Black Spirituality Religion : Muslims Love Jesus as Much as Christians Do...

Aqil

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Feb 3, 2001
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By John Casey

Some years ago an agnostic friend of mine married a Jewish woman who practiced her faith seriously. He took instruction in Judaism and seemed quite likely to convert - but eventually did not. His chief reason was that he remained agnostic. But there was another obstacle that surprised even himself: "I found that I just did not want to give up Jesus."

In European culture, there is no getting away from Jesus even if you are agnostic. True, Nietzsche tried to reject him with detestation and contempt, calling him an "idiot"; a purveyor of a sick, decadent view of the world. Nietzsche thought that the only figure in the New Testament who commands respect is Pontius Pilate. Yet the very ferocity of Nietzsche's onslaught on Jesus showed how strong in his heart was the image he wanted to destroy.

Now what if my friend had married a Muslim? The interesting thing is that he could have kept Jesus - not the Jesus who was the Son of God, admittedly, and who was crucified, but certainly the Jesus who was Messiah and miracle worker, who conversed regularly with God - who was born of a virgin and who ascended into heaven.

Jesus is referred to quite often in the Qur'an - six times under the title "Messiah." Yet I had long-supposed that the importance of Jesus as prophet in Muslim tradition was not much more than a matter of lip-service, something to which Muslims gave (to use Cardinal Newman's distinction) "notional" rather than "real" assent.

This impression was strengthened when I went to Ur of the Chaldees in southern Iraq and visited the so-called house of Abraham. It is only a few piles of sun-baked mud bricks, but you would have expected hundreds of Muslim Arabs to be visiting the birthplace of their Patriarch. I saw none - whereas the shrines of Muslim martyrs in Najaf and Kerbala were thronged. I assumed, therefore, that Jesus must be a marginal figure in the Muslim world.

How wrong this assumption was I have learned by reading a fascinating and instructive book, The Muslim Jesus, by the Cambridge academic Tarif Khalidi. Professor Khalidi has brought together, from a vast range of sources, most of the stories, sayings and traditions of Jesus that are to be found in Muslim piety from the earliest times.

The Muslim Jesus is an ascetic, a man of voluntary poverty, humility and long-suffering. He literally turns the other cheek, allowing his face to be slapped twice in order to protect two of his disciples. He teaches the return of good for evil: "Jesus used to say, 'Charity does not mean doing good to him who does good to you... Charity means that you should do good to him who does you harm.' "

He loves the poor and embraces poverty: "The day Jesus was raised to heaven, he left behind nothing but a woolen garment, a slingshot and two sandals." He preaches against attachment to worldly things: "Jesus said, 'He who seeks worldly things is like the man who drinks sea water: the more he drinks, the more thirsty he becomes, until it kills him.'"

Many of the sayings of the Muslim Jesus are clearly derived from Biblical sources - "Place your treasures in heaven, for the heart of man is where his treasure is"; "Look at the birds coming and going! They neither reap nor plough, and God provides for them." Sometimes there is a sort of gloss on words of Jesus from the Gospel: "Oh disciples, do not cast pearls before swine, for the swine can do nothing with them...wisdom is more precious than pearls and whomever rejects wisdom is worse than a swine."

He is certainly a wonder-worker. He often raises the dead, and gives his disciples power to do the same. More than once he comes across a skull and restores it to life; on one occasion granting salvation to a person who had been damned. The skulls, like everyone else in these stories, address Jesus as "Spirit of God." Once he is even addressed as "Word of God."

I once had a conversation with members of Hezbollah in Beirut. One of them said this: "The greatness of Islam is that we combine Judaism and Christianity. Jesus freed enslaved hearts; he was able to release human feeling; to reveal a kingdom of peace. Jesus's realm was the realm of the soul. Jesus is soul; Moses is mind - the mind of the legislator. In Islam, we interweave both."

This is certainly the Jesus of these stories - the Jesus of the mystical Sufi tradition. The great Muslim philosopher Al-Ghazali actually called Jesus "Prophet of the Heart."

