To commemorate the Golden Anniversary of Islam in Korea (1955-2005)

International Symposium on Islam and Other Religions in Asia - Coexistence and Cooperation

   Nov. 26 (Sun), 2005                                Sheraton Grande Walkerhill /Hotel Seoul

Methodology for the Da`wah in Japan

Dr. Hassan Ko Nakata

Professor, School of Theology

Doshisha University

Introduction

Historically, Japan had no direct contact with Islam until the Meiji Restoration (1867), which is why Japan has had no Japanese Muslim community until now. The predecessors of Japanese Muslims, like Ahmad Ariga Bunpachiro 有賀文八郎(d.1946), Hilal Yamada Torajiro 山田寅二郎(d. 1957), and Nurullah Tanaka Ippei田中逸平 (d. 1934), did not leave Muslim descendants and we have no Muslim family exceeding three generations except that of the late Hajj Abdulkarim Saito Sekihei斉藤積平 (d.1998).

There is no central body of Islamic organizations in Japan and no reliable statistics on the number of Muslims in Japan, but it is estimated to be around 70,000. The biggest community is Indonesians (20,000) while the number of Japanese Muslims is around 7,000, of whom most are women who converted to Islam through marriage with foreign Muslims. Among these Japanese Muslims, only around 500 are organized under the Japan Muslim Association, the oldest and largest Islamic organization in Japan.

Thus far, Muslims in Japan are the absolute minority and their presence is unnoticed and ignored in Japanese society. The situation is the same within the field of Islamic studies in Japan, where practicing Muslims are a minority among these scholars.

1. Mission of the Prophetic Medinese Da`wah

The first mission of the Islamic call is the establishment of an Islamic order all over the world, not the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam. This Islamic order is called Dar al-Islam in classical Islamic scholarship. After establishing Islamic governance with Shar`iah law in Medina, the call for an Islamic order takes the form of a Prophetic Da`wah. In this Da`wah, non-Muslims can elect to accept Islam or to pay a tax (around $40. per year for the rich) and maintain their religious autonomy. The Prophet Muhammad (SS) decreed that people be called to accept Islam first, then to pay a tax in the case that they reject Islam, then to be fought as the last choice only when they reject payment of the tax. Muslims and non-Muslims are equally guaranteed security of life, property, honor, and freedom of transportation all over the Dar al-Islam, and Muslims are obliged to pay a fixed almsgiving (zakah) and to devote themselves to military service for the cause of Islam, while non-Muslims are only to pay the tax without payment of almsgiving, military service, and any other commitment to the cause of Islam.

When the land is integrated into Dar al-Islam, non-Muslims may keep their religion, while new Muslim converts are required to learn Islam and to begin practicing it gradually in a proper sequence under the guidance of the representative of the Imam or Caliph, the successor of the Prophet Muhammad (SS), as the Prophet (SS) had ordered Mu`adh when he dispatched him to Yemen.

Allah’s Apostle said to Muadh when he sent him to Yemen, “You will go to the people of the Scripture. So, when you arrive there, invite them to testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah, and that Muhammad is His Apostle. And if they obey you in that, tell them that Allah has enjoined on them five prayers in each day and night. And if they obey you in that, tell them that Allah has made it obligatory on them to pay the Zakat, which will be taken from the rich among them and given to the poor among them. If they obey you in that, then avoid taking the best of their possessions, and be afraid of the curse of an oppressed person because there is no screen between his invocation and Allah.”[①]

قال صلّى الله عليه وسلّم لمعاذ:إنك تأتي قوماً من أهل الكتاب فادعوهم إلى شهادة أن لا إله إلاّ الله وأني رسول الله فإن هم أطاعوا لذلك فأعلمهم أن الله قدا فترض عليهم خمس صلوات في كل يوم وليلة  فإن هم أطاعوا لذلك فأعلمهم أن الله افترض عليهم صدقة  تأخذ من أغنيائهم فترد إلى فقراءهم فإن هم أطاعوا لذلك فإياك كرائم أموالهم وتّق دعوة المظلوم فإنه ليس بينها وبين الله حجاب.

