Jesus Christ, Christmas and Islam

It is Christmas in the Christian world of faith, a day when the birth of Jesus(Isa) is generally commemorated, although some Christian groups reject the celebration. We Muslims also believe in the birth of Jesus, indeed the Quran describes his birth in beautiful verses.

Jesus occupies very high position within the ranks of the Prophets and Messengers chosen and sent out for the guidance of man, inviting them to their Creator and the Lord of the heavens and the earth. He is indeed one of those five Messengers who are referred to as ‘oolul `Azm’, (Messengers endowed with firmness of resolve): those who were sent for the benefit of the wider ummah of their time to guide people.

That Jesus has no divinity, nor is the son of God, but only a Messenger like other Prophets and Messengers, is a firm teaching of Islam. He was a messenger from Allah, sent out as a Sign for the world. The Quran refutes the claim that Allah had a son in the Christian belief saying: ‘They claim: ‘The Most Compassionate Lord has taken a son to Himself. Surely you have made a monstrous statement. It is such a monstrosity that heavens might well-nigh burst forth at it, the earth might be cleaved, and the mountains fall, at their ascribing a son to the Most Compassionate Lord. It does not befit the Most Compassionate Lord that He should take a son. There is no one in the heavens and the earth but he shall come to the Most Compassionate Lord as His servant’. S19 V88-93

The Quran describes Allah with these beautiful following verses: ‘Say He is Allah, the One and Unique. Allah, who is in need of none, and of whom all are in need. He neither begot any nor was He begotten. And none is comparable to Him’. S112 V1-4

The story of the birth of Jesus is mentioned in the Quran in these following verses:

‘O Mohammad! Recite in the Book the account of Mary, when she withdrew from her people to a place towards the east. And drew a curtain, screening herself from people whereupon We sent to her Our spirit and he appeared to her as a well-shaped man. Mary exclaimed: ‘I surely take refuge from you with the Most Compassionate Lord, if you are at all God fearing. He said: ‘I am just a message-bearer of your Lord, I have come to grant you a most pure boy. Mary said: ‘how can a boy born to me when no man has even touched me, nor I have ever been unchaste?’ The angel said: ‘Thus shall it be. Your Lord says: ‘it is easy for Me; and We shall do so in order to make him a Sign for mankind and a mercy from Us. This has been decreed.

Then she conceived him and withdrew with him to a far-off place. When the birth pangs drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree she said: ‘Oh, would that I had died before this and had been all forgotten’. Thereupon, the angel below her cried out: ‘Grieve not, for your Lord has caused a stream of water to flow beneath you. Shake the trunk of the palm-tree towards yourself and fresh and ripe dates shall fall upon you. So eat and drink and cool your eyes; and if you see any person say to him: ‘verily I have vowed a fast to the Most Compassionate Lord, and so I shall not speak to anyone today’. Then she came to her people, carrying her baby. They said: ‘O Mary! You have committed a monstrous thing. O sister of Aaron! Your father was not an evil man, nor was your mother an unchaste woman’. Thereupon, Mary pointed to the child. They exclaimed: ‘How can we speak to one who is in the cradle, a mere child?’. The child cried out: ‘verily I am Allah’s servant. He has granted me the Book and has made me a Prophet. And has blessed me wherever I might be and has enjoined upon me Prayer and  zakah as long as I live. And has made me dutiful to my mother. He has not made me oppressive, nor bereft of God’s blessings.’ Peace be upon me the day I was born and the day I will die and the day I will raised up alive’. This is Jesus, the son of Mary, and this is the truth about him concerning which they are in doubt’. S19 V16-34

Yes, Christmas is the time when masses of Christians celebrate the birth of their Christ.  But, surely, celebrating the message of the Christ should be of more importance if the wish is to please God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth? Would not Christmas become even more important if questions were asked as to whether Christmas plays any truly religious role in guiding its followers in discovering and following the message brought by him?

The coming of Jesus with a Book Gospel, or what is called in the Quran ‘Injeel’, while it did not follow the same pattern as other Prophets and messengers, contained the same eternal divine message. From an Islamic teachings’ perspective, he is seen as one of the bricks that completed the building of a house; the house being the chain of the prophethood. To affirm his message the Christian hierarchy needs to emphasise the Gospel that was brought and taught by Jesus and not the different versions of so called Gospels that were written down by his disciples.

I would like here to remind everyone that despite Islam’s differences with Christianity, the Quran uses the term ‘Ahl ul kitab’ for both Jews and Christians and promotes a very respectable relationship between Christian and Muslim communities. However, the belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ by the Christian Faith and that God, or God’s son, was born on this day, is a belief with which Islam has never accepted. It is regarded, on the contrary, as the worst kind of fallacious belief that makes no sense and goes against the very foundation of ‘monotheism’, that there is only one God.

