What Do Muslims Believe About Jesus (pbuh)?

Example of Jesus: Be Aware of Beauty - Imam Khalid Latif

"I am the slave of Allah" - Prophet Eesa (Stories of the Prophets)

Jesus Will Return

Jesus ('Isa)  (Upon whom be peace), just as all the other prophets, is a chosen slave of Allah whom Allah assigned to summon people to the true path. However, there are some attributes of Jesus  distinguishing him from other prophets, the most important one being that he was raised up to Allah and that he will come back to earth again. 

Contrary to what most people believe, Jesus  was not crucified and killed nor did he die for any other reason. The Quran tells us that they did not kill him and they did not crucify him and that Allah raised him up to Him. In none of the verses, is there an actual reference to his murder or that he was killed, apart from the verse (ayah) which denies that it happened. Furthermore, the Quran acquaints us with some events from the life of Jesus  which have not yet happened. Thus, his second coming to earth is a prerequisite for these events to happen. There is no doubt that the Quran's revelations will surely happen. 

Despite this, however, many people assume that Jesus  passed away some thousands of years ago and that thus it is unlikely that he will return. This is a misconception arising from lack of knowledge about the Quran and the Sunnah. A careful scrutiny of the Quran will render an accurate understanding of the verses about Jesus  possible. 

Our Prophet  also told us that Jesus  will be sent back to earth and related that in that time, which is called "the end of time", there may be a period in which the earth will attain unprecedented peace, justice and welfare. The "end times" refers to the period of time close to the end of the world. According to Islam, in this time, there will be the terrible trials of the Dajjal (Anti-Christ), many earthquakes and the emergence of Yajuj and Majuj (Gog and Magog) after which the ways of the Quran will prevail and people will extensively adhere to the values it introduces.

In their dreams, people always long for better. A more beautiful landscape, a more delicious food, a more socially promising society .. The later period of "the end of time" expresses a period which entirely embraces all these favorable concepts, "the better", "the more beautiful" etc. It is a blessed period people have been longing for ages. It is the glorious time of welfare and abundance, of justice and peace. It is the time when all these blessings will supersede injustice, immorality, conflict and wars. It is surely the blessed time when Islamic morals will penetrate to every aspect of life.

THE EXPECTED SAVIOR 

In every age, Allah answered the call of His slaves who desperately needed His help. This also holds true for this age and for the future. As it was the case with the earlier ages, in our day, too, it is expected that Allah will save people from the injustice of the system of disbelief and present them with the beauties of Islam.

It is especially expected that the Islamic world will find a way out of the corruption it experiences today and the sincere believers will communicate the values of Islam to the whole world. Surely, as in every age, today people hope that a savior will appear. This savior, who will take mankind from the "darkness to the light," is the religion of Islam. The people leading the way to live by these superior values will defeat all the systems that deny Allah, and they will render corrupted ideologies invalid.

In brief, Allah will help each people as He did in previous ages. Allah promises this to His slaves who sincerely turn to Him and have deep fear of Him.

THE RETURN OF JESUS  TO EARTH

An examination of the verses about Jesus  in the Quran indicates that Jesus neither died nor was killed, but he was raised to the presence of Allah. In Surat an-Nisa, it is related that Jesus  was not killed but raised to the presence of Allah. The related verse follows:

And (on account of) their saying, "We killed the Messiah, 'Isa son of Maryam, Messenger of Allah." They did not kill him and they did not crucify him but it was made to seem so to them. Those who argue about him are in doubt about it. They have no real knowledge of it, just conjecture. But they certainly did not kill him. Allah raised him up to Himself. Allah is Almighty, All-Wise. (Surat an-Nisa: 157-158)

From what has been related so far, it is clear that Jesus  did not die but was raised to the presence of Allah. However, there is one more point that is underlined by the Quran: Jesus  will come back to earth. That Jesus  will come back to earth towards the end of time is related in another verse 43:61. [detailed references are available in the book related to other verses: 3:45-48; 3:55; 4:157-159].