As to the Prophetic Medinese Da`wah for inhabitants of the unincorporated region known as Dar al-Harb, these people are invited to come live in Dar al-Islam to find out how Islam is realized there, so as to decide whether they will accept it or not. As Allah says: “And if one of the polytheists seeks protection from you, grant him protection until he hears the word of Allah, then help him attain a place of safety…(وإن أحدُ من المشركين استجارك فأَجِرْهُ حتى يسمع كلام الله ثمّ أبلٍغْه مَأمَنَه ذلك بأنهم قوم لا يعلمون)” (9:6). If he does not accept Islam, he should be returned to Dar al-Harb in safety. If he accepts it, he is to emigrate to Dar al-Islam to live, for the Prophet said: “I am unrelated to any Muslim who lives among polytheists.(أنا بريء من كل مسلم يقيم بين أظهر المشركين)”[②] In this Prophetic Medinese Da`wah, the Muslim community (Ummah) in Dar al-Islam as a whole models how Islamic teachings are to be practiced in all the fields of human life—in the cultural system, social system, economic system, legal system, diplomatic system and so on, aside from their rituals; moreover, the Muslim community should contain new Muslims from the first day of their conversion and afford them the same legal rights and obligations as their fellow Muslims.

2. Muslims in Northeast Asia

Three countries in Northeast Asia—China, Korea, and Japan—share the so-called Confucian civilization and, in the Islamic perspective, are the same in respect of never having been integrated into Dar al-Islam. Islam came to China as early as the Tang唐 dynasty (618-907) with Arabian and Persian traders, around the 8th century. It arrived not through military conquest by the Abbasid Caliphate, but through the emigration of individual Muslim traders.

The Mongol Yuan 元　dynasty (1279-1368) boosted the Muslim presence in China. Muslims in China and from Central Asia served in the Mongol court and they comprised the majority of the second caste, beneath the Mongols themselves. But Central Asian Muslims had little motivation to learn the Chinese language and this hindered closer contact and mutual understanding between Muslims and the Chinese. Only under the policy of restoration of Chinese culture during the Ming　明 dynasty (1368-1644) did Muslims of Central Asian start to assimilate to Chinese culture. From then on, one could speak of “Chinese Muslims” and not merely of “Muslims in China.” Thanks to so-called Huirus回儒, or Muslim Confucians like Wang Daiyu王岱與(d. 1660) and Liu Zhi劉智(d. 1730), Islam became incorporated into Chinese culture, and Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Islam were lumped together as the “four teachings” of China. Muslims had come to be “an integral part of Chinese self-understanding,”[③] while, on the other hand, the Islamic Da`wah reached neither Korea nor Japan because of the national isolation policies of both countries lasting until the 20th century.

Thus, in these East Asian countries the Islamic Da`wah has not been carried out through the collective Prophetic Medinese Da`wah that calls for a total Islamic Order under the guidance of the Imam. In this respect, it is necessary to refer to the method of Da`wah needed in these countries: the Prophetic Meccan Da`wah. The next section takes a general view of the Prophetic Meccan Da`wah.

3. The Prophetic Meccan Da`wah

The Prophet Muhammad (SS) started his Da`wah among his families and close friends first, and did not announce it in public. After establishing a core body of believers, Allah ordered his Prophet to make the Da`wah public. When he started his public Da`wah, he gathered a group of people and asked them whether they would trust him if he said the enemy’s cavalry division had arrived at the foot of the mountain. After confirming that they trusted him, saying they have never heard him lie, he called them to Islam saying that he was warning them against the approach of a severe Punishment. Even before his prophethood, the Prophet Muhammad (SS) had been nicknamed Amin, or ‘the trustworthy’. The Prophetic Meccan Da`wah shows us that we have to start Da`wah among our own families and close friends and that the ‘public’ Da`wah worker should be a person trusted in the society with a faithful group of followers.

Some characteristics of the Prophet’s Meccan revelations can be summarized as follows:

(1)    Meccan revelations start with Yaa aiyuhaa al-nas, or ‘Oh, people’, in contrast to the Medinese Yaa aiyuha alladhiina aamanuu meaning ‘Oh, believers’. This means that the message of Meccan revelations is universal, not restricted to Muslims but for human beings generally. It is a call to accept the existence of the Creator of the universe, His uniqueness, the duty to worship Him, and for social justice and the virtuous life.

(2)    Meccan revelations mainly consist of beliefs about Allah and the Hereafter, moral codes, and some rituals—not, in contrast to Medinese revelations, of socio-political laws.

