Non-Muslims Writing About Islam: A Guide and a Warning for the Muslim Reader

For many people, the first book they read about Islam was written by someone who does not believe in it. It may have been set for a university course, picked up from a library shelf, or bought from a bestseller table. These books are often well produced, confidently written and full of footnotes, and they can shape how a reader understands the Qur'an, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and the Companions before that reader has opened a single book by a scholar of Islam.

This article is both a guide and a warning. It sets out what the Qur'an and the Sunnah teach about receiving religious information from outside the religion, the patterns to watch for in books about Islam written from outside it, and a set of questions you can put to any book, by any author, before you trust it.

The Prophet's Instruction When Religion Is Explained by Others

This is not a new situation. Abu Hurayrah narrated:

The people of the Scripture (Jews) used to recite the Torah in Hebrew and they used to explain it in Arabic to the Muslims. On that Allah's Messenger said, "Do not believe the people of the Scripture or disbelieve them, but say:-- "We believe in Allah and what is revealed to us."" (Sahih al-Bukhari 4485)

The Companions were hearing religious texts explained to them by people of another faith, and the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, gave them a rule for it. Do not accept it on the speaker's word, do not reject it on the speaker's identity, and hold fast to what Allah revealed to you. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, and after him Ibn Kathir in the introduction to his tafsir, explained how this works in practice. Reports from the People of the Book fall into three kinds. What agrees with the Qur'an and the Sunnah is accepted, because our own revelation confirms it. What contradicts them is rejected. What neither confirms nor contradicts is neither believed nor denied.

That gives the reader a working rule for any book about Islam written from outside it. The measure is the Qur'an and the authentic Sunnah, not the author's reputation, his university, or how many footnotes he uses.

Verify Before You Accept

Allah says:

O you who have believed, if there comes to you a disobedient one with information, investigate, lest you harm a people out of ignorance and become, over what you have done, regretful. (Surah al-Hujurat 49:6, Saheeh International)

Ibn Kathir mentions, from the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, that this verse came down after a false report about the tribe of Banu al-Mustaliq nearly led to the Muslims marching against them. The command is to investigate a report before acting on it, and the harm it warns against is the harm of acting on bad information. When a book makes a claim about what the Prophet did, what a verse means or what the Companions intended, the reader is commanded to check it, not simply to absorb it.

Be Just, Even With Those You Disagree With

The warning in this article is not a claim that every word a non-Muslim writes about Islam is false. Allah says:

O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm for Allah, witnesses in justice, and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness. And fear Allah; indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what you do. (Surah al-Ma'idah 5:8, Saheeh International)

A non-Muslim historian can date a manuscript accurately, describe a city correctly or translate a document faithfully, and a fact does not become false because of who reported it. Our article Is the Qur'an Preserved? discusses radiocarbon testing carried out at a British university on early Qur'an leaves. The problem is not that such authors can never be right. The problem is that their explanation of what the religion means, what it requires and why, is built on premises a Muslim does not share.

"This Knowledge Is Religion"

Muhammad ibn Sirin, one of the Tabi'in, said:

Indeed this knowledge is faith, so carefully consider from whom you take your faith. (Sahih Muslim, Introduction 26)

Imam Muslim placed this statement at the opening of his Sahih, among the reports on why the scholars began asking about the men who narrate the hadith. It draws the line this article depends on. Reading a non-Muslim's account of a trade route or a dynasty is one thing. Taking the meaning of a verse, the ruling of an act of worship or the creed of the Muslims from someone who does not believe the Qur'an is the word of Allah is another. The first is history. The second is taking your religion from him.

Five Patterns to Watch For

Not every book from outside the religion carries all of these, and some carry none. But they come up often enough that a reader should be able to recognise them.

1. Treating the Qur'an as a human book

If an author begins from the assumption that the Qur'an was composed by a man, every verse then needs a human explanation: a source it was borrowed from, a political situation it responded to, an earlier text it is said to echo. The conclusion is already contained in the starting point. A Muslim reader should notice when a book never once considers that the Qur'an is what it says it is. Our article Is the Qur'an Preserved? answers the most common form of this claim.

