QURANIC AND BIBLIC VERSIONS
MEETING THE REVEREND
I hope you have taken the advice given in the footnote on page 8 seriously (check mother and son footnote). I
try to practice what I preach. According to my advice to you. I myself
memorised the verses. Opportunities have arisen again and again for their
use. For instance, I was visiting the "Bible House" in
Johannesburg. Whilst browsing through the stacks of Bibles and religious
books, I picked up an Indonesian Bible and had just taken in hand a Greek/English
New Testament - a large expensive volume. I had not realised that I was
being observed by the supervisor of the Bible House. Casually, he walked
up to me. Perhaps my beard and my Muslim headgear were an attraction and
a challenge? He enquired about my intrest in that costly volume. I explain
that as a student of comparetive religion, I had need for such a book.
He invited me to have a tea with him in his office. It was a very kind
of him and I accepted.
Over the cup of tea, I explained to him the Muslim belief in Jesus. I
explained to him the very high position that Jesus (pbuh) occupied in
the House of Islam. He seemed sceptical about what I said. I was amazed
at his seeming ignorance, because only retired Reverend gentlemen can
become Supervisor of BIBLE HOUSES in South Africa. I began reciting from
verse 42 of Sura 3 -
BEHOLD! THE ANGELS SAID: "O MARY! ALLAH HATH CHOSEN
......
I wanted the Reverend to listen, not only to the meaning of the Quran,
but also to the music of its cadences when the original Arabic was recited.
Rev. Dunkers (for that was his name) sat back and listened with rapt attention
to Allah's Qalaam (God's Word). When I reached the end of verse
49, the Reverend commented that the Quranic message was like that of his
own Bible. He said, he saw no difference between what he believed as a
Christian, and what I had red to him. I said: "that was true".
If he had come across these verses in the English language alone without
Arabic equivalent, side by side, he would not have been able to guess
in a hundred years that he was reading the Holy Quran. If he were a Protestant,
he would have thought that he was reading the Roman Catholic Version,
if he had not seen one, or the Jehovah's Witness Version or the Greek
Orthodox Version, or the hundred and one other versions that he might
not have seen; but he would never have guessed that he was reading the
Quranic version. The Christian would be reading here, in the Quran, everything
he wanted to hear about Jesus, but in a most noble, elevated and sublime
language. He could not help being moved by it.
In these eight terse verses from 42 to 49 we are told:
- That Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virtuous women, and honoured
above the women of all nations.
- That all that was being said was God's own Revelations to mankind.
- That Jesus was the "Word" of God.
- That he was the Christ that the Jews were waiting for.
- That God will empower this Jesus to perform miracles even in infancy.
- That Jesus was born miraculously, without any male intervention.
- That God will vouchsafe him Revelations.
- That he will give life to the dead by God's permission, and that he
will heal those born blind and the lepers by God's permission, etc.
etc.
CHALK AND CHEESE
The most fervent Christian cannot take exception to a single statement
or word here. But the difference between the Biblical and the Quranic
narratives is that between "chalk and cheese" (check
note) "To me they are identical, what is the difference?"
the reverend asked
I know that in their essentials both the stories agree in their details,
but when we scrutinise them closely we will discover that the difference
between them is staggering.
Now compare the miraculous conception as announced in verses 47 of the
Holy Quran with what the Holy Bible says:
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this wise:
When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, BEFORE THEY CAME TOGETHER,
(as husband and wife) she was found with child OF THE HOLY GHOST."
{Matthew 1:18}
MASTER DRAMATISER
The eminent Billy Graham from the United States of America dramatised
this verse in front of 40,000 people in King Park Durban - with his index
finger sticking out and swinging his out stretched arm from right to left,
he said, "And the Holy Ghost came and impregnated Mary!" On
the other hand St. Luke tels us the very same thing but less crudely.
He says, that when the annunciation was made, Mary was perturbed. Her
natural reaction was -
"....How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" - meaning sexually.
{Luke 1:34}
The Quranic narrative is:
SHE SAID: "O MY LORD! HOW SHALL I HAVE A SON WHEN
NO MAN HATH TOUCHED ME?"
{Holy Quran 3:47}
In essence there is no difference between these two statements "seeing
I know not a man" and "when no man hath touched me". Both the quotations have an identical meaning. It is simply a choice
of different words meaning the same thing. But the respective replies
to Mary's plea in the two Books (the Quran and the Bible) are revealing.