The Muslim Jesus is not divine, but a humble servant of God. He was not crucified - Islam insists that the story of the killing of Jesus is false. He is, as it were, Jesus as he might have been without St. Paul or St. Augustine or the Council of Nice. He is not the cold figure of English unitarianism, and he is less grand than the exalted human of the Aryans. As you read these stories, what comes across most powerfully is that the Muslim Jesus is intensely loved. There is an element of St. Francis of Assisi in them.

It is good to be reminded, especially now, of the intimate connections there have been between Islam and Christianity, and how close in spirit Muslim and Christian piety can come to each other. Curiously enough, the Muslim Jesus, shorn of all claims of divinity, could be more easily held onto by my agnostic friend than the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.

One other thing: Since Muslims deny the crucifixion, their emphasis has been on the wonders surrounding "the birth of Jesus, Son of Mary," born as his mother sat under a palm tree, and miraculously speaking from within the womb.

There really is no reason why schools that put on Nativity plays - or anyone who wants to insist on the Christian meaning of Christmas - should fear that they may offend Muslim sensibilities, for Jesus really is shared by both faiths...

(The Muslim Jesus, Tarif Khalidi, Harvard University Press)
 
oceolo said:
It does you no good to love Jesus without the knowledge that he is God.
This is a false statement, oceolo. Here are a few verses in the Bible that prove Jesus could not possibly be God:

“Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?’” (Mark 15:34)

If Jesus was God, what or whom could he have been praying to? And to cry is a human weakness…

“Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil.” (Matthew 4:1)

If Jesus was God, how could the devil possibly be able to tempt Him? Without Him knowing? And what could the devil possibly offer the Creator of the Universe and all that is contained therein? And that includes the devil himself/herself…

“If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children, and brethren and sister, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

If Jesus was God, and He so loved the world, why would you have to hate your family and even yourself, when the Bible says that hatred is a sin? (See Leviticus 19:1)

“In my father’s house are many mansions.” (John 14:2)

Jesus said in my father’s house…he did not say in MY house. Would it have made sense to say in my house if he was God?

“I must be about my Father’s business…” (Luke 2:49)

If Jesus was God, why did he say, “I must be about my father’s business?” In this verse Jesus actually indicates the distinction between himself and his Father…the Father of all humanity…

The Bible speaks about Jesus being the Son of God…not God Himself. Here is further proof that Jesus and The Father are separate entities:

We know that Jesus was a man…because he was baptized (Matthew 1:25)…he was tempted (Matthew 3:13)…he slept (Matthew 4:1)…he ate (Matthew 8:24)…he hungered (Matthew 21:18 and Luke 24:41)…he weakened (John 4:6)…he said something he shouldn't have said (John 20:17)…and he cried at Lazarus’ grave (John 20:17).

The Greek word for “trinity” is “triad” (1 John 5:7). Triad simply means “tri,” which means three. when you take any three things and say they make up any one thing, that would be a trinity. There is no way of having a trinity without first separating each of the three things individually, to declare them a trinity...by that I mean you have to first establish that there is (1) a father, (2) a son, and (3) a “holy ghost.” In order for these things to totally mix and become one they would have to start off equally in rank, quantity, space, density, authority or existence. In admitting the son came from the father, time makes the difference; the father would have to have been first. This would make them unequal and incapable of becoming a balanced triad. It did not mean that when it said, “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost” equals one God, because three cannot go into one.

Jesus is not alive and the Father is God, not the son. Jesus, according to Christian teachings, died at the age of 33. By saying he is “alive again” means that God died before, which makes absolutely no sense. Christians say that he is alive again for he is God. So what they’re saying is that God died and came back to life, and at some point He stopped being God! GOD IS ALL-EXISTING…and has made it possible for all things to exist. If he “dies,” what do you think would happen to the rest of us? We would all cease to exist as well because we are all apart of the Heavenly Father.