Starting from Surat az-Zukhruf: 57, there is reference to Jesus :

When an example is made of the son of Maryam ('Isa) your people laugh uproariously. They retort, "Who is better then, our gods or him?" They only say this to you for argument's sake. They are indeed a disputatious people.

He is only a slave on whom We bestowed Our blessing and whom We made an example for the tribe of Israel. (Surat az-Zukhruf: 43-59)

If We wished, We could appoint angels in exchange for you to succeed you on the earth. (Surat az-Zukhruf: 43-60) 

Just after these verses, Allah declares that Jesus  is a sign of the Day of Judgment.

He is a Sign of the Hour. Have no doubt about it. But follow me. This is a straight path. (Surat az-Zukhruf: 43:61)

 

Ibn Juzayy says that the first meaning of this verse is that Jesus  is a sign or a precondition of the Last Hour. We can say that this verse is a clear indication that Jesus  will come back to earth at the end times. That is because Jesus  lived six centuries before the revelation of the Quran. Consequently, we cannot interpret his first coming as a sign of the Day of Judgment. What this verse actually indicates is that Jesus  will come back to earth towards the end of time, that is to say, during the last period of time before the Day of Judgment and this will be a sign for the Day of Judgment. Allah surely knows the best.

The Arabic of the verse "He is a Sign of the Hour" is "Innahu la 'ilmun li's-sa'atiÉ" Some people interpret the pronoun "hu" (he) in this verse as the Quran. However, the preceding verses explicitly indicate that Jesus  is mentioned in the verse: "He is only a slave on whom We bestowed Our blessing and whom We made an example for the tribe of Israel" [1]

In Sahih Muslim, it is also stated that the Hadith in which it is said that the Prophet Jesus  will descend amongst people at the end of time have reached the degree of being mutawatir, i.e. narrated by so many people in each generation that it is not possible to have any doubt of their authenticity, and that it is counted as one of the major signs of the Day of Rising. (Sahih Muslim, 2/58)

Hudhayfah ibn Usayd al-Ghifari said, "The Messenger of Allah (saas) came to us all of a sudden as we were (busy in a discussion). He said: 'What are you discussing?' We said: 'We are discussing the Last Hour.' Thereupon he said: 'It will not come until you see ten signs before it' - and (in this connection) he made mention of the smoke, the Dajjal, the beast, the rising of the sun from the west, the descent of 'Isa the son of Maryam, Yajuj and Majuj, and landslides in three places, one in the east, one in the west and one in Arabia at the end of which fire will burn forth from the Yemen, and drive people to the place of their assembly." (Sahih Muslim)

JESUS  IN THE RISALE-I NUR COLLECTION

In the Risale-I Nur collection, a Quranic commentary written by Said Nursi, also known as Bediuzzaman (the Wonder of the Age),one of the greatest Islamic scholars of the 20th century, there is extensive reference to the end of time and the second coming of Jesus .

It is a fact that today Muslim communities embrace different thoughts. However, a great number of Muslims from various cultures agree that Bediuzzaman was one of the greatest scholars of the 13th century (Muslim Calendar). That is why the detailed descriptions of the end of time by Bediuzzaman are of great importance for all Muslims.

In his explanations regarding the end of time, Bediuzzaman states that two philosophical movements, described as serious endeavors to establish disbelief, would cause disorder on earth. The first one will be a covert threat to Islam while the second class of movements will openly reject the existence of Allah. The second current is materialist and naturalist understandings that affirm that matter is an absolute being, which has existed since eternity and which will exist until eternity. The two movements further hold that living beings accidentally came into existence from non-living matter. (Naturalism is known as the philosophical dimension of Darwin's theory of evolution.)

This definition surely provides the basis of all ideologies denying the existence of Allah. Since early times, materialists opposed all religions revealed by Allah, fought against their supporters, oppressed people, waged wars and opened the way to every sort of degeneration in society.