THE BIBLICAL VERSION
Says the Bible:
And the angel answered and said unto her, "The
Holy Ghost shall COME UPON THE, and the power of the Highest shell OVERSHADOW
THEE"
{Luke 1:35}
Can't you see that you are giving the atheist, the sceptic, the agnostic
a stick to beat you with? They may well ask - "How did the Holy Ghost
come upon Mary?" "How did the Highest over-shadow her? We know
the literally it does not mean that: that it was an immaculate conception,
but the language used here, is distasteful - gutter language -
you agree!? Now contrast this with the language of the Quran:
THE QURANIC VERSION
HE SAID: (the angles says in reply) "EVEN SO:
ALLAH CREATETH WHAT HE WILLETH:
WHEN HE HATH DECREED A PLAN, HE BUT SAITH TO IT 'BE,'
AND IT IS!"
{Holy Quran 3:47}
This is the Muslim concept of the birth of Jesus. For God to create a
Jseus, without a human father, He merely has to will it. If He wants to
create a million Jesus' without fathers or mothers, He merely has to will
them into existence. He does not have to take seeds and transfer them,
like men or animals - by contact or artificial insemination. He wills everything into being by His word of command "BE" and "IT IS".
There is nothing new in what I am telling you, I reminded that Reverend.
It is in very first Book of your Holy Bible - Genesis 1:3 "And
God said...." What did He SAY? He Said - "BE" our way
of understanding the word "BE" and "IT WAS!" He did not have to articulate the 'BE' - that He willed everything
into being.
CHOICE FOR HIS DAUGHTER
"Between these two versions of the birth of Jesus (pbuh) _ the Quranic
version and the Biblic version - which would you prefere to give your
daughter?" I asked the supervisior of the Bible House. He bowed his
head down in humility and admitted - "THE QURANIC VERSION."
How can "a forgery" or "an imitation" (as it is alleged
of the Quran) be better then the genuine, the original (as it is claimed
for the Bible)? It can never be, unless this Revelation to Muhummed (pbuh)
is what it, itself, claims to be viz. the pure and holy Word of God! There
are a hundred different tests that the unprejudiced seeker after truth
can apply to the Holy Quran and it will qualify with flying colours to
being a Message from on High.
LIKE ADAM
Does the miraculous birth of Jesus make him a god or a "begotten"
son of God? No! says the Holy Quran:
THE SIMILITUDE OF JESUS BEFORE GOD IS THAT OF ADAM;
HE CREATED HIM FROM DUST, THEN SAID TO HIM: 'BE': AND HE WAS.
{Holy Quran 3:59}
"After a description of the high position which Jesus occupies
as a prophet, (In the preceding verse) we have a repudiation of the dogma
that he was God, or the son of God, or anything more then man. If it is
said that he was born without a human father, Adam was also so born. Indeed
Adam was born without either a human father or mother. As far as our phisical
bodies are conserned they are mere dust.
In God's sight Jesus was as dust just as Adam was or humanity is.
The greatness of Jesus arose from the divine command "BE": for
after that he was - more then dust - a great sprirtual leader and teacher."
{A. Yusuf Ali's note 398 to verse 59 above.}
The logic of it is that, if being born without a male parent entitles
Jesus to being equated with God, then Adam would have a greater right
to such honour, and this no Christian would readily concede. Thus, the
Muslim is made to repudiate the Christian blasphemy.
Further, if the Christian splits hairs by arguing that Adam was "created"
from the dust of the ground. whereas Jesus was immaculately "begotten"
in the womb of Mary, then let us remind him that, even according to his
own false standards, there is yet another person greater then Jesus, in
his own Bible. Who is this superman?
PAUL'S INNOVATION
"For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of
the most high God...
"Without father, without mother, without descent, having NITHER BEGINNING
of days, NOR END of life..."
{Hebrews 7:1 & 3}
Here is a candidate for Divinity itself, for only God Almighty could
possess these qualities. Adam had a beginning (in the garden), Jesus had
a beginning (in the stable); Adam had an end and claim the Christians,
so had Jesus "and he gave up the ghost". But where is Melchisedec?
Perhaps he is hibemanting somewhere like Rip Van Winkel.(check
note)
And what is this "Hebrews"? It is the name of one of
the Books of the Holy Bible, authored by the gallant St. Paul, the self-appointed
thirteenth apostle of Christ. Jesus had twelve apostles, but one of them
(Judas) had the Devil in him. So the vacancy had to be filled, because
of the "twelve" thrones in heaven which had to be occupied by
his disciples to judge the children of Israel (Luke 22:30).
Saul was a renegade Jew, and the Christians changed his name to "Paul",
probably because "Soul" sounds Jewish. This St. Paul made such
a fine mess of the teachings of Jesus (pbuh) that he earned for himself
the second-most-coveted position of "The Most Influential Man in
History" in the monumental work of Michael H. HArt. "The 100"
or "The Top Hundred" or the "Greatest Hundred in History".
Paul outclasses even Jesus because, according to Michael Hart, Paul was
the real founder of present-day Christianity. The honour of creating Christinity
had to be shared between Paul and Jesus, and Paul won because he wrote
more Books of the Bible then any other single author, whereas Jesus did
not write a single word.
