Quran Garden

Session 393

Chapter 3

Verse 58

That is what We recite to you, these verses, a reminder full of wisdom. (Chapter 3: Verse 58)

The phrase "That is" refers to the preceding verses narrating the stories of the wife of Imran, the Virgin Mary, and Prophets Zechariah, John, and Jesus.  Each of them experienced wondrous signs from God that shattered the physical laws of the universe.  The stories in the Quran are narrated by God, so they are free from falsehood and are precisely as experienced by the people who lived at the time.

Perhaps the most important story is that of our beloved Jesus, peace be upon him, and we must lend a great deal of attention to it.  We should take the time to weigh the evidence and consider the opinion of those who gave Jesus his due right and those who assigned him a status opposite to what God commanded.  This study aims not to claim victory over a group or religion, nor to say that Muslims are better and other groups are wrong.  The matter is far more serious because it has severe consequences in the Hereafter that would land a person eternally, either in Paradise or Hellfire.  Hence, we must filter each argument with reason, not biases and fanaticism, until the truth becomes clear. 

Jesus, peace be upon him, was sent to the Children of Israel.  Judaism, at the time, had been distorted and heavily tilted towards materialism, with almost complete disregard for spiritual matters and the unseen.  This obsessive materialism culminated in what they asked Moses, peace be upon him, as the following verse illustrates:

Remember when you said, "Moses, we will not believe you until we see God face to face." At that, thunderbolts struck you as you looked on. (2:55)

The Jews who accompanied Moses failed to recognize that a great deal of God's perfection and majesty is to be unseen.  Had God been seen by humans, He would have been limited and enclosed.  It would mean that the Almighty exists in one place, so He is absent from others.  God is free from such descriptions because He is omnipresent in all places at all times.  We do not see Him with the eye, but we see the effects of His presence and the majesty of His work throughout the universe.  Thus, God is unseen because this is an essential part of His grandeur and perfection.

But the Jews of the time perceived all things as strictly tangible.  This was made especially clear when it came to their food and provisions.  While they wandered in the desert, God sent them their daily provisions in the form of manna and quail.  Manna is a sweet exudate that appears on tree leaves at daybreak.  It can still be found today in some regions of Iraq.  The wandering Israelites used to collect this delicious dessert in the early morning by spreading white sheets under desert plants.  The quail is a type of fatty bird that approached them and landed in flocks making it an easy catch.  God sent both foods daily, providing the Israelites with great nourishment that did not require any work.  It was a provision from the unseen, and that is exactly what made the Israelites uncomfortable and caused them to reject God's rations as narrated in the following verse:

Remember when you said, "Moses, we cannot bear to eat only one kind of food, so pray to your Lord to bring out for us some of the earth's produce, its herbs and cucumbers, its garlic, lentils, and onions." He said, "Would you exchange better for worse? Go to Egypt, and there you will find what you have asked for." They were struck with humiliation and wretchedness, and they incurred the wrath of God because they persistently rejected His messages and killed prophets, contrary to all that is right. All this was because they disobeyed and were lawbreakers. (2:61)

The Israelites wanted foods to sow with their hands and watch grow every day, even if it meant exchanging quails for onions.  They doubted the provision of the unseen and said, "Who knows, maybe the manna would not appear tomorrow, and the quail flocks would stop coming."  They had little faith in God, and wanted to handle all their affairs with pure materialism.

Such people, who were immersed in materialism and tangible gains and whose hearts were far from spirituality, needed a violent jolt to shake their belief system and bring them back to God. 

Prophet Jesus was the answer: a messenger whose entire life revolved around the unseen.  His birth, death, and miracles were all matters of the unseen.  He was born of a virgin woman without a father.  His miracles were centered on healing the sick without physical treatment and raising the dead back to life.  But, over time, the followers of Christ started to claim him as God or the son of God, and point to his birth and miracles as proof. 

So, today we look into each argument of the Christians and weigh the evidence.  

The first argument is that Jesus is the son of God because he was born of a virgin mother.   More specifically, since the masculine human element was absent and since God breathed the spirit into Mary, this implies that God is the father and Jesus the son.

We answer that, if this were the case, then the creation of Adam would be more worthy of consideration than that of Jesus, peace be upon them.  Motherhood existed in the creation of Jesus, but neither motherhood nor fatherhood existed for Adam.  Thus, for those making a case for divinity, the creation of Adam is more substantial.  God says:

Verily, the case of Jesus in the sight of Allah is as the case of Adam. He fashioned him out of dust, then He said to him, "Be," and he came to be. (3:59)

But there is more to the Christian argument, specifically the claim that God is the father because He breathed His spirit into the Virgin Mary.  To that, we answer that you must acquaint yourself with the following about Adam.  God says,

Your Lord said to the angels, "I will create a mortal out of dried clay, formed from dark mud.  When I have fashioned him in due proportions and breathed into him out of My Spirit, then fall down prostrating before him." (15:28-29)

Since the same conditions were present for Jesus and Adam, why would you keep silent about Adam and only assign fatherhood to the advent of Jesus? 