(3)    In the Meccan period, the Prophet had no political power to enforce his teaching. So he neither forced Islam upon non-Muslims nor coerced Muslims to observe Islamic rules. The Prophetic Meccan Da`wah seeks to show the good example to people, in order that they be influenced on a spiritual level to follow the Prophet voluntarily.

In the Meccan period, even rituals like salah were not yet institutionalized. Muslims did not build their own mosques but gathered to pray in their homes like in the Dar al-Arqam, or went to the holy Ka`bah for prayer; though it was full of idols at that time, they did not destroy them. The first mosque was built at Qubaa’ only after the Prophet emigrated to Medina. Friday congregational prayer, Salah al-Jum`ah, also had not yet been introduced.

Although it is clear that the methodology of Da`wah suitable in East Asia is closer to Prophetic Meccan Da`wah than the Medinese type, it still differs from the Prophetic Meccan Da`wah since there is no authoritative leadership approved universally in East Asia. In the lifetime of the Prophet, there was no disagreement among Muslims about the final source or reference of Islam, which is the Prophet. The authority of the Prophet was vindicated by mu`jizat, or divine miracles, and thus was established among Muslims without dispute. In contemporary East Asia, we have no Muslim Da`wah worker whose authority is unanimously accepted even among Muslims themselves, let alone among non-Muslims.

4. Language of the Da`wah

Allah selected His apostles from among the nations and revealed His message in their own languages. Thus, the Islamic Da`wah should be delivered in the language of the nation to which the Da`wah is aimed. But it is not enough that the language is the nation’s own. Allah could have sent down His scripture to all the people, but he did not do so. To the nations He sent forth apostles drawn from them, bearing His scriptures, in order that the people would be able to understand the meaning of the scripture and learn how to realize its message by explanations and by the paradigmatic conduct of apostles who share their cultural background.

Language is not merely a medley of words but systems of symbols which reflect nations’ worldviews, values, and cultures. Allah sent to the Arab the Arab Prophet Muhammad (SS) with the Arabic Qur’an so that Arabs could understand Allah’s message. In the same manner, Islamic Da`wah must be articulated in each nation’s language by members of its own people who fully understand its culture.

5. Objective of the Islamic Da`wah in Northeast Asia　

There are various texts of Qur’anic verses and Ahadith which prescribe what the conditions of Islam are. Some of them say that whoever accepts the uniqueness of God is a Muslim, and others say that only those who confess both that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is His apostle are Muslims. Based on this, Hanafi jurists have divided the conditions of conversion to Islam according to people's original religious affiliation. If a man is an atheists or a polytheist, mere acceptance of the uniqueness of God makes him a Muslim. If a man is a deist who denies prophecy, approval of the prophethood of Muhammad makes him a Muslim. If a man is a Christian or a Jew, he is not considered a Muslim unless he denies his past affiliation with Christianity or Judaism in addition to accepting the Prophet Muhammad.

In the Islamic perspective, Northeast Asia is not only outside of Dar al-Islam but also its people don’t belong to Ahl al-Kitab, or Judeo-Christian civilization. The cultural background of Northeast Asia is polytheist, and concepts of the Creator of the universe and of prophethood are hardly known. Thus the methodology of Da`wah or the introduction of Islam in Northeast Asia must be different from Europe and America and other Christian countries whose inhabitants are mostly Ahl al-Kitab who already admit the oneness of God and the propethood. In this respect, Hanafi theory of conversion to Islam is useful for clarifying the objective of the Islamic Da`wah in Northeast Asia. That is, if the population of Northeast Asia is polytheist, the primary goal of Islamic Da`wah there should be the propagation of the doctrine of God’s uniqueness and in this stage we should not distract ourselves from this primary task by turning to secondary things. This propagation of the idea of the uniqueness of God is exactly what I try to do as a deputy director of CISMOR (The Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Monotheistic Religions) at Doshisha University. Established in 2003, CISMOR aims for the peaceful coexistence of three monotheistic religions—i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—in the contemporary world.

6. Da`wah in Northeast Asian Context

As we said in Section 4, Islamic Da`wah should be enunciated by those who are well versed in the target nation’s culture in its own language or vocabulary. And if the primary objective of the Islamic Da`wah in Northeast Asia were to be the propagation of the idea of God’s uniqueness, we find a good example in the works of the Huiru, or Muslim Confucians.

