A brief at the Islamic stance on Jesus

by **samirisaoui** Tue Dec 31, 2013 3:16 am

Many non-Muslims are surprised to find out that according to the Qur’an, Jesus, the son of Mary, is one of the greatest messengers of God. Contrary to the orthodox Jewish opinion that Jesus was born of an adultress who became a student of Rabbis and later deviated by falsely claiming that he was the Messiah (May God guide and forgive them).
Muslims are taught to love and follow the example set by Jesus. In addition to the fact that a person cannot be a Muslim without believing in the virgin birth and miracles of Jesus Christ, (Peace Be Upon Him) and that his mother was among the greatest most pious women among mankind. Muslims believe these things about Jesus not because of the Bible or any other religious text, but simply because the Holy Qur’an says these things about him.
However, in the Qur’an, God emphasizes that the miracles of Jesus, and all other prophets, were by “God’s permission”. This having been said, many Christians beleive that not to believe in Jesus as the “Son of God”, “God Incarnate” and/or the “Third Person” of the Trinity is heretical and leads one to Hell. This is the first thing which distinguishes Islam from Christianity because the Qur’an clearly says that Almighty God does not have a literal “Son”, although in the Authentic traditions of Muhammad we find texts which refer to righteous people as the metaphorical children of God. We see in the bible that many Prophets were referred to as “son of God”. This is a mechanism in the Hebrew language and old Jewish relgion to mean man of God or pious man (it was abolished from their language after Christians applied it literally to Jesus. And even in the bible today there is not one clear verse which says Jesus is God or that Jesus said -I am God so worhip me, so they rely on mainly “faith” along with ”explaining” verses (which could mean a variety of things according to the context) which point to his alleged divinity. There are many verses which show Jesus’ definite lack of divinity and that he was simply a messenger of God.
The Pure Monotheism of Islam rejects the notion of “anthropomorphism or defining” God (which is basically what the “Doctrine of the Trinity” does), saying that someone is “like” God or equal to him, or praying to someone else besides God. Also, Islam teaches that titles such as “Lord” and “Savior” are due to God alone. In order to avoid misunderstanding, it should be clarified that when Muslims criticize the Bible or the teachings of Christianity, they are not attacking “God’s Word”, Jesus Christ (Peace be upon him), or Christians. From the Muslim point of view, they are defending Jesus and God’s Word — which they have in the form of the Qur’an. Muslim criticism is targeted at writings that some people claim are God’s word, but Muslims simply don’t accept their claim that they are really God’s word in toto and this is based upon thorough knowledge and research mostly done by Christian and Secular scholars, not unverifiable emotional attachments only found in the “faith” of the respective christians’ hearts.
Additionally, Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the Atonement are also criticized by Muslims precisely because they did not originate from Jesus (pbuh). Atonement was established by Paul in order to abolish the law revealed throughout the history of the Judaic legacy and the trinity was established by the council of Nicea in the 4th century after Christendom had grown all over the world and people held various beliefs about Jesus. Many of the African and Arab Christian preists believed that he was no more than a great messenger of God and the Messiah sent to the children of Israel, which may expalin why these regions easily converted to Islam when the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) appeared on the world stage.
http://www.the-faith.com