The Quran asks the Prophet to proclaim to the people: ‘Say: ‘If the Merciful One had a son, I would have been the first one to worship him’. S43 V81

 But the Merciful One has no son and the Prophet preached exactly that: God has no son but sent down Prophets and Messengers for the guidance of humanity. This message is the only logical one. For Muslims, Christmas reminds them that God sent out Jesus(Isa) as one of his Messengers, so that people may be guided by him to the way of God, as the only God worthy of worship, who has no son and no partner and that ‘He neither begot any nor was He begotten. And none is comparable to Him’.

A Prophet for all humanity

In all the pages of human history the Prophet Muhammad, peace and the mercy of Allah be upon him, is one of the very few figures whose personality, teachings and the book he brought to the people from God the Almighty, have survived intact. Most other such prophetic personalities, philosophers or sages lived only in the shadows of human history and their teachings and history of their work have failed to survive with such clarity. The closest to Prophet Muhammad’s time was the Prophet Jesus, Isa, may Allah shower him with peace and mercy and even his life is disputed by many historians. We Muslims, in addition to the Christians, do believe he existed, but only as a previous Prophet sent by Allah.  

Unfortunately, hysterical attacks on the character and person of this most dignified and moral prophet, Muhammad, continue to be perpetrated by extremely prejudiced, blindly biased and supposedly arbitrarily opinionated people who express their criticisms for no sane reason. The internet is awash with vile comments that can only emanate from people of lewd character.

At the height of the hostility and even animosity from the opponents of the Prophet, peace and mercy of Allah be upon him, during his time in Makkah, no such similar comments were ever issued by anyone.  Their accusations and grievances were largely regarding two different subjects, and not directed at his personal character. The first described the message of the Quran as a work of Magic and the second, that it was destroying their old belief system and the legacy of their culture.

Indeed, the Prophet was well known among them by the title of ‘As-Sadiq Al-Ameen’ the most truthful and the most trustworthy. He even retained the people’s trusts at the time of migration to Madinah.

When the prophet married with young Ayesha, may Allah be pleased with her, none of his opponents took issue with it, nor used it to trash his character. The prophet married at different times and in different situations, with more than one wife, and no one from among his opponents objected or used these occasions to attack him.

Islam took exceptional steps to acknowledge the Jews and Christians as people of the Book and adopted a kinder and a softer approach towards them. The Prophet Mohammad helped to write a ‘Memorandum of peaceful co-existence’, that came to be known as the ‘Convention of Madinah’, whereby all parties became one community defending each other.

He never sought the destruction of Jews or any other community, but when some of the Jewish community betrayed the convention, inevitably, they were dealt with as had been agreed upon in the ‘Convention’.

The Prophet is described in the Quran in these following words: ‘There has come to you a Messenger of Allah from among yourselves, who is distressed by the suffering you sustain, who is ardently desirous of your welfare and is tender and merciful to those that believe’. S9 V128

Further, the Quran describes his mission saying: ‘We have sent you forth as nothing but mercy to the whole world’. S21 V107

The actions of such a Prophet cannot be other than merciful, tender and ‘ardently desirous of everyone’s welfare’. Many of the critics who repeatedly twist and misquote, out of context, the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet, or attack his character, are not only being completely unfair but display a viciousness present in their own characters that appears to teeter on the edge of insanity at times.

The Quran has not changed one iota since it was first revealed to our Prophet and was committed into the memories of people. Its message is universal and for the welfare of all humanity; believers or non-believers. The Prophet Muhammad was sent for the benefit of all people of all times and he is a prophet for all, whether they believe in the message or not. The Quran says: ‘and proclaim: the truth is from your Lord. Now let him who will, believe, or let him who will, disbelieve’. S18 V29

Everyone has the right to believe in his message or reject it in a dignified way, but civilised persons will do so without attempting to assassinate his character or malign his person.

The Prophet Muhammad is the bearer of a truthful message which needs to be analysed with all honesty from a neutral perspective. People indeed have the right to be different and believe what they think is right. Prophet Muhammad is a person of high morals and led people by the examples of his good character. With his leadership qualities and his concern for people’s welfare and deliverance he deserves all our respect and at the very least, to be studied in all objectivity.

There is no unfinished business with the mission of the Prophet Muhammad. He is one of the most clearly defined and featured persons in history. Perhaps he is the only prophet and  man of his calibre in history, whose biography was written so shortly after his death. Vivid descriptions of his physical and moral character were registered in his lifetime. His high morals and humane qualities were acknowledged even by his opponents.

Guidance is a divine gift from God and He guides to Him whom He wants to. Such guidance encompasses the acknowledgment of the existence of the Creator and His role in people’s life and being among those whom God has chosen to bless with His mercy. 