Wang Daiyu 王岱與wrote his works in Chinese, which means that his thoughts are expressed in Confucian and Taoist terminologies. So we can easily discover in his Zhengjiao zhenquan正教真詮(Genuine Annotation of the Orthodox Teaching) its “Chinese” character, for he quotes the sayings of Yao 堯, Syun 舜(legendary sage kings in Chinese history), Confucius孔子 and Mencius孟子as references and he highlights the similarity between Islamic values and Confucian ethics. And Liu Zhi 劉智 (d. 1730) says, in his Tiangfang Xingli 天方性理 (Islamic philosophy), “Islamic religious texts are almost same as the teachings of Confucius and Mencius 天方經大同孔孟旨也 .”

Wang Daiyu tries to explain the uniqueness of Allah using Confucian and Taoist concepts, as follows:

The True God is the Only One, the Original Being with no beginning, and not the being who takes the form of others. Nothing is compared to Him….

The true One is the Only One, not the Number One. The Number One comes from the Only One. The sayings, “one origin brings ten thousand differences,” and “ten thousand phenomenon return to one” also refers to the Number One. The saying, “the nameless is the beginning of heavens and earth, the named is the mother of all things” also means the Number One.[④]

In this way, Huirus have succeeded in conveying the uniqueness of God in the cultural context of Confucian civilization. Moreover, beyond the borders of China, they influenced one of the pioneers of Japanese Muslims, Nurullah Tanaka Ippei　田中逸平, who converted to Islam in 1924 at Shandong 山東.

7. Syncretic Character of Japanese Religiosity

Although Northeast Asia is customarily designated as Confucian civilization, it has never been dissolved into one religion like the West, and the coexistence of many religions was a normal state. The Japanese people have been familiar with Shintoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism all through their history. And in terms of religious attribution, unlike the single-minded Chinese and Korean peoples, the Japanese are so syncretic that the population of Buddhists and Shintoists is 100 million and 90 million respectively, while the total number of Japanese is around 120 million. It is quite natural for ordinary Japanese to celebrate birthdays in Shinto Shrines, perform marriage ceremonies in churches, and conduct funerals in the Buddhist manner.

For example, Ito Hirobumi 伊藤博文, the first prime minister of Japan, witnessed Islamic affirmation on the 13th of March, 1909, by saying laa ilaaha illa Allah wa Muhammadun Rasuul allah (“No god but Allah and Muhammad is His apostle”) when he met Abdulrashid Ibrahim, a Tatar Pan-Islamist, and stated that he believed the Japanese people would accept Islam easily because it had spread widely among various nations in Asia. But we cannot know whether his acceptance of Islam was sincere or not, because he was assassinated shortly after his conversion to Islam by An Jung-geun安重根, in Harbin 哈爾浜　on October 26th in 1909, before his conversion could bear fruit.

The most curious and typically Japanese example of syncretism is Okawa Ryuho 大川隆法 , the founder of the newly established Buddhist sect Kofukuno Kagaku　幸福の科学　, Science of Happiness, which has 3 million followers. He claims that he is the reincarnation of Buddha and that he was once possessed by the spirit of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, he says in his book titled Allah-no Daiyogen (Allah’s Great Prophecy), “Who is Allah? … In short, the one who Muhammad called God is me myself.…and he who made Muhammad write the Qur’an is me myself.”[⑤]

We must bear the above in mind as the cultural background in which the Islamic Da`wah is to be carried out in Japan.

8. Who is redeemed?

In Confucian civilization the ancestor is highly respected. But Islam prohibits the memorial service to the ancestor destined for the hellfire because Allah says in the Qur’an, “It is not proper for the Prophet and those who believe to ask forgiveness for the polytheists, even though they be close relatives, after it has become clear to them that they are inmates of the flaming fire (ما كان للنبي والذين آمنوا أن يستغفروا للمشركين ولو كانوا أولي قربى من بعد ما تبين لهم أنهم أصحاب الجحيم )” (9:113). Thus the question, “Are our ancestors redeemed?” is very important and cannot be ignored.

