OUR ARGUMENT OVER PAUL was not the only time David and I butted heads. Our emotions often got heated as we spoke about our core beliefs. The more important an issue on which we disagreed, the more likely it was that one of us would say something rash. Intense disagreements are bound to lead to intense emotions.
But it didn’t matter how rough our relationship got, because we were living life together. Even if we were at our wits’ end, vowing in moments of anger to never deal with one another ever again, we would be forced to smooth things out when we ran into each other in forensics practice later that week. Or in class the next day. Or, in the case of our argument about Paul, just twenty minutes later, because David needed a ride.
This is only one of the reasons why a strong friendship is critical. A surface-level relationship might snap under the tension of disagreement, but by living our lives together, we were forced to reconcile.
Of course, beyond mere proximity, we really did love and care for one another. Like true brothers, even after our biggest knockdown, drag-out arguments, we were still brothers. Love covers a multitude of sins.
There was a benefit to our arguments, surprisingly. They showed us where points of tension were hiding beneath the surface, needing to be addressed. One such issue that constantly bubbled to the surface was that of the Trinity. As with the doctrine of Jesus’ deity, a strong aversion to the Trinity was woven into my Muslim identity and made for a latent land mine.
The core doctrine of Islam is Tauheed. A whole field of Islamic theology is dedicated to this topic, so it is difficult to encapsulate, but essentially Tauheed is the doctrine of God’s oneness. This is not merely an affirmation of monotheism but a thoroughgoing cultivation of the concept of God’s absolute unity. God’s essence, or the very thing that makes Him God, is that He is one: independent, unique, sovereign, set apart, and completely unified. There can be no division within Him whatsoever.
Tauheed: The Islamic doctrine of Allah’s absolute unity and self-reliance
Distilling this theology in the context of Muslim-Christian dialogue boils down to this: Tauheed, Islam’s most fundamental principle, is antithetical to the Trinity.
Growing up in an ostensibly Christian nation, my Muslim elders galvanized me against the Trinity. I can recall many jumaa khutbas, classes at youth camps, religious education books, and Quran study sessions dedicated to rebutting the Trinity. They all taught the same thing: the Trinity is thinly veiled polytheism.
Roughly, they taught me to see the Trinity like this: Christians want to worship Jesus in addition to God, but they know there is only one God. So they say God is at the same time both three and one, calling Him a Trinity. Even though this makes no sense, Christians insist it is so. When asked to explain the Trinity, they will say it is a mystery and that it needs to be accepted with faith.
Tauheed, Islam’s most fundamental principle, is antithetical to the Trinity.
As a young Muslim in the West, I set out to test this. Whenever I had a discussion about the Trinity with a Christian, the first question I asked was, “Is the Trinity important to you?” When they replied affirmatively, I asked, “How important?” anticipating the response that it would be heretical to deny the Trinity. The third question completed the setup. I would ask, “So, what is the Trinity?” and would receive the rote answer that God is three in one. Then the coup de grâce: “And what does that mean?” I usually got blank stares. Sometimes people would start talking about eggs or water, but no one ever was able to explain what the doctrine of the Trinity actually meant. Three what in one what? And how is that not self-contradictory?
My questions were not abstruse questions on a peripheral topic. They were simple questions of clarification on essential Christian doctrine, yet no Christian I met growing up was able to answer them. That meant every Christian I encountered bolstered what the Quran had taught me about the Trinity: it was a ridiculous doctrine that merited divine retribution.76
The elders who taught me to see the Trinity in this light ranged from revered imams to learned leaders to my own parents and grandparents. Everyone I loved and respected taught me to reject the Trinity, and that, combined with the inability of Christians to explain it, makes it easy to see why a repulsion to the Trinity was part and parcel of my Islamic identity. The same is true for almost all practicing Muslims.
A repulsion to the Trinity was part and parcel of my Islamic identity.
David and I had a few conversations about the Trinity, and though he answered with more depth and clarity than many other Christians, my mind had been made up well before I met him that the Trinity was unviable. So we butted heads, and as with the issue of Paul, we decided to table the discussion indefinitely.
It was coincidence that the solution came to me while I was sitting next to him in the unlikeliest of places.