Hamza Yusuf
For Hamza Yusuf to say that Christians, “…are not idolaters like that,” exposes how ignorant this ex-Christian, current ‘Giant of Islamic Knowledge,’ really is in Christian creed and practices.
Christians worship images: “Catholic and Orthodox Christians, who have historically, and still currently, comprised the vast majority of Christians, erect statues in their churches, worship images, and pray to icons, including that of Mary’s, calling her ‘The Mother of God.’ To many Christians, Thou shalt not, seems to mean, Thou shalt. This is an example of Christian doctrines being explained in such a way as to start with a Divine Commandment saying, ‘don’t,’ but ending with Christian Dogma somehow saying, ‘do.’ Here is how worship is somehow made different from adoration: ‘Something must be said about Catholic principles concerning the worship of sacred images. … Worship by no means implies only the supreme adoration that may be given only to God. It is a general word denoting some more or less high degree of reverence and honour, an acknowledgment of worth. … We note … that the First Commandment (except inasmuch as it forbids adoration and service of images) does not affect us at all. The Old Law … as far as it is positive law, it was once for all abrogated by the promulgation of the Gospel (Romans 8:1-2; Galatians 3:23-5, etc.; Acts 15:28-9). Christians are not bound to circumcise, to abstain from levitically unclean food and so on. The Third Commandment that ordered the Jews to keep Saturday holy is a typical case of a positive law abrogated and replaced by another by the Christian Church. So in the First Commandment we must distinguish the clauses – ‘Thou shalt not have strange gods before me’, ‘Thou shall not adore them nor serve them’ — which are eternal natural law … from the clause: ‘Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image’, etc. In whatever sense the archaeologist may understand this, it is clearly not natural law, nor can anyone prove the inherent wickedness of making a graven thing; therefore it is Divine positive law. … Since there is no Divine positive law in the New Testament on the subject, Christians are bound firstly by the natural law that forbids us to give to any creature the honour due to God alone, and forbids the obvious absurdity of addressing prayers or any sort of absolute worship to a manufactured image; secondly, by whatever ecclesiastical laws may have been made on this subject by the authority of the Church. The situation was defined quite clearly by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. In its seventh session the Fathers drew up the essential decision … of the synod. In this … they come to the burning question of the treatment of holy images. They speak of real adoration, supreme worship paid to a being for its own sake only, acknowledgment of absolute dependence on some one who can grant favours without reference to any one else. This is what they mean by latreia and they declare emphatically that this kind of worship must be given to God only. It is sheer idolatry to pay latreia to any creature at all … in English by adoration we now always understand the latreia of the Fathers of the Second Nicaean Council. From this adoration the council distinguishes respect and honourable reverence … such as may be paid to any venerable or great person-the emperor, patriarch, and so on. A fortiori may and should such reverence be paid to the saints who reign with God. The words proskynesis (as distinct from latreia) and douleia became the technical ones for this inferior honour. Proskynesis (which oddly enough means etymologically the same thing as adoratio — ad + os, kynein, to kiss) corresponds in Christian use to the Latin veneratio; douleia would generally be translated cultus. In English we use veneration, reverence, cult, worship for these ideas. This reverence will be expressed in signs determined by custom and etiquette. It must be noted that all outward marks of respect are only arbitrary signs, like words; and that signs have no inherent necessary connotation. They mean what it is agreed and understood that they shall mean. … Kneeling in itself means no more than sitting. … Kneeling especially by no means always connotes supreme adoration. People for a long time knelt to kings. The Fathers of Nicaea II further distinguish between absolute and relative worship. Absolute worship is paid to any person for his own sake. Relative worship is paid to a sign, not at all for its own sake, but for the sake of the thing signified. The sign in itself is nothing, but it shares the honour of its prototype … we honour the prototype by honouring the sign. In this case all the outward marks of reverence, visibly directed towards the sign, turn in intention towards the real object of our reverence — the thing signified. The sign is only put up as a visible direction for our reverence, because the real thing is not physically present. … It is this relative worship that is to be paid to the cross, images of Christ and the saints, while the intention directs it all really to the persons these things represent. The text then of the decision of the seventh session of Nicaea II is: ‘We define … with all certainty and care that both the figure of the sacred and life-giving Cross, as also the venerable and holy images … are to be placed suitably in the holy churches of God, on sacred vessels and vestments, on walls and pictures, in houses and by roads; that is to say, the images of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, of our immaculate Lady the holy Mother of God, of the honourable angels and all saints and holy men. For as often as they are seen in their pictorial representations, people who look at them are ardently lifted up to the memory and love of the originals and induced to give them respect and worshipful honour … but not real adoration … which according to our faith is due only to the Divine Nature. So that offerings of incense and lights are to be given to these as to the figure of the sacred and life-giving Cross, to the holy Gospel-books and other sacred objects in order to do them honour, as was the pious custom of ancient times. For honour paid to an image passes on to its prototype; he who worships … an image worships the reality of him who is painted in it. … That is still the stand-point of the Catholic Church. The question was settled for us by the Seventh Ecumenical Council; nothing has since been added to that definition. … The twenty-fifth session of the Council of Trent (Dec., 1543) repeats faithfully the principles of Nicaea II: [The holy Synod commands] that images of Christ, the Virgin Mother of God, and other saints are to be held and kept especially in churches, that due honour and reverence … are to be paid to them, not that any divinity or power is thought to be in them for the sake of which they may be worshipped, or that anything can be asked of them, or that any trust may be put in images, as was done by the heathen who put their trust in their idols … but because the honour shown to them is referred to the prototypes which they represent, so that by kissing, uncovering to, kneeling before images we adore Christ and honour the saints whose likeness they bear. … As an example of contemporary Catholic teaching on this subject one could hardly quote anything better expressed than the ‘Catechism of Christian Doctrine’ used in England by command of the Catholic bishops. In four points, this book sums up the whole Catholic position exactly: ‘It is forbidden to give divine honour or worship to the angels and saints for this belongs to God alone’; ‘We should pay to the angels and saints an inferior honour or worship, for this is due to them as the servants and special friends of God’; ‘We should give to relics, crucifixes and holy pictures a relative honour, as they relate to Christ and his saints and are memorials of them’; ‘We do not pray to relics or images, for they can neither see nor hear nor help us.’ (The Catholic Encyclopedia (Vol. VII, Pg. 670-672) (1910)).” (Jalal Abualrub. 50 Righteous Concepts Brought by Muhammad, Pg., 73-6)