2. Dismissing the hadith as later invention

A frequent move is to treat the hadith collections as stories put together centuries after the Prophet and to set aside the science of narrators and chains that the scholars built to test them. Once the Sunnah is removed, the Qur'an can be made to mean almost anything. On why the Sunnah cannot be set aside, see Is the Qur'an Enough? and Shaykh al-Albani's Follow the Sunnah of the Prophet. For how the scholars actually tested narrations, read Hadith Terminology and Classification and al-Khatib al-Baghdadi's Disciples of Hadith.

3. Reading the Companions as politicians

Allah praised the Companions in His Book, and the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, praised his generation above those that came after it (Sahih al-Bukhari 2652). A book that explains their decisions mainly as rivalry and a struggle for power has already departed from that. The reader ends up knowing a great deal about the disputes and very little about the men. For the Companions as Ahl as-Sunnah know them, read The Rights of the Companions and Ibn al-Jawzi's Ranks of the Elite.

4. Presenting what Muslims do as what Islam teaches

Many books describe the practices of a region, a sect or a Sufi order and call the result "Islam". The shrine, the saint and the local custom are presented as the religion, with no attempt to ask whether the Qur'an and the Sunnah support them. A Muslim should keep separate what Allah revealed and what people have done. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah's The Friends of Allah and the Friends of Shaytan shows how the Qur'an itself defines the allies of Allah, against the claims that grew up around shrines and saints.

5. Judging the revelation by the standards of the present day

The last pattern is to take the values of one time and place as the fixed measure and then grade the Qur'an and the Sunnah against them. Jihad, slavery, the rights of women, hijab and apostasy are the usual subjects. The question such books ask is whether Islam meets their standard, never whether their standard meets the revelation. We have answered several of these directly: What Is Jihad in Islam?, Islam and Slavery, Women's Rights in Islam, The Hijab, Apostasy in Islamic Law and Human Rights in Islam.

How to Judge Any Book on Islam

These questions apply to every author, Muslim or not. A book by a Muslim can fail them too, and a reader should put the same questions to it.

• Who wrote it, and what is his creed? Ibn Sirin's rule comes first. Look up the author before you read him. For the authors we carry, our author pages set out who they are, where they studied and who they studied under.
• What does he cite? A verse should come with its surah and number, a hadith with its collection, number and grading, and a scholar's view with his name and the work it comes from. Vague phrases such as "Muslims believe" or "tradition holds" tell you nothing you can check.
• Whose explanation does he use? Does he explain verses and hadith through the Companions and the scholars of Ahl as-Sunnah, or mainly through other writers from outside the religion?
• Does he state the Muslim position fairly before he argues with it? This is the test of Surah al-Ma'idah 5:8 turned on the author. If he cannot describe what the scholars actually say, his critique of it is worth little.
• Is he explaining the religion, or explaining it away? Notice whether each chapter ends with the revelation understood, or with the revelation reduced to something else.

Who Should Read These Books at All?

On reading the altered scriptures of the People of the Book, the scholars drew a clear line. The Permanent Committee and Shaykh Ibn Baz held that ordinary Muslims should not read them, while a person well grounded in knowledge may do so for a sound purpose such as exposing their distortions and refuting them, as gathered in Islam Q&A answer 209007. The same caution applies to a book that explains our own religion from outside it. A student with a firm foundation in aqeedah, tafsir and hadith can read such a book critically, and some must, in order to answer it. A new Muslim, or someone who has never studied the basics, is far better served by building that foundation first.

Where to Start Instead

If you want to learn Islam from those who believe in it and studied it from its sources, begin with creed. Our introduction to Kitab at-Tawheed and our guide to the best aqeedah books for beginners are the place to begin. For the life of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, see the 3 essential seerah books. For the Qur'an and the Sunnah themselves, see our guides to the best tafsir books in English and the best hadith books. If you are new to Islam, our list of books for new Muslims is written for you.

We aim to keep our shelves to authors upon the Qur'an and the Sunnah as the Salaf understood them, and we ask Allah to keep us upon that. Look into any author on our author pages, and if you have a question about a book, ask us on live chat.

Baarakallahu feekum — The Islamic Book Cafe | Portland, Oregon.