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Some years ago, an agnostic friend of mine married a Jewish woman who
practised her faith seriously. He took instruction in Judaism and seemed
quite likely to convert - but eventually did not. His chief reason was
that he remained agnostic. But there was another obstacle that surprised
even himself: "I found that I just did not want to give up Jesus."
In European culture, there is no getting away from Jesus even if you are
agnostic. True, Nietzsche tried to reject him with detestation and
contempt, calling him an "idiot", a purveyor of a sick, decadent view of
the world. Nietzsche thought that the only figure in the New Testament who
commands respect is Pontius Pilate. Yet the very ferocity of Nietzsche's
onslaught on Jesus showed how strong in his heart was the image he wanted
to destroy!
Now, what if my friend (was a Muslim by name and) had married a Muslim?
The interesting thing is that he could have kept Jesus - not the Jesus who
was the Son of God, admittedly, and who was crucified, but certainly the
Jesus who was Messiah and miracle worker, who conversed regularly with
God, who was born of a virgin and who ascended into heaven.
Jesus is referred to quite often in the Qur'an, six times under the title
"Messiah". Yet I had long supposed that the importance of Jesus as prophet
in Muslim tradition was not much more than a matter of lip-service,
something to which Muslims gave (to use Cardinal Newman's distinction)
"notional" rather than "real" assent.
This impression was strengthened when I went to Ur of the Chaldees in
southern Iraq and visited the so-called house of Abraham. It is only a few
piles of sun-baked mud bricks. I assumed, therefore, that Jesus must be a
marginal figure in the Muslim world.
How wrong this assumption was I have learnt by reading a fascinating and
instructive book, The Muslim Jesus, by the Cambridge academic Tarif
Khalidi. Professor Khalidi has brought together, from a vast range of
sources, most of the stories, sayings and traditions of Jesus that are to
be found in Muslim piety from the earliest times.
The Muslim Jesus is an ascetic, a man of voluntary poverty, humility and
long-suffering. He literally turns the other cheek, allowing his face to
be slapped twice in order to protect two of his disciples. He teaches the
return of good for evil: "Jesus used to say, 'Charity does not mean doing
good to him who does good to you . . . Charity means that you should do
good to him who does you harm.' " He loves the poor and embraces poverty:
"The day Jesus was raised to heaven, he left behind nothing but a woollen
garment, a slingshot and two sandals." He preaches against attachment to
worldly things: "Jesus said, `He who seeks worldly things is like the man
who drinks sea water: the more he drinks, the more thirsty he becomes,
until it kills him.' "
Many of the sayings of the Muslim Jesus are clearly derived from Biblical
sources - "Place your treasures in heaven, for the heart of man is where
his treasure is"; "Look at the birds coming and going! They neither reap
nor plough, and God provides for them." Sometimes there is a sort of gloss
on words of Jesus from the Gospel: "Oh disciples, do not cast pearls
before swine, for the swine can do nothing with them... wisdom is more
precious than pearls and whoever rejects wisdom is worse than a swine."
He is certainly a wonder-worker. He often raises the dead, and gives his
disciples power to do the same. More than once he comes across a skull and
restores it to life, on one occasion granting salvation to a person who
had been damned. The skulls, like everyone else in these stories, address
Jesus as "Spirit of God". Once he is even addressed as "Word of God".
I once had a conversation with some Muslims in Beirut. One of them said
this: "The greatness of Islam is that we combine Judaism and Christianity.
Jesus freed enslaved hearts, he was able to release human feeling, to
reveal a kingdom of peace. Jesus's realm was the realm of soul. Jesus is
soul; Moses is mind, the mind of the legislator. In Islam, we interweave
both."
This is certainly the Jesus of these stories - the Jesus of the mystical
Sufi tradition. The great Muslim imam Al-Ghazali actually called Jesus
"Prophet of the heart".
The Muslim Jesus is not divine, but a humble servant of God. He was not
crucified - Islam insists that the story of the killing of Jesus is false.
He is, as it were, Jesus as he might have been without Paul or Augustine
or the Council of Nicaea. He is not the cold figure of English
Unitarianism, and he is less grand than the exalted human of the Arians.
As you read these stories, what comes across most powerfully is that the
Muslim Jesus is intensely loved. There is an element of St Francis of
Assisi.
It is good to be reminded, especially now, of the intimate connections
there have been between Islam and (the oigional) Christianity, and how
close in spirit Muslim and Christian piety can come to each other.
Curiously enough, the Muslim Jesus, shorn of all claims of divinity, could
be more easily held on to by my agnostic friend than the Second Person of
the Holy Trinity.
One other thing: since Muslims deny the Crucifixion, their emphasis has
been on the wonders surrounding the birth of "Jesus Son of Mary", born as
his mother sat under a palm tree, and miraculously speaking from within
the womb. |