Jesus the Muslim
Few Christians know how important a role Jesus plays in Islam, where he stands out as one of the most revered prophets. Yet the narrative about him in the Quran is very different from the gospel accounts – starting with the story of his birth under a palm tree, with the baby speaking up miraculously to defend his mother Maryam’s honour.
Christian theologian Vicky Beeching hears these and other stories about Jesus the Muslim from Cambridge scholar Tim Winter, also known as Sheikh Abdal Hakim Murad, who was once named by an institute in Jordan as one of the world’s most influential Muslims. We also hear about the role Jesus played in his own decision to convert to Islam – and what he thinks Christians and Muslims can learn from each other’s attitudes to Jesus.
Image courtesy of Jonah Bettio via flickr.com ©©
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I listen to a podcast on chapter 3 verse 45 to 47 of one translatation of the Quran and othe verses about the Virgin birth of Jesus Christ and he was described as a righteous man.
Why is it we don’t hear Muslims speak of him very much?
Loz
What made me a Christian was not the story of the bible first of all, but the experience I had with the Holy Spirit , that is the only thing that can make you a real Christian, everyone can argue about religion but the only experience you can have is personal with Christ.
Marcia
Jesus has many exceptions in the Quran. viz. A child borne out of Virgin, Spirit of God, Messaiah/Christ, perfect man, the One who was not touched by Satan at the time of Birth, the One who returns to Earth as a Judge, the One who kills the Satan/Dajjal/Anti-Christ(he will kill the pigs), the One who break the Cross(namely the pain, sufferings, punishment, sins, contained in the Cross), the One who is not killed, but sacrificed as a form of God’s goat(in fulfilment and clearing off all the conjectures involved in the animal sacrifice), the One who is raised and exalted to heaven, the One who is the Head Priest( O Mary, sister of Aaron, …………..Name of Aaron given to draw attention to the Priesthood), etc ,
Raj
I’m amazed that just about all the prophets of Islam were Jews. Shouldn’t that help in more reverenced relationships between Muslims and Jews?
Juste Saying
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Jesus the Muslim – Sh. Abdal Hakim Murad interview | Vittles for the Soul
Crucial to understand about Jesus is that he Prophesied the arrival of Mohammed as Elijah and John the Baptist ‘raised from the dead’ (See Chapter 17, verses 9-13 of the Gospel of Matthew), and that the reason for the crucifixion was NOT any doctrine of “vicarious atonement’, as is recognized by the person on this recording, but because he CONTRADICTED the “leaven of the Pharisees”, “synagogue of Satan” interpretation of “the resurrection” as a doctrine of the physical raising of a dead body from the grave. That is, the Truth about “the resurrection” threatened the pride, the jobs and the wealth of the Pharisaical religious establishment; just as, today, that SAME Truth threatens the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious establishments.
Michael (Sura 2, verse 98 of the Quran & Chapter 12, verses 1 of the Book of Daniel)
Michael
I appreciate very much what Tim Winter have said about the Baby Jesuus, but the Quran never told that what Jesus said was in Arabic.
Bassam Saeh
Fascinating and very informative interview! I was especially surprised and pleased to hear about the Islamic miracle stories of the infant Jesus preaching from Mary’s (Miriam’s) arms. Thank you for this wonderful piece!
David, This miracle of the baby Jesus is also to be found in some of the Apocrypha but was one of the many other pieces of information that was excluded from the Bible by early scholars who chose those pieces that agreed with their ideas and left out anything which contradicted them!
Yahya Merchant
In reply to Tim,
There’s no doubt politics worldwide has an effect, but a few things can’t be ignored.
No matter what the Woolwich killers said re foreign policy, they also gave another reason.
On that note, even if Afghanistan etc is finished, does it mean Britain can never again have conflict (for whatever reason) with a muslim majority country? Or help Shias against Sunnis, or vice versa? It’ll mean home-grown strife, and it’ll all be our fault.
And forgetting the UK etc, you cannot open a newspaper lately without seeing some sort of Islamist group killing and wishing to impose on others. I don’t need to list them. And of course the inter-muslim strife between all sects.
To ignore all of this is to bury the head in the sand, and to focus on UK foreign policy is to suggest what I have said above.
And what brings me back to this site today? A muslim commentator on Twitter posting this link on Christmas Day, telling people to ‘think’. The way I see that, is to do such a thing on a day like this, is disigenuous, as Christians who follow him believe Jesus was the son of god, and muslims don’t. God, even Dawkins has given it a bit of a rest today.
