JESUS IS A MUSLIM AND HIS RELIGION IS ISLAM
by Syarif Hidayat*
Jesus is a Muslim and his religion is Islam in every sense.
Here is the proof from Al-Qur’an: Islamic view of Jesus (Jesus in Islam is Prophet Isa AS)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. “He (Isa) said: “Verily I am a slave of Allah, He has given me the Scripture (Injil) and made me a Prophet; “And He has made me blessed wheresoever I be, and has enjoined on me Salat (prayer), and Zakat*, as long as I live.”
“And dutiful to my mother, and made me not arrogant, unblest. “And Salam (peace) be upon me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive (again)!” Such is Isa, son of Maryam. (It is) a statement of truth, about which they doubt (or dispute).
It befits not (the Majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son (this refers to the slander of Christians against Allah, by saying that Isa is the son of Allah). Glorified (and Exalted) be He (above all that they associate with Him). When He decrees a thing, He only says to it: “Be!” – “and it is.”
(Isa said): “And verily Allah is my Lord and your Lord. So worship Him (Alone). That is the Straight Path. (Allah’s religion of Islamic Monotheism which He did ordain for all of His Prophets).” Al Qur’an, Surah Maryam (Virgin Mary) 30 -36 ( Tafsir At-Tabarî )
*) Zakāt (Arabic: زكاة [zæˈkæː], “that which purifies” or “alms”), one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is the giving of a fixed portion of one’s wealth to charity, generally to the poor and needy.
Zakat, a practice initiated by Prophet Muhammed PBUH himself, has played an important role throughout Islamic history.Initially, Muhammed instituted zakat as a voluntary, individual offering, but during his lifetime certain forms of zakat have been declared obligatory.
Zakat is considered to be a religious duty, and is expected to be paid by all practicing Muslims who have the financial means (nisab).In addition to their zakat obligations, Muslims are encouraged to make voluntary contributions (sadaqat).The zakat is not collected from non-Muslims, although they are sometimes required to pay the jizyah tax.
The proof from the Bible
Jesus is a Muslim and his religion is Islam in every sense.
Jesus DID NOT eat PORK [Levictus 11:7-8]
Muslims are forbidden from eating Pork.
Jesus DID NOT drink ALCOHOL [Numbers 6:1-4]
Muslims are forbidden from drinking Alcohol.
Jesus PRAYED in PROSTRATION [Matthew 26:39]
Muslims pray in prostration.
Mary the Mother of Jesus was COVERED and Christian women are ordered to COVER [Genesis 24:64-5]
Muslim women are ordered to cover.
Jesus greeted with ‘PEACE BE UPON YOU’ [John 20:19]
Muslims greet with PEACE BE UPON YOU (“Assalamu Alaikum”)
Jesus FASTED [Matthew 6:16-18]
Muslims fast for Ramadan ( a main pillar of Islam) as well as other times during the year.
Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven; the fulfillment of the Mosaic laws: Mathew 5:17-20 reads: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
These are Jesus’ words, from his lips. But what did Christians say? What do they believe? Do they talk about the fulfillment of these laws? They better be because if they don’t, according to Jesus, “they shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven”.
Jesus teaches the unity of Allah; the oneness of God. In the 12th chapter of Mark, it was reported that a man came to Jesus and asked him: “which is the first of all commandments”? and Jesus answered: “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.”
Jesus says: The Lord our God is one Lord. As a Prophet and a messenger of Allah, Jesus explicitly declares in the 8th chapter of john: “I have not come on my own; but he (God) sent me.” Jesus’ mission was to convey the message given to him by his Lord. He was no more than a messenger. He says: I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
The teaching of Jesus is not something new; it’s a kind of transition from the earlier teachings beginning with Abraham. If we take prayer for example, how the previous prophets pray to God, we will witness a clear consistency in their message. The bible tells us: quote:
“And Abraham fell on his face and pray” genesis 17:3, and moses and Aron fell on their faces and prayed (numbers 20:6) and Jesus fell on his face and prayed (mathew 26:38).
And that is excatly how Prophet Muhammad SAW prayed and the whole Muslim world prays like that. The christians don’t pray like that though. They have their own kind of worship. Who is really trying to imitate jesus? Christians or Muslims?
The message of jesus is Islamic in every sense: believing in one God, he never mention the mystery of trinity; that he’s a preacher, teacher, messenger and no more; that salvation rests by keeping the commandments.