Ash`arite theologians like ‘Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi (d. 429/1037), al-Suyuti (d. 911/1505) and the late Abdullah bn al-Siddiq al-Idrisi al-Ghummari declare that those whom the Islamic Da`wah has not reached and who died without faith are redeemed as Ahl al-Fatrah, or ‘people of the interval’, who live between prophets without hearing the prophetic call. This is because Allah never punishes people without informing them of crimes and their corresponding punishments, as He says in the Qur’an “... nor do We chastise until We send an apostle (وما كنا معذبين حتى نبعث رسولا)” (17:15).

As mentioned in Section 5, people of Northeast Asia have not until recently been familiar with Allah’s prophets like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus, and Muhammad (SS); thus, their ancestors are redeemed according to Ash`arite theology categorically because of their lack of knowledge of Allah’s message delivered through His prophets. Consequently, memorial service for the ancestors is permitted in order to pray for their salvation.

In my opinion, every Da`wah worker in Northeast Asia must know this Ash`arite theology and make it the basis of Islamic salvation theory.

9. Cultural environment of Japan relevant to the Da`wah

Generally speaking, contemporary Japanese culture is ‘tolerant’ toward religions, including Islam, and the persecution or suppression of Islam does not exist at all. And thanks to the absence of direct contact with this religion in Japanese history, the Japanese people do not bear hostility against Islam—unlike Western people, who have a history of confrontation with Islam exceeding 1000 years.

With regard to academic circles, although most researchers of Islamic studies and Middle Eastern studies are non-Muslims as stated above, they are in general sympathetic toward Islam and friendly to Muslims. Probably this is in part because there are no Jews or Zionists at all in Japanese academic circles.

But unfortunately, there recently appeared so-called “new Orientalists” imitating slightly sophisticated Western antagonistic views on Islam and Muslims. We must cautiously watch this trend since it corresponds to the rise of an ultra-nationalism now growing stronger day by day in the mass media and in journalism, which are strongly influenced by Western media where coverage of the Middle East and Islam are concerned.

10. Problems of Da`wah in Contemporary Japan

The popularization of the Internet with globalization has had a great impact on the Islamic Da`wah, and Japan cannot escape from its influence. It contributes much in providing information about Islam to Non-Muslims. Without a doubt, the Internet has a lot of merits for Da`wah, but here we shall focus on the negative sides, guessing that other speakers will have much to say about its positive sides.

Islam cannot be understood by merely gathering fragmentary information about it. Allah sent his Apostle with the Qur’an to call people to Islam, which means that Islam is known only through a living model who realizes the meaning of the revelation in his life. This cannot be done via the Internet. And this existence of a living model is especially important in the Dar al-Harb because there is no authority which establishes the proper Islamic order by force.

As mentioned above, the Prophetic Meccan Da`wah is different from the Medinese one and the methodology of Da`wah in Non-Muslim society should be based on Meccan Da`wah. Yet even the Prophetic Meccan Da`wah cannot be applied to contemporary Non-Muslim society in Northeast Asia in its original form because of the fundamentally different contexts for the Da`wah. In the Dar al-Harb, the proper order in calling people to Islam must be observed: from the fundamentals of faith in areas like the Oneness of God, His angels, scriptures, apostles, the Hereafter, and providence; then, to fundamentals of worship like confession, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage; and finally, to secondary codes which are relevant in Dar al-Harb. This requires full knowledge of Islamic studies. In addition, for the context of Northeast Asia, deep understanding of its culture is also required. The main reason for the failure of the Da`wah in Japan so far is that it was done by unqualified foreigners who had neither enough knowledge of Islamic studies nor a good understanding of Japanese culture.

If there is no Da`wah based on a proper methodology suitable for Japan, the diffusion of fragmentary information about Islam is not only useless but also harmful, since ultimately it distracts Japanese people from the fundamental message of Islam. So the spread of the Internet seems to amplify misunderstandings about Islam at an increasing tempo, because unqualified persons come more and more to gain access to this field without difficulty.

Conclusion

In order to present Islam to Japanese people in a proper way, it is necessary to establish a Da`wah methodology suitable for Japanese culture. And it needs this kind of international conference as well, for information is carried across borders instantly in this age of globalization. So, the need for the coordination of Da`wah among Muslim scholars worldwide, especially in Northeast Asia, is very urgent.