Jesus , too, in his second coming to earth, will struggle against these materialist and naturalist movements and, by the will of Allah, will gain victory over them. Bediuzzaman draws attention in his books to the materialist movement: 

The Second Current: A tyrannical current born of Naturalist and Materialist philosophy will gradually become strong and spread at the end of time by means of materialist philosophy, reaching such a degree that it denies God. [2] 

Bediuzzaman heralds that Jesus  will come to earth at such a period when disbelief will dominate the earth. As stated in the following words of Bediuzzaman, in his second coming to earth, Jesus  will rule with the Quran and eliminate all bigotry in Christianity. Uniting against disbelief, Christians who have embraced Islam and Muslims will prevail over the disbelieving ideologies by the guidance of the Quran. The related section in the Risale-i Nur follows:

At that point when the current appears to be very strong, the religion of true Christianity, which comprises the collective personality of Jesus , will emerge. That is, it will descend from the skies of Divine Mercy. Present Christianity will be purified in the face of that reality; it will cast off superstition and distortion, and unite with the truths of Islam. Christianity will in effect be transformed into a sort of Islam. Following the Quran, the collective personality of Christianity will be in the rank of follower, and Islam, in that of leader. True religion will become a mighty force as a result of its joining it. Although defeated before the atheistic current while separate, Christianity and Islam will have the capability to defeat and rout it as a result of their union. Then the person of Jesus , who is present with his human body in the world of the heavens, will come to lead the current of true religion, as, relying on the promise of One Powerful Over All Things, the Bringer of Sure News has said. Since he has told of it, it is true, and since the One Powerful Over All Things has promised it, He will certainly bring it about. [3]

In all his descriptions of the second coming, Bediuzzaman indicates that Jesus  will remove all the systems of disbelievers in that period. He further adds that he will receive great support from Muslims. Jesus  will act as a Muslim and pray behind the imam of the Muslims, and work together with the right-acting people from the Islamic world, and will assume leadership in spreading the Quran and its teachings, and remove the ongoing violence of the system of the disbelievers:

It will be the truly pious followers of Jesus  who will kill the gigantic collective personality of materialism and irreligion which the Dajjal will form - for the Dajjal will be killed by Jesus'  sword - and destroy his ideas and disbelief, which are atheistic. Those truly pious Christians will blend the essence of true Christianity with the essence of Islam and rout the Dajjal with their combined strength, in effect killing him. The narration: "Jesus  will come and will perform the obligatory prayers behind the Mahdi and follow him," alludes to this union, and to the sovereignty of the Quran and its being followed. [4]

CONCLUSION

In the history of mankind, that Jesus  will be sent back to earth for a second time by Allah is surely a divine favor to all humanity. Only a minority of people will enjoy this occasion. He will then be a blessed "savior" sent to all mankind. Indeed, in times when violence and disorder were increasingly experienced in the world, human beings begged a "helper" from Allah. Accordingly, Allah responded to their plea:

What reason could you have for not fighting in the Way of Allah - for those men, women and children who are oppressed and say, "Our Lord, take us out of this city whose inhabitants are wrongdoers! Give us a protector from You! Give us a helper from You!"? (Surat an-Nisa: 75) 

As mentioned earlier, the "savior" in our time is the penetration of the Quranic values to our souls and society. Upon his second coming, Jesus  will wholeheartedly adhere to these revealed values favored by Allah and strive purely to spread them to people all over the world.

The knowledge of unseen and future events is something only known to Allah. Yet, it is certain that those who expect this blessed period and this person must at that time undertake important obligations. Just as Jesus  will protect and guide all believers, the believers will also have to give wholehearted support to Jesus  and help him in the services he renders for the sake of Allah. This time, in other words, during his second coming, believers should never make him ask again, "Who will be my helpers to Allah?"(Surah Al 'Imran: 52) Otherwise, one will feel deep regret and torment both in this world and hereafter. Allah clearly threatens those who are ungrateful:

Then we sent our Messengers one after another, at intervals. Each time its Messenger came to a community they called him a liar so We made them follow one another too and turned them into myths and legends. Away with the people who have no faith! (Surat al-Muminun: 44) 