Infact even his diet isnt christian, jesus’ diet is Islamic as he didn’t eat pig he kills over 2000 pigs says the bible. For we believe that jesus was a Muslim; and his message is Islam.
The bible tell us in the 7th chapter of mathew: Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Jesus is a Muslim, claims U.S. religions professor
A professor at an Iowa college says as a Christian, he has to say that Jesus was a Muslim.
Ignoring the historical timeline in which Jesus taught some 2,000 years ago in the Middle East and the advent of Islam is dated six centuries later, after Christianity had impacted much of the known globe, Robert F. Shedinger, who wrote “Was Jesus a Muslim?” said his research convinced him of Jesus as aligning in thought with Islam.
In a video report that was uncovered by CampusReform.org, the professor is interviewed by In The Community television in Raleigh, N.C.,
Shedinger said the issue arose when a Muslim student challenged his teaching about Islam, and he rethought not only Islam, but all of religion.
He came to perceive Islam as a social justice system instead of a religion, and found that he thought the same about Jesus.
“I had to rethink what Islam is,” Shedinger said in the interview. “I came to the conclusion that it was a social justice movement and I think that’s who Jesus was in the first century so I conclude Jesus is more like a Muslim.”
He admitted it would “be a stretch” for many to follow his process and consider Jesus a Muslim, but, “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable any more.”
“Even as a Christian I have to answer yes to that,” he said
“We’re not trying to aggravate nobody,” said the interviewer, Abdush Shahid Munir.
Noting that his audience included Christians, Muslims “and other denominations,” Munir asked Shedinger to explain this book.
Shedinger said he re-evaluated a lot of the research he’d encountered during his training, and he suddenly recognized “there were a lot of scholars out there who are arguing the points I make in the book.”
He described his book as a “call for Christians and Muslims to work together to promote social justice.”
The Muslim Jesus
Alayna Ahmad in her article titled “The Muslim Jesus” published in Huffington Post, wrote “The Christian world celebrates the resurrection of Jesus in the festival of Easter. For almost all Christians, Jesus is the Son of God who died to save mankind. Islam rejects this belief and views Jesus, also known as Isa, as a Prophet and the Messiah of the Israelites. So who was this Muslim Jesus?
The Bible and the Quran both agree that Jesus was born by miraculous birth to the Virgin Mary. There is a chapter in the Quran named Mary and she is mentioned 34 times in the Quran, which is much more than the entire New Testament. She is honored greatly in Islam and is celebrated as a role model for Muslim women worldwide. For Muslims, Jesus was the seal of the Hebrew Prophets and a man of perfect purity. Unlike all other human beings, except his mother Mary, he was not touched by Satan at his birth. In the Quran, when Satan attempted to approach the child, he was only able to touch the covering caul. The Quran has great regard for Jesus where he is mentioned 25 times in contrast to the Prophet Muhammad who is only mentioned four times.
There are many miracles attributed to the Quranic Jesus. One of these was his ability to speak from the cradle. His mother Mary was mocked for giving birth to a child out of wedlock. To protect his mother from the taunts of society, Jesus spoke and said; “Lo, I am God’s servant [and] a Prophet. […] Peace be upon me, the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I am raised up alive!” (Quran 19:30-34) In addition, other well-known miracles recorded in both the Quran (with God’s permission) and the Bible include healing the sick, giving sight to the blind and bringing the dead to life.
The Quran makes clear that Jesus was sent to earth to preach a new gospel (Injil in Arabic), which reaffirmed the message of ‘One True God’, given to the earlier prophets. However, his teachings had become distorted over time. In the Quran, Jesus foretells the coming of a messenger after him named Ahmad, which is another name for Mohammad. Many Islamic scholars since the 8th century have argued that this is also evident in the Bible, originally written in Koine Greek.
The Greek word paraklytos or paraclete refers to the Holy Spirit in Christianity and is sometimes translated as Comforter. The word paraklytos is translated into Arabic as ahmad which means praiseworthy and commendable. The words of the Apostle John, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever” (14:16) are taken by many Muslim scholars to predict the coming of Muhammad, the new Comforter, who will renew some of the lost teachings of the earlier Abrahamic Holy Scriptures.
In the Bible, Jesus never calls himself the Son of God, as was confirmed to me by Professor Chris Queen of Harvard in a lecture which I attended. He refers to himself as The Son of Man, words which are found 81 times in the Greek canonical Gospels. In the Quran, Jesus is similarly humble, for example, when he calls himself the servant of God. This humility is unmistakable in the words of Jesus, “Never could [I] say what I had no right [to say]” (Quran: 5:116). In both religions, the Second Coming of Jesus is associated with the Day of Judgement and the end times.
