Muslims Use the Name of Jesus to Further Islam

December 2, 2013 mkamal Reply

“If you want to save Christianity from atheism and Islam, [the] Trinity should be declared a heresy and false [that] Jesus is Jewish [and a] human prophet of God. If not atheism will take over Christianity and Islam will take over atheism.” – Syed Iftekharuddin

In other words, Christians must believe in the Islamic Jesus and reject the Trinity. That is, Christians must become Muslims. Why didn’t Syed Iftekharudin just say that? Why his hidden dawah and taqiyya?

The Islamic “Jesus” shares nothing with the Christian Jesus except (sort-of) the name ‘Jesus’, but Muslims even have a problem with that precise name: ‘Jesus’ in the Koran is called “Issa”, which isn’t even the Arabic equivalent to the Hebrew “Yeshu’”{1} (from which is derived the English “Jesus” via the Greek “Iessous”). In Arabic “Yeshu” becomes “Yassu’”.

The “Islamic Jesus” -Issa:

1. Was simply “a prophet on the way to Muhammad”. (K.2:136, 3:84, 4:163,171; 5:46,75; 19:19; 33:7; 61:6)
2. He was a Muslim. (Moses, in the Koran, apparently, wasn’t a Jew either.) (K.3:46,49,52; 4:172; 6:85; 61:14)
3. He did not die on the cross but “it was made to seem that way”. (K.4:157)
4. He prophesied the coming of Muhammad. (K.61:6)
5. He was married and had children. {2}
6. He was not the son of God. (K.3:59; 5:17,72,116; 9:30-31; 19:19,88,91-92; 42:13)
7. He went to Mecca.{3}
8. He does things in Islamic texts that no Christian texts acknowledge him doing (e.g., “preaching from the cradle”). (K.3:49; 5:110)

(Note: In the Koran references above traditional Islamic exegesis is used in their assignation. )

The name and deeds of Jesus are just tools which Muslims use – “something we share” – at interfaith meetings (as well as elsewhere) in order to entice gullible Christians into Islam or to hold favourable opinions of Islam … and it often works. In fact, it started with Muhammad himself who used both the Jewish prophets and texts, as well as Jesus, as a neat and deceitful way to create a connection between his new invention, Islam, and those older faiths.

Muhammad knew he had to have a certain degree of shared ground in order to bring “unbelievers” or kuffar into his new religion. And that’s exactly what Muslims are doing today in interfaith meetings, on the BBC, in Guardian articles, etc. You will find that once gullible Christians convert (or “revert”) to Islam (simply because of the “shared Jesus”), Muslims will rarely talk about him. He will then become just another prophet who’s only talked about on religious programmes on the BBC or at interfaith meetings. Muslims, amongst themselves, rarely talk about Jesus – if at all.

The problem with the Trinity that Muslims have is ridiculous. Although I don’t fully understand the Trinity, the idea of one thing (of any kind) having three distinct aspects is not in the least bit self-contradictory. So why do Muslims often write, “1+1+1=1″ in order to denigrate Christians? So much for interfaith!

Think of the British Government/state which is divided into three: executive, judiciary and legislature – “three in one”.
Or how about (at the simplest level) the human body: bone, tissues and blood?

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Isa (Jesus) is named, or alluded to, in 91 verses over 15 Suras (chapters) in the Koran. For comparison, Moses gets 136 mentions, Noah and Adam get more mentions than Issa and even “Pharaoh” gets 60 mentions.

Despite talking about Issa in approx 2000 words, there is no detail at all other than to say he was a Muslim prophet (“pointing the way to Muhammad”), a few stories from apocryphal fables (e.g., “Isa preached from the cradle”, “Isa made clay birds come alive”) and using him to attack Christian beliefs by putting words in his mouth.

The main point of Issa (the Islamic Jesus) in the Koran is simply to place him in the prophetic line leading to Muhammad “the final prophet”. Apart from serving that purpose, Jesus himself is not at all important in Islam. There are virtually no discussions in the Koran of what Jesus said and did. If his words and deeds do not serve Islam, they are ignored.

Issa is thus a tool of Islam. His memory and name are used by Muslims to further Islam and to persuade Christians to become Muslim or to adopt favourable attitudes towards Islam. That is the purest form of dawah Muslims can indulge in. And bringing Christians “back to Islam” will help secure them a place in Islamic Paradise.

Muslims also use Issa to ‘blackmail’ Christians, saying “We respect your prophet, why don’t you respect ours?” This is pure Taqiyya since the ‘prophet’ Muslims respect isn’t the Biblical or historical Jesus, but the Islamic Issa and the Islamic Issa is simply Muhammad’s mouthpiece used to ‘validate’ Muhammad’s prophetic claims whilst denying the validity of the Biblical Jesus.

Footnotes.

1. This is not to enter into how Jesus was actually named, “Yeshu” is the form used in Ben Yehuda‘s Hebrew dictionary and is the nearest equivalent to the Arabic, but it is interesting that the Koran’s “Jesus” has an invented name – should this be taken to imply that the “Islamic Jesus” is not the Biblical or historical one? Or was it merely ignorance that caused “Allah” to misname one of his ‘prophets’ in the Koran?
2. This is very much a minority view in Islam, based on a few vague references in apocryphal gospels, what was said/written by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim sect, several ideas by Holger Kerstein and others and Dan Brown’s novel “The Da Vinci Code”. It seems to be more an idea with which to attack the Christian view of Jesus than anything actually Islamic. See also here for the latest fragment on this to come to light which bases sensational claims on very meagre evidence.
3. This is controversial within Islam. Some Muslims believe that Isa has performed the Hajj, based on Koran 28:27 “He said: “Indeed I intend to marry you to one of these two daughters of mine on condition that you hire thyself to me for (the term of) eight Hajjs (Arabic: Thamaniya Hijajin). Then if you complete ten, it will be of your own accord, and I would not wish to make it difficult for you. God willing, you will find me of the righteous”. Some Muslims see this as a pre-Islamic (but “Muslim”) hajj existing amongst “the righteous” (i.e. proto-Muslims). Others say that he will perform it after his second coming but before the day of judgement as part of his mission to “…destroy the cross[es]…” – i.e. wipe out Christianity. If any further proof were needed that Issa is not Jesus, this mission is it. In point of fact, Issa could not have performed the Islamic hajj since it was only instituted by Muhammad ~ 600 years after Jesus’ death and neither Issa nor Jesus would have performed the pre-existing pagan Hajj. Therefore, the only thing Issa could have done would have been a visit to Mecca to worship at the Kaaba, the “house that Abraham built” (according to Islam – note that the historical evidence denies this contention), but there is absolutely no evidence that Jesus (or Issa) actually did this. What this seems to be is another case of Muslims employing taqiyya to “Islamise” Jesus.

Article by Paul Austin Murphy