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Jesus
(peace be upon him)
Due to his unusual entry and exit from our world, having been born, like Adam, without a father,
"The likeness of Jesus is as the likeness of Adam, He created him from dust, then He said to him: Be! and he is." (Qur'an: 3:59)
and having been spared death by being raised to heaven prior to his return or second coming,
"But Allah took him up to Himself. Allah is ever Mighty, Wise."(Qur'an 4:158)
Jesus (‘Issa) is so unusual amongst the prophets that some have mistakenly elevated him to divine status. As they focus on his spiritual activities and miracles, it is often forgotten that he also played a political role in confronting the Jewish Pharisees,
"The law teachers and the Pharisees sit in Moses' chair. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practise what they preach."(Matthew 23:2)
and thereby posed a problem to the Roman rulers under whose ultimate jurisdiction they operated. Whilst focusing mostly on teaching personal virtues rather than direct action, he did, however, violently evict the money changers from the temple:
"Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written",
he said to them,
" 'My house will be called a house of prayer', but you are making it a 'den of robbers'." (Matthew 21:12-13)
Since being born to a virgin is not something people take for granted, Jesus’ mother Mary was faced with accusations of infidelity when she returned from a secluded place after having given birth to him.
"Then she brought him to her own people, carrying him. They said: O Mary! You have come with an amazing thing. O sister of Aaron! Your father was not a wicked man nor was your mother a harlot."(Qur'an 19:17-28)
Amongst the gifts he was given was to be able to talk already as a baby in the cradle, and speaking in defence of his mother and announcing his mission as a prophet must surely have caused a great surprise and commotion and established his reputation early on.
"Then she pointed to him. They said: "How can we talk to one who is in the cradle, a young boy?" He spoke: "I am the slave of Allah. He has given me the Scripture and has appointed me as a prophet". (Qur'an 19:29-30)
As he grew up he displayed both knowledge and wisdom and exerted the powers of a healer ensuring his popularity. Yet he never sought fame or following for himself, always instead pointing to the one who sent him: God.
"When Allah says: O Jesus, son of Mary! Did you say to mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods besides Allah? he says: Be glorified! It was not for me to utter that to which I had no right."(Qur'an 5:116)
This is, for example, clearly expressed in Matthew 10:40 where he instructs his disciples:
“He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives Him Who sent me.”
His disciples were a selected number of people who followed him as he travelled the land to exhort people to the virtues of belief and good deeds and taught them that to serve God was more than to just obey a set of legalistic rules. As such, he was a reformer for the Israelites, “sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” as he is quoted in Matthew 15:24, and had no ambition to extend his mission to those not under the Law of Moses.
"Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them." Matthew 5:17-19:
The Israelites, who as we have seen already found it difficult to keep to Moses’ instructions without deviation, had established an elaborate Rabbinical system by the time Jesus was born, which replaced the simplicity of the Laws of Moses with a complicated set of interpretations. Naturally, they saw Jesus’ call to return to the spirit of the law and the essence of the belief in God as a challenge to their authority. Ultimately, they plotted to have him removed or killed.
Whilst not all Christians ascribe divinity to Jesus, most believe that the Jews succeeded in having him crucified by the Romans. The Qur’an contradicts this account by declaring that they had no certainty about the matter and it only appeared to them as if,
"…they killed him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so to them; and those who disagree concerning it are in doubt of it; they have no knowledge of it except pursuit of conjecture; they killed him not for certain." (Qur'an 4:157)
in other words, they crucified someone else in his stead whilst God raised Jesus to Himself, saving him from the intended crucifixion, a death described in the Bible as a curse. Trinitarian Christianity later tried to explain that it was necessary for God to curse and sacrifice his only son in order to save the rest of humanity from original sin. Yet, the Bible does not support the idea of a cruel and punishing God who kills the innocent for the sins of others.
"The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor shall the children be put to death for the fathers, every man shall be put to death for his own sin."
Deuteronomy 24:16:
As a loving God He is able to forgive rather than having to exact revenge.
Whilst Muslims and Christians disagree on how Jesus departed this world when the Israelites plotted against him, they agree that he will return near the end of time as the Messiah, the Anointed, the Saviour. The Jews also expect their promised Messiah, but having rejected Jesus and denounced him as a tool of Satan, they would not agree on the choice. Just as Jesus would be a false Messiah in their eyes, for Christians and Jews any Jewish Messiah proclaimed in the future would be a false Messiah, a liar, the Anti-Christ, given the name “Dajjal” by Islamic tradition. According to that tradition Jesus will descend near Damascus and confront and defeat the false Messiah, after which he will rule over a period of peace and prosperity for forty years, marry, have children and die a natural death. He will be buried next to Muhammad, the final prophet.
Muhammad]
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