On the other hand, those who follow him, who provide him sincere support and adopt the revealed values brought by him may well hope to earn the good pleasure, mercy and eternal paradise of Allah. This is a definite promise and good tidings given by Allah: 

Allah has sent down a reminder to you, a Messenger reciting Allah's Clear Signs to you to bring those who have faith and do right actions out of the darkness into the Light. Whoever has faith in Allah and acts rightly, We will admit him into Gardens with rivers flowing under them remaining in them timelessly, for ever and ever. Allah has provided for him excellently! (Surat at-Talaq: 11) 

We are grateful to Allah, the Almighty, Who will honor such of His slaves as He wills on such a great occasion as the second coming of Jesus  and grant them this important opportunity to gain merit for their lives in the hereafter. 

And peace be upon the Messengers. And praise be to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds! (Surat as-Saffat: 181-182)  

Notes:

*. : Upon whom be peace

1. Prof. Suleyman Ates, Yuce Kur'an'ın Cagdas Tefsiri (The Contemporary Tafsir of the Holy Quran, vol. 6, p. 4281)

2. Said-i Nursi, The Letters, The Fifteenth Letter, p.53

3. Said-i Nursi, The Letters, The Fifteenth Letter, p.54

4. Said-i Nursi, The Rays, The Fifth Ray, p. 493

Excerpts taken from Harun Yahya's book, titled "Jesus will Return". First English edition published in February 2001.  To order this book, click here.

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Jesus Through a Muslim Lens

Jesus of Nazareth is the most widely revered religious figure in the world. Not only is he central to Christianity, the largest religion in the world, he is also venerated throughout Islam, the world's second largest faith.

Christians may be surprised to learn that Muslims believe in the Virgin Birth and Jesus' miracles. But this shared interest in his message goes much further.

In our scientific age, the miraculous side of Jesus' story has greatly obscured his role in the prophetic tradition. In this sense, there may be more important questions for Muslims and Christians than whether he walked on water or raised the dead.

In the Muslim view, Jesus' essential work was not to replicate magic bread or to test our credulity, but to complement the legalism of the Torah with a leavening compassion rarely expressed in the older testament. His actions and words introduce something new to monotheism: They develop the merciful spirit of God's nature. Jesus confirmed the Torah, stressing the continuity of his lineage, but he also developed the importance of compassion and self-purification as crucial links between learning the words of God's message and possessing the wisdom to carry it out.

Oddly enough, some of the recent work by New Testament scholars seems to have reached a view of Christ not all that different from Muslims'. For us and for these scholars, Jesus appears not as a literal son of God in human form, but as an inspired human being, a teacher of wisdom with a talent for love drawn from an unbroken relationship to God. Both versions present him as a man who spoke to common people in universal terms.

Two events in the life of the prophet Muhammad may help explain why Muslims revere the Christian Jesus.

The first event involves an elder resident of Mecca named Waraqa bin Nawfal. This man was an early Arab Christian and an uncle of Muhammad's wife, Khadija. We know he could read Hebrew, that he was mystical by nature, and that he attended Khadija and Muhammad's wedding in about 595 C.E. Fifteen years later, a worried Khadija sought Waraqa out and brought her husband to him.

At the time, Muhammad was a 40-year-old respected family man. He attended this "family therapy" session in a rare state of agitation. He was frightened. He had been meditating one evening in a cave on the outskirts of town. There, while half asleep, he had experienced something so disturbing that he feared he was possessed. A voice had spoken to him. 

Waraqa listened to his story, which Muslims will recognize as a description of Muhammad's first encounter with the angel Gabriel. When it was finished, Waraqa assured him he was not possessed. 

"What you have heard is the voice of the same spiritual messenger God sent to Moses. I wish I could be a young man when you become a prophet! I would like to be alive when your own people expel you." 

"Will they expel me?" Muhammad asked. 

"Yes," the old man said. "No one has ever brought his people the news you bring without meeting hostility. If I live to see the day, I will support you." 