The Quran says: ‘Say to them, ( O Prophet! ‘I give you but one counsel: stand up singly and in pairs, and then think: what is it in your companion that could be deemed as madness? He is nothing but a warner, warning you before the coming of a grievous chastisement’. S34 V46

The birth of the last Prophet to lead humanity

Now we are in the third month of the Islamic calendar, Rabi al-Awwal, the First Spring. This month has seen many important events in Islamic history, of which the birth of the Prophet Mohammed sits at the very top. Every year its arrival reminds the Muslim community of a great favour that Allah, the Lord of the heavens and the earth, bestowed in this month upon the whole of humanity.

Allah says in the Quran: ‘Surely Allah conferred a great favour on the believers when He raised from among them a Messenger to recite to them His Signs, and to purify them, and to teach them the Book and Wisdom. For before that they were in manifest error.’ S3 V164

To understand this ‘great favour’ that Allah bestowed upon the believers, one has to understand the whole framework of Islamic teachings and guidance and their purpose and overall impact on the destinies of people.

In this time, in a world where animosity flourishes and we are continually bombarded with misinformation, which spews forth without any investigation as to its accuracy, a belittling of the greatness of this Prophet in the eyes of non-believers has become inevitable.  History, however, is witness to the fact that every time someone has taken on the task of studying this Prophet, with no prejudice or preconceived biased views, they have acknowledged his greatness and radically altered their views and even entered the fold of his followers.

When Michael Hart started ranking the 100 most influential people in the history of mankind, he felt he had no choice but to rank Prophet Mohammad at number 1. He indicated that ‘from a secular historian’s perspective, this was the correct choice’.

Karen Armstrong has written the famous biography of the Prophet with the title: ‘Muhammad: A Prophet for our time’. The title says it all about his place in modern times.

There are many other incidences where scholars studied the Prophet’s life from an unbiased perspective: they all ended up acknowledging his relevance and radically changed their positions and views about this great Prophet.

When the Prophet Muhammad was chosen by Allah to receive His revelation, the unblemished quality of his character was recognised in this Quranic verse: ‘and you are certainly on the most exalted standard of moral excellence’. S68 V4

That character was intended to lead humanity, in the light of Allah’s guiding revelations, to the best accomplishments in both this world and the next. The Quran expressed this by saying: ‘Surely there was a good example for you in the Messenger of Allah, for all those who look forward to Allah and the Last Day and remember Allah much’. S33 V21

The Prophet Muhammad’s life sets an exemplary example for all those who seek to understand his prophetic mission and duties. Critics fail to understand him and his teachings when they set themselves up as roll-models and standard-bearers and argue against his life and teachings only from their own narrow perspectives. He was a prophet for all humanity, bringing solutions to human problems from his wider ranging perspectives.

The Prophet was regarded as a role-model and he emphasised the importance of good morals in the spiritual lives of people and the position of those who finally attained good moral characters. Islam creates a good understanding of oneself in people and never demands a blind belief. Indeed, in its first revelation, the Quran said: ‘O Muhammad! Read in the Name of your Lord Who created, created man from a clot of congealed blood, Read and your Lord is Most Generous, Who taught by pen, taught man what he did not know’. S96 V1-5

The Prophet was the first example of all these and led believers by his example.

There are many in this world who continue to try to mock this prophet by attempting to ridicule his teachings. Now would probably be a good time for them to adopt a fairer stance towards his teachings and it is most certainly high-time that they start to study and begin to educate themselves, as many of them will undoubtably not live to see old age. They may even, possibly, refer to Muslim scholars and ask them why they revere him so much.  Failing to understand something is never a reason for destroying it. Understanding, freedom from prejudiced views and false propaganda, can only be arrived at if we take advantage of his good wisdom.

The Quran speaks of his teachings and guidance as follows: ‘By the stars when it sets. Your companion has neither strayed nor is he deluded, nor does he speak out of his desire. This is nothing but a revelation that is conveyed to him, something that a very powerful one has imparted to him, one endowed with immense wisdom’. S53 V1-6

The Prophet Muhammad is also described in the Quran as a Messenger who brings people out of darkness into light, with the permission of his Lord. Prophet Muhammad was the greatest leader, even acknowledged by Michael Hart and placed by him at the very top of mankind’s historical leadership list. Such a person deserves our attention, if not as a prophet and Messenger of God, then at least to be studied as being the greatest of the most successful leaders. Humanity needs all the wisdom of the wisest people if it is to find a path to human survival and continue to exist in this most troubled world.

We all hope that the fairest minds among people will always take the fairest stands against that which tries to destroy us. This month in the Islamic calendar reminds us of the birth of one who leads humanity to God and who created the most spiritual mindset ever in the history of mankind, in shaping the private and public lives of people. Let us take this opportunity to derive something from the blessings bestowed upon us by the Prophet Mohammed’s birth and his mission, follow his teachings without criticism and look forward to a brighter future.