According to the post-modernist, all words are nothing than a "grab for power by the writer or speaker." In her book The World Turned Upside Down, Melanie Phillips observes with respect to the postmodernists:
The Temptation of Christ by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1260–1318)
We might compare the post-modernist suggestion with two speakers: Christ, and his words in the New Testament, and Muhammad, and his words in the Qur'an (add the ahadith if you wish).
Christ's words were not a "grab for power." If so, they were, at least from a worldly power point of view, eminently unsuccessful, for they led to his passion, death, and crucifixion. Christ's rejection of the blandishments of power in the third of his temptations (cf. Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13) is the early Church's witness to this characteristic of Christ.
On the other hand, Muhammad's words are without doubt a "grab for power," and an imminently successful one at that.
It would seem that if a claimed prophet's motives are a "grab for power," then the divine warrant of his words are undermined; whereas, if there is no such conflict of interest, and the claimed prophet's words are not a "grab for power," then the message may have some divine warrant. For the message has to go beyond the mouthpiece (and his grab for power) to be attributable to the Other.
Muhammad in this regard fails. His Qur'an is nothing but a "grab for power." Those words of his claimed authentic in the ahadith are nothing but a "grab for power." All the words thereafter by the Muslim ulema is, like their master's words, a "grab for power."
Islam is nothing but a "grab for power."
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*Melanie Phillips, The World Turned Upside Down (London: Encounter Books, 2010), 274.
[P]ostmodern theorists such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Jean-Francois Lyotard maintained that words had no actual meaning than as a grab for power by the writer or speaker.*While I certainly would not place myself in the camp of a postmodernist, there is a certain truth in this observation. Words, it would seem, can be a vehicle for exercising power. We see words thus used by advertisers and marketers, by politicians, by the news media, by the self-ordained censors of political correctness. Words of hate are means to assault. Fighting words cause violence as sure as the strike of a fist.
The Temptation of Christ by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1260–1318)
We might compare the post-modernist suggestion with two speakers: Christ, and his words in the New Testament, and Muhammad, and his words in the Qur'an (add the ahadith if you wish).
Christ's words were not a "grab for power." If so, they were, at least from a worldly power point of view, eminently unsuccessful, for they led to his passion, death, and crucifixion. Christ's rejection of the blandishments of power in the third of his temptations (cf. Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13) is the early Church's witness to this characteristic of Christ.
On the other hand, Muhammad's words are without doubt a "grab for power," and an imminently successful one at that.
It would seem that if a claimed prophet's motives are a "grab for power," then the divine warrant of his words are undermined; whereas, if there is no such conflict of interest, and the claimed prophet's words are not a "grab for power," then the message may have some divine warrant. For the message has to go beyond the mouthpiece (and his grab for power) to be attributable to the Other.
Muhammad in this regard fails. His Qur'an is nothing but a "grab for power." Those words of his claimed authentic in the ahadith are nothing but a "grab for power." All the words thereafter by the Muslim ulema is, like their master's words, a "grab for power."
Islam is nothing but a "grab for power."
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*Melanie Phillips, The World Turned Upside Down (London: Encounter Books, 2010), 274.