Mark
Mark. Your statement : “We obviously, more and more, live in incredibly difficult times, being brought about by militant Islam (not foreign policy), in my opinion, yet it is so clear to me that the problem lies at the core of the religion.”
I doubt very much that we can accord our difficult times to Islaam or maligned interpretations of the same. However, we can suggest that globalisation and politics have caused hate and division, millions of deaths and poverty on a huge scale. Hence we could conclude that our “oh so not very great foreign policy” should be blamed. The killers of Lee Rigby clearly cited their reason for their evil deed!
Tim
I enjoyed very much this story of Jesus. Very well narrated and exposed.
Miloka.Chifla
Holy Quran tells us that all the Prophets were Muslims so do not confuse yourself only with Jesus Christ.
Sufism Seeker
A detailed Hadith relating to Isra’ or Mi’raj; narrated by Anas ibn Sa’sa’a:
…
…Then we ascended to the second heaven . . . It was said, ‘He is welcomed. What a wonderful visit his is!” Then I met Isa (Jesus) and Yahya (John the Baptist) who said, ‘You are welcomed, O brother and a Prophet.’ …
…
—Sahih al-Bukhari, volume 4,Book 54, Hadith number 429[6]
and Prophet also informed us that in the end Jesus son of Mary (Syeddina Īsā al-Masīḥ) will descend from the sky,
– as mentioned in As-Sahih Muslim, کتاب الایمان, باب نزول عیسٰی ابن مریم علیھما السلام حاکما بشرعیۃ نبینا محمد صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم ، رقم:156، 137:1
and also in many other hadiths it is discussed in detail…
Sufism Seeker
May Allah bless you I truly enjoyed the interview , it made my day.
Shahad Ahmed
correction…jesus was always a muslim. he didn’t convert nor revert.
bob othman
Fascinating and very informative interview! I was especially surprised and pleased to hear about the Islamic miracle stories of the infant Jesus preaching from Mary’s (Miriam’s) arms. Thank you for this wonderful piece!
David Dault
My Lovely Dear Spouse it is by the Muslim religious and my by the Catholic Arch Diocese Religious by the Unificationists Church Blessed. Eog Mansei.
Juan Felix Proaño
I’m an outsider looking in, so no statements from years of theological study from me. All I can do is say how I see it.
It’s absolutely no surprise to me that there is huge conflict between Jews, Christians and Muslims given the differences regarding the three books, and especially about Jesus. What I find a little strange is why the Jews and Muslims don’t get together and gang up on the Christians because of the divinity of Jesus question. But the wars etc are for the lunatics I suppose. The fact that theologians can discuss such things is good, but doesn’t take away from the fact it’s all caused massive conflicts, regardless of the peaceful types.
Reading this (page 760)
http://www.onereason.org/download/quran/Quran-Saheeh%20International-Translation.pdf
basically says that the Old and New Testament scriptures were cherry-picked and manipulated by humans, so therefore have nothing to do with god. Therefore Islam is superior. And of course, Jesus was not divine, which agrees with the Jews, but not the Christians.
I have seen comments such as “There is no better Christian, than a good Muslim,” and wonder how modern day Christians accept such statements, or what might occur if something was said in reply in order to defend Christianity.
We obviously, more and more, live in incredibly difficult times, being brought about by militant Islam (not foreign policy), in my opinion, yet it is so clear to me that the problem lies at the core of the religion.
I wonder how this is all ‘welcomed’ or not by ordinary Christinas today.
Mark
I enjoyed this very much. I met Tim Winter before making a TV series on Abraham many years ago and it was good to hear his intelligent and lucid remarks. A question though….he talks of a story on the Qur’an in which the baby Jesus is heard speaking prophetically in Arabic to his audience…..now this is a question from a linguist, but how easily comprehended would this have been to his milieu? Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic would have been the dominant vehicles of communication. Is Arabic so similar to Aramaic that comprehension would have been easy? Or, would those present not have understood completely, but what “counts” for the “recital” purposes of transmission is that the words were passed on for Muslims to reflect on down the centuries???
Mark Dowd
http://youtu.be/-Iu5QhpW_WM
Kamblee
Fantastic interview! Tim Winters expounds on Jesus (pbuh) so eloquently and insightfully! Beautiful!
Khalida Manzoor