Traditional Christian belief is that Jesus had died on the cross. Among early Christian sects were the followers of the Docetic view, whereby the crucified Jesus was an image, a phantom or perhaps even a replacement. Their justification came from the Acts of John 97-102, “And my lord stood in the middle of the cave [and] said, ‘John for the people below in Jerusalem I am being crucified and pierced with lances and reeds and given vinegar and gall to drink. But to you I am speaking […] nor am I the man who is on the cross” (New Testament Apocrypha).
Similarly, in the Quran, Jesus was not crucified but instead “they did not slay him, neither crucified him, only a likeness of that was shown to them” (Quran 4:157). Allah had raised Jesus to himself saving his Prophet the suffering of a terrible death. Professor Lawson argues that “such belief frankly serves to diminish Islam in the eyes of Christianity and so-called ‘Westerners’ whose cultural identity is bound up, whether they are believers or not, with the axiomatic and unquestionable ‘myth’ of the death and resurrection of Jesus”.
The Islamic mystics have a deep love for Jesus and his ascetic lifestyle. In his book, “The Revival of the Religious Sciences,” the Sufi mystic and brilliant philosopher, Al Ghazali, quotes Jesus as saying, “You shall not attain what you desire except by suffering what you do not desire.” Furthermore, on a gate to the city of Fatehpur-Sikri, the Muslim Mughal Emperor Akbar inscribed the words of the Muslim Jesus, “This world is a bridge. Pass over it, but build not your dwelling there.”
Islam is a deeply monotheistic religion and thus forbids any partners or associations with God. Although all prophets including Jesus were mortal and gifted in their own way, they could not be part of the divine. The life of Jesus has always been an inspiration although many of its aspects remain obscure factually; yet we cannot doubt the significance of this remarkable man even 2000 years after his death.
Whilst recognising the validity of Professor Lawson’s argument, I sincerely believe the shared love Muslims and Christians feel for Jesus can be the basis for mutual understanding and inter-faith dialogue. The three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are undoubtedly linked. However, even though the Judaic tradition rejects Jesus, Islam has always accepted him. Given that belief in Jesus is central to the Muslim faith, why does the West persist in remaining so hostile to Islam?
About the so-called “crucifixion” of Jesus, the God Almighty Allah in the Quran says what means:
“And because of their saying (in boast), “We killed Messiah ‘Īsā (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary), the Messenger of Allâh,” – but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but the resemblance of ‘Īsā (Jesus) was put over another man (and they killed that man), and those who differ therein are full of doubts. They have no (certain) knowledge, they follow nothing but conjecture. For surely; they killed him not [i.e. ‘Īsā (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary) A.S.]: But Allâh raised him [‘Īsā (Jesus)] up (with his body and soul) unto Himself (and he A.S. is in the heavens). And Allâh is Ever All-Powerful, All-Wise.” (Al-Qur’an, Surah An Nisa, Verses: 157-158).
Muhammad PBUH is The Last Prophet
Jesus (Prophet Isa AS) also speaks about the last prophet in Al-Qur’an : “And (remember) when ‘Īsā (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary), said: “O Children of Israel! I am the Messenger of Allâh unto you confirming the Taurât [(Torah) which came] before me, and giving glad tidings of a Messenger to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmed. But when he (Ahmed i.e. Muhammad SAW) came to them with clear proofs, they said: “This is plain magic.” (Al-Qur’an, Surah As-Saff, Verse: 6)
Al-Qur’an reminds the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) about Prophet Muhammad PBUH: “O people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians)! Now has come to you Our Messenger (Muhammad SAW) explaining to you much of that which you used to hide from the Scripture and pass over (i.e. leaving out without explaining) much. Indeed, there has come to you from Allâh a light (Prophet Muhammad SAW ) and a plain Book (this Qur’ân). Wherewith Allâh guides all those who seek His Good Pleasure to ways of peace, and He brings them out of darkness by His Will unto light and guides them to a Straight Way (Islâmic Monotheism)” (Al-Qur’an, Surah Al-Maeda, Verses: 15-16) (T/P3/P2)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
*Senior Editor of Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) (He can be contacted via emails: [email protected] and [email protected])
Sources:
1.http://www.quranexplorer.com/Quran/Default.aspx
2.http://english.alarabiya.net/
3.http://www.nairaland.com/
4.http://www.onislam.net/
5. http://www.wnd.com/