The second Christian argument is as follows: Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, and breathed life into objects, and that is the realm of God.  Here, we also bring forth the stories of other messengers of God, namely Abraham and Moses.  First, let's consider the story of our beloved Abraham.  God says:

And when Abraham said, "My Lord, show me how You give life to the dead," He said, "Do you not believe, then?" "Yes," said Abraham, "but just to put my heart at rest." So God said, "Take four birds and train them to come back to you. Then place them on separate hilltops, call them back, and they will come to you in haste: know that God is all-powerful and wise." (2:260)

Abraham, peace be upon him, did not need to breathe life into the birds; he merely called them back to life.  On the other hand, Moses' miracle gave life to a wooden staff.  Not only was this inanimate object given life, but it was also transformed from a dead plant to a live reptile, crossing species lines. 

Thus, the miracles of Jesus, peace be upon him, are not grounds to attribute divinity to him.  Otherwise, we would have to include Abraham and Moses.  Rather, God grants His messengers miracles that shatter the physical fabric of the universe to show people proof that these men are carrying a divine message from the Almighty.  All such wonders only happen with a grant and permission from God.  The miracles of Jesus, Moses and Abraham should lead us to the path of God, not away from Him. 

Now, let's move to the third argument.  Our fellow Christians agree with us that God Almighty is unseen.  However, they differ and say that God wanted humanity to be familiar with an image of Him, and Jesus is the comforting image of God on earth. 

To address this argument, we ask: which stage of Jesus' life represents God's image?  In other words, is the image of Jesus as a baby supposed to represent God? Or was it his image during his teen or adult years? Also, if all these images represent God, then this means that God is subject to change and the effects of time.

God is the ever-present, ever-constant that does not change.  Neither place nor time affect the Almighty.  He has one image that we do not see or know.  He says in the 11th verse of chapter 42:

There is nothing whatever like Him.

The second half of this argument states that God's descent to earth in Jesus' form was to familiarize people with Him and ease any feelings of estrangement between people and their Creator.  But Jesus lived for just over thirty years.  Was that the entire period of familiarizing people with the divine image?  What about the generations who lived thousands of years before Jesus or thousands of years after? Were they not worthy of knowing their Lord?  This is a perception of an unjust God, and the Almighty is free from injustice.  God is generous, and He would not make His image available for only thirty years.

Since the beginnings of humanity, God sent to each nation a prophet to show them the path to their Creator.  He supported His prophet, from Adam to Noah, Lot, Jesus, Muhammad, and countless others, with miracles to prove the authenticity of their message.  Allah is the all-giving Lord Who treats humanity with love and justice. 

The last argument is that of the crucifixion.  It is an understandable argument.  In fact, God has excused those who think that Jesus was crucified in the Quran.  He says:

And for their saying, "We killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God," – whereas they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but so it was made to appear to them. Indeed those who differ concerning him are surely in doubt about him: they do not have any knowledge of that beyond following conjectures, and certainly they did not kill him. (4:157)

Christian scholars still argue about the actual events of that day.  God excused those who said Jesus was crucified because it appeared to be the case during the chaos of that time.  A man who resembled Jesus was captured and crucified.  It would have been reasonable for them to seek clarification from future heavenly revelations, namely, Islam and the Quran. 

Moreover, murder and crucifixion contradict the idea of Jesus ??being a God or the son of God.  Undoubtedly, the divine has the power to overcome His enemies and protect Himself or His son from harm.  How could mere mortals overcome their Creator?

The second half of this argument states that Jesus sacrificed himself to absolve humanity of its sins.  But what about the generations who lived thousands of years before Jesus? Were they not worthy of having their sins forgiven?  God is fair, and such a claim is far from justice. 

Islam has truly honored Jesus, peace be upon him, by explaining that he was not crucified; instead, he was saved by God and raised to the heavens.  Just as the message of Christianity came to purify the corruption and materialism that crept into Judaism, the message of Islam came to purify the distortions of polytheism that crept into Christianity.  God says in the 143^rd verse of Chapter 2:

And thus, We have made you a middle nation that you will be witnesses over the people, and the Messenger will be a witness over you.

People are often much attached to their beliefs, and sometimes that makes arguments of reason unfruitful.  In the next session, we learn how our beloved Muhammad dealt with situations when disputes between him and Christian scholars hit an impasse.