Dabiq issue 15, specific notes part 2, Trinity
[ by Charles Cameron — following on from Dabiq issue 15, specific notes part 1, Crucifixion ]
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The second part of my two-parter for LapidoMedia on the 15th issue of the Islamic State magazine Dabiq focuses on the Islamic State’s reading of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity in light of the Islamic doctrine of Unity or Tawhid. The post is headlined:
That’s true and important — and you’ll find it in the tail end of my piece — but the main focus, as I said, is Tawhid and Trinity. Here are the opening paras:
Whipping up hatred against the West for religious beliefs it has barely heeded for a century is not without irony.
But in the latest issue of Dabiq magazine, it is clear that IS are doing a better job of reminding the West of its founding faith – while getting most of it wrong – than any amount of papal bulls or clerical press conferences.
The fifteenth issue of the eighty-page glossy takes on the Trinity which classical Islam views as polytheism, and so in contradiction to tawhid, ‘the defining doctrine of Islam’ according to the Oxford Dictionary of Islam.
Tawhid declares that God is one without a second. Shirk, the greatest of sins, is its polar opposite, and means associating anything, even thoughts but especially partners, with God.
The Qur’an Sura 4 verse 171 exhorts Jews and Christians – known as the People of the Book: ‘Do not exaggerate in your religion, nor utter anything concerning God save the truth. Verily the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of God, and His Word, which He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him. So believe in God and His messengers, and say not, “Three.” Refrain! It is better for you, God is only one God.’
This is possibly a reference to the tendency, still evident in remote Christian communities today, to identify the Trinity as Father, Son Jesus and Mother Mary, which is of course blasphemous.
Read the rest on the Lapido site here.
