a narrowly syncretistic approach. Syncretism, he suggests, does nothing more than reduce the value of each religion under consideration, whilst any faithful comparison between the two must involve studying both the external and internal aspects.

* * *

Now that Schuon has dealt with the respective character of Islam and Christianity as religious organisms, he seeks to address their “spiritual possibilities”. These, he tells us, are identical in principle and thus by examining them we set aside the comparatively minor issue of which religion has more to offer the seeker. Indeed, whilst in an exoteric setting there are certain aspects of each religion that may be regarded as either superior or inferior to one another, once we begin to study their spiritual potential we are dealing with the fundamental nature of Essence.

This spiritual dynamism may be seen in the manner that each religion has sought to conduct its earthly affairs and the underlying Essence serves as the driving force. Schuon provides us with a practical, yet contentious, example:

This explains why it has been permissible for Moslems from the very beginning to employ a human means such as war to establish their religious world, whereas in the case of Christianity several centuries had to elapse after the apostolic times before it became possible to use the same means, which is, moreover, indispensable for the propagation of a religion. As for the wars engaged in by the Companions of the Prophet they represented ordeals undergone in view of what might be called the elaboration—or the crystallization—of the formal aspects of a new world. Hatred did not enter in, and the holy men who fought in this manner, far from fighting against individuals and for human interests, did so in the spirit of the teaching of the Bhagavad-Gītā; Krishna enjoined upon Arjuna to fight not out of hatred nor even to conquer, but in order to fulfill his destiny as an instrument of the Divine plan and without attaching himself to the fruits of his actions. (p.114)

Although this may appear to contradict what Schuon said about the exterior trappings of a religion being less important than its spiritual wherewithal, he is insistent that violent struggles and holy wars – at least if undertaken as part of a Divine plan of action – determine precisely how a religious form will take shape upon the earth and represent a healthy rivalry between what may be regarded as “possibilities of manifestation”. As he continues:

It was in the nature of Islam and of its mission that it should from the beginning have placed itself on political ground so far as its outward affirmation was concerned, whereas such an attitude would not only have been entirely contrary to the nature or mission of primitive Christianity, but also completely unrealizable in an environment as solid and stable as that of the Roman Empire. However, once Christianity had become a state religion, it was not merely able but even bound to enter the political arena in exactly the same way as Islam. (p.115)

Even amid the tribal chaos and geographical disruption that followed the death of the Prophet in 632 A.D., it was not a question of spiritual decay but of error on the battlefield of Arab politics. Furthermore, it remains the case that erroneous human actions – responsible for the bitter division between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims – were nonetheless permitted to manifest in this way as a result of Divine Will.

Realistically, all one really needs to establish is whether Muhammad was inspired by God. Whether he was better or worse than Jesus is neither here nor there:

When one remembers that it was God who allowed polygamy to the Hebrews and commanded Moses to have the population of Canaan put to the sword, it is clear that the question of the morality of such conduct is in no way involved; what alone counts in every case is the fact of the Divine Will, the object of which is invariable, but the means or modes of which vary by reason of the Infinity of its Possibility and secondarily, because of the limitless diversity of contingencies. (pp.115-116)

Needless to say, whilst the adaptation of a religion is heavily shaped by the mitigating circumstances of its immediate environment its followers must devote themselves to implementing the tenets of their Revelation as they see fit. Whenever the earthly and heavenly realms accord with one another, the principle of Divine Will is able to come to fruition.

Schuon believes that if Muhammed were the Antichrist, as many Christians claim, then the Bible would have referred to the astonishing phenomenon of Islam more specifically. In addition, he contends that the Prophet is far more likely be the Paraclete (παράκλητος). In other words, the “advocate” or “helper” that is commonly identified as the Holy Spirit. In the same vein, this

reasoning excludes a priori the possibility that Christ when making his predictions, intended to include Mohammed under the general de-nomination of “false prophets,” for in the history of our era Mohammed is in no sense a typical example among others of the same kind, but on the contrary, a unique and incomparable apparition. If he had been one of the false prophets announced by Christ he would have been followed by others, and there would exist in our day a multitude of false religions subsequent to Christ and comparable in importance and extension to Islam. The spirituality to be found within Islam from its origins up to our days is an incontestable fact and “by their fruits ye shall know them.” (pp.116-118)

Christians, we are told, are also rather critical of the sensual character of Islam and this is a direct result of having a different approach to morality. This is not to suggest that Muslim sexuality is degenerate or licentious, of course, only that it transcends the puritanical supposition that such activity is “sinful” and prefers to be associated with what Schuon terms the “cosmic” dimension of the religion:

In other words, sexuality can have a noble aspect just as it can have one that is impure. To speak in terms of geometric symbolism it may be considered in a vertical as well as a horizontal sense; the flesh is impure in itself, with or without sexuality, and the latter is noble in itself, in or out of the flesh. This nobility of sexuality derives from its Divine Prototype, for “God is Love.” In Islamic terms one would say that “God is Unity,” and that love, being a mode of union (tawhīd), is for that reason a way of conforming to the Divine Nature. Love can sanctify the flesh, just as the flesh can debase love. (p.119)

Christian marriage, on the other hand, being one of the most important sacraments, involves a complete reversal of this opinion and the act of love – at least for the purposes of procreation – is viewed as a Divine act.

