CHRISTIANITY and JESUS
AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE
Christmas
holidays come and go each year with a shopping frenzy, hustle and bustle, Santa Clauses, Christmas trees, decorations and lights. This is the time when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. This article addresses the following questions relying mostly on quotations from the Holy Quran:
OF CHRISTIANITY
Historical facts reveal that Jesus did not use the word Christianity. He and his followers used to worship in the temple which other Israelites used. The message of Jesus was to call people back to the religion of Abraham and Moses from which they had gone astray. After Jesus, Paul declared that belief in Jesus sufficed for salvation. The Jewish scholars of that time called the followers of Jesus the misguided sect of Nazarene or Galilaens. In 43 C.E., when Paul and Barnabas went to Antioch to preach, they were ridiculed and were called Christians by the masses. The ones who were called Christians felt that if they are being given a name in reference to Jesus, there is nothing wrong in accepting it. Westerners have used the similar concept in labelling Muslims as Mohammedans. Oddly enough, literature on "Mohammedans" is still in abundance in the Western libraries.
>PAUL ALTERED THE MESSAGE
At the beginning, Paul was a staunch opponent of Jesus and remained so for many years after his ascension. When he did join the followers of Jesus later on, he initiated many alterations in the teachings of Jesus in hopes of winning over the Gentiles (non-Jewish people). He introduced the following concepts into Christianity:
Paul eliminated all regulations concerning food and abrogated the injunctions of circumcision. The real followers of Jesus opposed these blatant misrepresentations of the message of Jesus. Their struggle to reject the notion of Divinity of Jesus continued for about two hundred years. Since these alterations were very appealing to the Gentiles, the true believers were unable to stop the misguidance. In 325 C.E., a council of Christian leaders met at Nicaea and officiated Paul's beliefs as their religion. Roman Empire declared Paul's religion as the religion of the State and all those books which denied these beliefs were banned. In 367 C.E., the State announced a list of books acceptable to it and fifteen years later, a council held under the presidency of Pope Damasius gave its approval to these books. At the end of the fifth century, Pope Galasius published a list of unauthorized books (Apocryphal) to further conform with Paul's religion of Christianity.
JESUS BORN WITHOUT A FATHER
The true story of Jesus' birth from Mary is narrated in the Holy Quran. We are told that he was born without a father by the command of God. Mary was single and a chaste woman.
(21:91) And (remember) her who guarded her chastity: We breathed into her of Our Spirit, and We made her and her son a Sign for all peoples.
19:16 Relate in the Book (the story of) Mary, when she withdrew from her family to a place in the East.
19:17 She placed a screen (to screen herself) from them: then We sent to her Our angel, and he appeared before her as a man in all respects.
19:18 She said: "I seek refuge from thee to (God) Most Gracious: (come not near) if thou dost fear God."
19:19 He said: "Nay, I am only a messenger from thy Lord, (to announce) to thee the gift of a holy son."
19:20 She said: "How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and I am not unchaste?"
19:21 He said: "So (it will be): thy Lord saith, `That is easy for Me: and (We wish) to appoint him as a Sign unto men and a Mercy from Us': it is a matter (so) decreed."
19:22 So she conceived him, and she retired with him to a remote place.
19:23 And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree: she cried (in her anguish): "Ah! would that I had died before this! Would that I had been a thing forgotten and out of sight!"
19:24 But (a voice) cried to her from beneath the (palm-tree): "Grieve not! for thy Lord hath provided a rivulet beneath thee; 19:25 "And shake towards thyself the trunk of the palm-tree: it will let fall fresh ripe dates upon thee.
19:26 "So eat and drink and cool (thine) eyes. And if thou dost see any man, say, `I have vowed a fast to (God) Most Gracious, and this day will I enter into no talk with any human being.' "
JESUS SPOKE AS A BABY
