Duke vs. Franklin Graham: Which Christian Spaces Are Off-Limits to Muslim Worship?

Call-to-prayer controversy at university chapel prompts debate over sharing sacred space.

Duke University’s reversal of today’s plan to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer from its historic chapel tower has reinvigorated a debate over shared worship space.

The Durham, North Carolina-based school had authorized Muslim students to recite the three-minute chant from Duke Chapel on Friday, the weekly day of assembly in Islam, but rescinded the decision this week, following criticism and citing a “serious and credible security threat.”

Franklin Graham, whose ministries (Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association) are headquartered in North Carolina, attacked the university’s decision and condemned the use of a Christian space by members of another faith.

“It’s wrong because it’s a different god," Graham said. "Using the bell tower, that signifies worship of Jesus Christ. Using (it) as a minaret is wrong.” Keep reading

While I can see different Christian denominations sharing a worship center, I must question the appropriateness of Muslims sharing with Christians a chapel that was dedicated to Christian worship. As Graham points out, Muslims and Christians do not pray to the same God. Some folks claim that they do on the basis that Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is an Abrahamiac religion. However, the Abraham of the Qur'an is not the Abraham of the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish Bible. (The Isa of the Qur'an is also not the Jesus of the New Testament.) In some parts of the world Allah is also the word Christians use for God. The two religions, however, are quite different in their beliefs, particular in their understanding of the nature and character of God, the person of Jesus, revelation, and salvation. Wiki Islam in its article on Islam and the People of the Book draws attention to how the hadith literature interprets the al-Fatiha ‘The Opening,' a surah that faithful Muslims will recite at least 17 times a day as part of their daily prayers:

Qur'ān (القرآن) is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur'an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind. The best-known chapter of the Qur'an is al-Fatiha ‘The Opening’. This surah is recited as part of all the mandatory daily prayers and repeated within each prayer. A faithful Muslim who said all their prayers would recite this surah at least seventeen times a day, and over five thousand times a year.

The hadith literature make negative references to the Jews and Christians in connection with this surah. Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan and Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali incorporate this within their translation. Ayah 6-7 thus reads "Guide us to the Straight Way. The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians)."

It is remarkable that the daily prayers of every Muslim, part of the core of Islam, include a rejection of Christians and Jews as misguided and objects of Allah’s wrath.

While I am aware of a number of instances where liberal Christians have offered the use of their facilities to Muslims, I am not aware of any instances where even liberal Muslims have offered the use of a mosque to Christians. Muslims view their religion as superior to Christianity and they see in such offers on the part of liberal Christians tacit recognition of the superiority of Islam. Religious pluralism and tolerance is not a part of the Muslim worldview. The accommodation of Islam and its adherents, however, is seen as a part of the natural order of things. After all, Muslims in their perspective are the practitioners of the only true religion. Non-Muslims are infidels. Using the Duke chapel for Muslim prayers is in the same perspective putting the chapel to its rightful use--as a place of Muslim prayer.