Christians will recognize in Waraqa's remarks an aphorism associated with Jesus: "A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country." But that a Christian should first have verified Muhammad's role as a prophet may come as a surprise. 

The second important event concerning Islam and Christianity dates from 616, a few years after Muhammad began to preach publicly. This first attempt to reinstate the Abrahamic tradition in Mecca met (as Waraqa had warned) with violent opposition. 

Perhaps the Meccans resented Muhammad's special claim. Perhaps his message of a single, invisible, ever-present God threatened the economy of their city. A month's ride south from the centers of power in Syria and Persia, poor remote Mecca depended on long-distance trade and on seasonal pilgrims who came there each year to honor hundreds of pagan idols, paying a tax to do so. 

At any rate, Muhammad's disruptive suggestion that "God was One" and could be found anywhere did not sit well with the businessmen of Mecca. 

Many new Muslims were being tortured. Their livelihoods were threatened, their families persecuted. As matters grew worse, in 616 Muhammad sent a small band of followers across the Red Sea to seek shelter in the Christian kingdom of Axum. There, he told them, they would find a just ruler, the Negus, who could protect them. The Muslims found the Negus in his palace, somewhere in the borderland between modern Ethiopia and Eritrea. 

And protect them he did, after one Muslim recited to him some lines on the Virgin Mary from the Qur'an. The Negus wept at what he heard. Between Christians and Muslims, he said, he could not make out more difference than the thickness of a twig.

These two stories underscore the support Christians gave Muhammad in times of trial. The Qur'an distils the meaning from the drama:

Those who feel the most affection
For us (who put our faith in the Qur'an),
Are those that say, "We are Christians,"
For priests and monks live among them
Who are not arrogant. When they listen
To what We have shown Muhammad,
Their eyes brim over with tears
At the truth they find there....

Even today, when a Muslim mentions Jesus' name, you will hear it followed by the phrase "peace and blessings be upon him," because Muslims still revere him as a prophet.

We believe in God
And in what has been sent down to us,
What has been revealed to Abraham and Ishmael
And Isaac and Jacob and their offspring,
And what was given to Moses and to Jesus
And all the other prophets of the Lord.
We make no distinction among them.

 As these lines from the Qur'an make clear, Muslims regard Jesus as one of the world's great teachers. He and his mentor John the Baptist stand in a lineage stretching back to the founder of ethical monotheism. Moreover, among Muslims, Jesus is a special type of prophet, a messenger empowered to communicate divinity not only in words but by miracles as well.

Muslims, it must be said, part company with some Christians over the portrait of Jesus developed in the fourth and fifth centuries. Certain fictions, Muslims think, were added then. Three of these come in for special mention: First, Muslims consider monastic asceticism a latter-day innovation, not an original part of Jesus' way. Second, the New Testament suffers from deletions and embellishments added after Jesus' death by men who did not know him. Third, the description of Jesus as God's son is considered by Muslims a later, blasphemous suggestion. 

Muslims venerate Jesus as a divinely inspired human but never, ever as "the son of God." In the same vein, we treat the concept of the Trinity as a late footnote to Jesus' teachings, an unnecessary "mystery" introduced by the North African theologian Tertullian two centuries after Jesus' death. Nor do Muslims view his death as an act of atonement for mankind's sins. Rather, along with the early Christian theologian Pelagius, Islam rejects the doctrine of original sin, a notion argued into church doctrine by St. Augustine around the year 400. 

It might almost be said that Islam holds a view of Jesus similar to some of the early apostolic versions condemned by the fourth-century Byzantine Church. Once Constantine installed Christianity as the Roman Empire's state religion, a rage for orthodoxy followed. The Councils of Nicaea (325), Tyre (335), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451) were official, often brutal attempts to stamp out heterodox views of Jesus held by "heretical" theologians. 

Rulings by these councils led to the persecution and deaths of tens of thousands of early Christians at the hands of more "orthodox" Christians who condemned them. Most disputes centered on divergent interpretations of the Trinity. For this reason, historians of religion sometimes see in these bloody divisions one of the root causes for early Islam's firmly unitarian outlook. 