Also, if Jesus is God, then who was he praying to in Matthew 6:9-13, when he says, “Our father, who art in heaven”? He is not God, or otherwise he would have been praying to Himself. Jesus was an Israelite, and it is common sense that he would not violate such a powerful Israelite/Judaic commandment as the worship of God alone (Exodus 20:3-4) by claiming to be that very God whom he prays to in Matthew 26:39: “and he went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed, saying, O Father my Father.” It doesn’t make much sense for Jesus to pray to himself, for if he was God, he would have no need to pray. In several quotes in the New Testament Jesus made it clear that you are to worship God – and not him. When he made reference to God, he used the third-person singular “him,” not the first-person singular “me.”

In Luke 4:8 Jesus admonishes the Devil: “And Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Get thee behind me Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve.” He said worship HIM, not me...

In John 4:23-24 Jesus states: “but the hour cometh, and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." He said worship HIM, and not me...

And in John 14:10 Jesus gives all praise and gratitude to his Heavenly Father: “Believeth thou not that I am in the Father and the father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me; He doeth the works." He used the word HE, not me...

No man's body can contain God, not if you mean that he has the essence of his father in him… all mankind are God's sons and daughters (read Genesis 2:7)…when God breathed into man the breath of life, “And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul…”

However, getting back to the point of whether he incarnated or became himself, there still wouldn't be any need for him to pray or ask for assistance from anyone if he was God…not only would he not need to pray he would have no desire to eat! (Luke 24:41) “Beg that death passes him.” (Matthew 26:39)…"Feared and ran for his life." (John 18:3) which means that God has to run from His Creation...(!)

Another quality that Jesus did not possess – according to Romans 13:1 and 2nd Corinthians 1:23 – is the power to assign the soul their positions in the hereafter. Only the Heavenly Father possesses such power. Exalting Jesus beyond the truth is shown to be a form of idolatry. Once again in Matthew 7:21 Jesus tells people to “do the will of the Father.”

In both Luke 4:8 and Matthew 4:10 we come across an incident that clearly contradicts the concept of Jesus claiming absolute divinity. According to these two references – Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34, Jesus was put on the cross and left to die. Then, according to those who believe the crucifixion story, at that time Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

If Jesus was God, he would not have to say any of these things in the first place. How could you possibly forsake your own self? If he was God, he would not need consent from anyone. This could not possibly be the words of a person who saw himself as the Controller of All Life and Death because he cried out, “My God.” It simply isn't logical. Jesus never encouraged anyone to worship him…instead, he taught others to worship his Father…as I have shown you using Scripture.
 
GOD IS FLESH AND BLOOD

First of all, saying that "Jesus" is not God because he spoke is absurd. The definition of God has to be fully determined. In the old testament God spoke to moses and "God" also repented. Exodus 5:1 Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, Exodus 5:3 And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: Main Entry: [1]god
Pronunciation: 'gäd also 'god
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English; akin to Old High German got god
Date: before 12th century
1 : capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality: as a : the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshiped as creator and ruler of the universe b : Christian Science : the incorporeal divine Principle ruling over all as eternal Spirit : infinite Mind
2 : a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship; specifically : one controlling a particular aspect or part of reality
3 : a person or thing of supreme value
4 : a powerful ruler

Pronunciation Key

© 2001 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated
Merriam-Webster Privacy Policy
Notice that God is also defined as a powerful ruler.
Main Entry: Je·sus
Pronunciation: 'jE-z&s, -z&z also -"z&s and -"z&z
Function: noun
Etymology: Late Latin, from Greek IEsous, from Hebrew YEsh'ua`
1 : the Jewish religious teacher whose life, death, and resurrection as reported by the Evangelists are the basis of the Christian message of salvation — called also Jesus Christ
2 : Christian Science : the highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea rebuking and destroying error and bringing to light man's immortality

Pronunciation Key

© 2001 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated
Merriam-Webster Privacy Policy
Jesus is defined as a Rabbi or religious teacher. However there is no J in the hebrew language so the name Jesus is Greek.
Thirdly all of the story of Jesus is allegorical and can be related to Amun-Ra-Ptah. Amun being the father, Ra the sun (son) and Ptah divine intelligence or the holy word. The book Black power and the unveilation of the bible should be out this year 2005 which will more fully explain "God". In the meantime click onto www.pyramidoftruth.com and www.themysteryoflife.com and from there the internet radio program at live365 pyramidoftruth.com
 

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