* * *

At this point in the proceedings, Schuon decides to compare the figures of Christ and Mohammad as they have become manifest upon the earth. The supreme character of their divine character is not open for debate and the Swiss is purely concerned with their respective roles as “God-men”. Besides, at the uppermost level the interior natures of both the Messiah and the Prophet are completely identical. This principle can be found in a number of spiritual traditions and may therefore be applied in a wider context:

Meister Eckhart has expressed this identity in the following terms: “Everything that the Holy Scriptures say about Christ is equally true of every good and divine man,” that is to say, of every man who possesses the plenitude of spiritual realization, both in the sense of breadth and of height. Again, Shri Ramakrishna says: “In the Absolute I am not and thou art not and God is not for It is beyond speech and thought. But so long as anything exists outside myself, I ought to adore Brahma, within the limits of the mind, as something existing outside myself”; this explains, on the one hand, how it was that Christ could pray, though being himself Divine, and on the other hand, how it was possible for the Prophet while unmistakably man by reason of the particular mode of his manifestation, to be at the same time Divine in his inward reality. (pp.119-120)

In addition, whilst Jesus appears in the exoteric realm as a manifestation of the Divine – thereby embodying an esoteric principle in the most literal sense – the Prophet begins to approach similar levels of spiritual efficacy by having revealed the Qur’an. Schuon presents the corresponding role of Muhammad as a “degree of inspiration” that managed to exert an impact comparable to Christ.

An interesting link can also be traced from the Prophet to the Virgin Mary, who brought the Divine message into the world in Her own particular way. Each, respectively, is an example of the “passive aspect of universal Existence” and this is suggested by the “immaculate” identity of the Virgin and the “illiterate” – or completely untainted – nature of Muhammad. Furthermore, Schuon claims that

the particular state in which the Prophet was immersed at the time of the Revelations is directly comparable to that of the Virgin when carrying or giving birth to the Child Jesus. However by reason of his Prophetic function, in the highest meaning of the term, Mohammed is also more than the Virgin, and when he utters the Koranic suras, or more generally whenever the “Divine Ego” speaks through his mouth, he is directly identified with the Christ who is Himself what the Revelation is for the Prophet and whose every word is consequently Divine Speech. (pp.121-122)

Unlike the Virgin Mary and the more earthly dimension of Christ, therefore, the Prophet is not an ordinary man and has been described as a “jewel among stones”.

The reasoning behind Schuon’s portrayal of Mary and Muhammad as an example of the “passive aspect of universal Existence” (Prakriti), and something that is quintessentially feminine, rests on the idea that they

incarnate a fortiori the beneficent and merciful aspect of Prakriti, namely Lakshmi (the Kwan Yin of the Far Eastern Tradition), and this explains their essential function as intercessors, and accounts for names such as “Mother of Mercy” (Mater Misericordiae) and “Our Lady of Perpetual Help” (Nostra Domina a perpetuo succursu), as well as the names given to the Prophet such as “Key to God’s Mercy” (Miftah Rahmat Allah), “Merciful” (Rahīm), “Healer” (Shāfi), “Remover of Grief” (Kashif al-Kurab), “Effacer of Sins” (‘Aftiw), and “Most Beautiful Creation of God” (Ajmal Khalq Allah). If it be asked what relationship exists between this mercy, this pardon, or this beneficence and universal Existence, we would reply as follows: since Existence is undifferentiated, virgin, or pure in relation to its productions, it is able to reabsorb in its undifferentiation the differentiated qualities of things; in other words, the disequilibriums of manifestation are always capable of being integrated in the principial equilibrium. (pp.122-123)

There is no human agency involved with either the Prophet or the Virgin when it comes to giving birth to their respective disclosures, be it as passive receptacle of the Christian Incarnation or equally passive messenger of the Islamic Revelation.

Due to the earth-shattering repercussions of His Message, it seems fair to say that Muhammad is closer in nature to Jesus than the Virgin. Islam, it must be remembered, also finds room for the figure of Christ within its own theology but the Prophet always retains prominence over His counterpart as a result of having communicated the Divine Word. Christ, of course, was the consequence of a Revelation – even if His life became an extension of that same Revelation. Muhammad, however, is the “Seal of the Prophets” who has since closed the revelatory cycle for His followers. For Muslims, then, Revelation is everything and this

explains why Islam does not attach the same importance as Christianity to the miracles of Christ. In fact all the Messengers, including Mohammed, have performed miracles (mu’jizat); the difference in this respect between Christ and the other Messengers is that only in the case of Christ does the miracle possess a central importance, being wrought by God “in” the human support and not merely “through” this support. (p.124)

It is not so much the activities of these “God-men” that define who they are, especially in the case of Muhammad, but the actual mission itself:

It might be said that the particularity of Christianity consists in the fact that it is based first and foremost on a miracle, which is perpetuated in the Eucharist whereas Islam is essentially based on an Idea, supported by human means, though with Divine aid, and perpetuated in the Koranic Revelation of which the ritual prayer is as it were a ceaselessly renewed actualization. (p.125)