Then and now, no more dangerous religious mistake exists for a Muslim than dividing the Oneness of God by twos or threes. 

Despite these important differences, however, the Qur'an repeatedly counsels Muslims not to dispute with other monotheists over matters of doctrine. People, it says, believe differently for good reasons. In fact, that is a part of Allah's will.

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'nuff said!

Top 5 reasons Jesus is not the begotten son of God -TheDeenShow

On Jesus (peace be upon him) and Gays

British pop singer Elton John has provoked Christian outrage worldwide over remarks that Jesus Christ was homosexual.

“Jesus was certainly compassionate, but to say he was 'super-intelligent' is to compare the son of God to a successful game-show contestant,” Bill Donohue, president of The Catholic League, the largest US Catholic rights group, said in a statement cited by Australia’s Sky News on Saturday, February 20.

“More seriously, to call Jesus a homosexual is to label him a sexual deviant.

“What else would we expect from a man who previously said, 'From my point of view, I would ban religion completely'?”

The controversial pop star has described Jesus as a “compassionate, super-intelligent gay man”.

“On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel,” John, who is a gay, told US celebrity news magazine Parade on Friday.

Donohue, the US Catholic leader, accused the pop star of ignorance and intolerance.

“In any event, if we thought we could persuade him to issue an apology, we would try. But given his recidivism, we won’t even bother to ask,” he said.

“One thing is clear: someone needs to straighten John out.”

Christian leaders accused the British singer of seeking to draw media attention.

"Had a senior political figure made these comments, I would have had an opinion,” said Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute.

“But this is Elton John and I don't think anybody takes him seriously."

Stephen Green, director of Christian Voice, agreed.

“This is a desperate cry for attention," he said, describing John’s statements as “rubbish”.

"The Bible says Jesus was without sin and that rules out homosexuality.”

Muslims believe in Jesus as one of the great Prophets of God and that he is the son of Mary but not the Son of God. He was conceived and born miraculously.

In the Noble Qur’an, Jesus is called "Isa". He is also known as Al-Masih (the Christ) and Ibn Maryam (Son of Mary).

As for his crucifixion, Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified but was lifted up to heaven.

Muslims believe that Jesus will come back to earth before the end of time to restore peace and order, fight the Anti-Christ (Al-Masih Al-Dajjal) and bring victory for truth and righteousness.

The true followers of Jesus will prevail over those who deny him, misrepresent him and reject him.

In the Holy Quran, Allah says:

(Say ye: we believe in Allah, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord: we make no difference between one and another of them: and we bow to Allah (in Islam).) (Al-Baqarah 2: 136)

(Behold! the angels said: ‘O Mary! Allah giveth Thee glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and of (the company of) those nearest to Allah.) (Aal `Imran 3: 45)

Meanwhile in Kenya:

Muslim and Christian residents of Mtwapa, a district in the outskirts of the port city of Mombassa, recently joined hands in disrupting a planned nuptial involving two local tribesmen on the ground of being completely an alien practice in their largely conservative community.

"It is just something that we used to hear about and it never occurred to the back of my mind that it will happen here in Africa," Mustapha Said, a Muslim resident, told IslamOnline.net.

Two men had wanted to make their wedding ceremony public but in vain.

Local Muslim and Christian communities who reside in the small coastal town went on rampage to disrupt the ceremony.

The two men, whose identities have not been revealed, were taken into custody after the controversial incident.

"We are really worried for our future and we don’t want Africa to embrace an alien practice like homosexuality," said Maymuna Salim, a 26-year-old Muslim woman.

The faltered gay wedding ceremony would have been the first public same-sex marriage in the East African country.

Homosexuality is legally prohibited in Kenya and statutes which date back to the colonial period provide for prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Africa has put a strong resistance for same-sex marriages on grounds of religion, belief and conscience.

In 2006, South Africa became the first in Africa, and fifth in the world, to legalize same-sex marriage.

But defiant Africa remains one of the most homophobic places in the world.