Paul needed no inspiration to write his hyperboles (check
note) here and in the rest of his Epistles. Did not Hitler's Minister
of Propaganda - Goebbels - say "the bigger the lie the more likely
it is to be believed"? But the amazing thing about this exaggeration
is that no Christian seems to have read it. Every learned man ot whome
I have shown this verse to, seemed to be seeing it for the first time.They
appear dumbfounded, as described by the fitting words of Jesus: -
"....seeing they see not, and hearing they hear
not, neither do they understand."
{Matthew 13:13}
The Holy Quran also contains a verse which fittingly describes this well-cultivaded
sickness -
DEAF, DUMB AND BLIND, THEY WILL NOT RETURN (TO THE
PATH).
{Holy Quran 2:18}
THE SONS OF GOD
The Muslim takes strong exception to the Christian dogma that "Jesus
is the only begotten son, begotten not made" This is what the
Christian is made to repeat from childhood in his cateshism. I have asked
learned Christians, again and again as to what they are really trying
to emphasise, when they say "BEGOTTEN NOT MADE"
They know that according to their own God-given(?!) records, God has
sons by the tons:
"...Adam, which was the SON OF God."
{Luke 3:38}
"That the SONS OF GOD saw the daughters of men
that they were fair...
"And when the SONS OF GOD came in unto the daughters of men, and
they bare children to them..."
{Genesis 6:2 &4}
"...Israel is MY SON, even my firstborn;"
{Exodus 4:22}
"...for I (GOD) am a FATHER to Israel, and Ephraim
is my firstborn."
{Jeremiah 31:9}
"...the Lord hath said unto me, (David) Thou art
MY SON: this day have I BETOTTEN thee."
{Psalms 2:7}
"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the SONS OF GOD."
{Romans(check note) 8:14}
Can't you see that in the language og the Jew, every righteous person,
every Tom, Dic and Harry who followed the Will and Plan of God, was a
SON OF GOD. It was a Metaphorical Descriptive term, commonly used among
the Jews. The Christian agrees with this reasoning, but goes on to say
- "but Jesus wa not like that". Adam was made by God. Every living thing was made by God; He is the Lord, Cherisher
and Sustainer of all. Metaphorically speaking therefore God is the Father
of all. But Jesus was the "BEGOTTEN" son of God, not a CREATED
son of God?
BEGOTTEN MEANS "SIRED"
In my forty years of practical experience in talking to a learned Christians,
not a single one has opened his mouth to hazard an explanation of the
phrase - "begotten not made". It had to be an American
who dared to explain. He said, "It means sired by God." "what?" I exploded. "SIRED by God?" - "NO,
no," he said, "I am only trying to explain the meaning, I do
not believe that God really sired a son."
The sensible Christian says that the words do not literally mean what
they say. Then why do you say it? Why are you creating unnecessary conflict
between the 1,200,000,000 Christians and a thousand million Muslims of
the world in making senseless statements?
REASON FOR OBJECTION
The Muslim takes exception to the word "begotton", because
begetting is an animal act, belonging to the lower animal functions of
sex. How can we attribute such a lowly capacity to God? Metaphorically
we are all the children of God - the good and the bad - and Jesus (pbuh)
would be closer to being the son of God then any one of us, because he
would be more faithful to God then any one of us can ever be. From that
point of view he is preminently the son of God.
Although this pernicious word "begetton" has now has now uncermoniously
been thrown out of the "MOST ACCURATE" version of the Bible
- the R.S.V.(check note)its ghost still lingers
on in the Christian mind, both black and white. Through its insidious
brainwashing the white man is mate to feel superior to his black Christian
brother of the same Church and Denomination. And in turn, the Black(check
note)man is given a permanent inferiority complex through this dogma
BRAIN-WASHING INFERIORITY
The human mind can't help reasoning that since that "begotten son"
of an African will look like an African, and that of a Chinaman as a Chinese,
and that of an Indian like an Indian: so the begotten son of God
aught naturally to look like God. Billions of beautiful picture and replicas
of this "ONLY BEGOTTEN SON" (?) of God are put in peoples hands.
He looks like a European with blonde hair, blue eyes and handson features
- like the one I saw in the "King of Kings" or "The
Day of Triumph" or "Jesus of Nazareth" Remember
Jeffrey Hunter? The "SAVIOUR" of the Christian is more
like a German then a Jew with his polly nose. so naturally, if the son
is a White man, the father would also be a White man (God?). Hence the
darker skinned reaces of the earth subconsciously have the feeling of
inferiority ingrained in theri souls as God's STEP-CHILDREN. No amount
of face-creams, skin-lighteners and hair-straighteners will erase the
inferiority.
GOD IS SPIRIT
God is neither Black nor White. He is a spiritual Being, beyond the imagination
of the mind of man. Break the mental shackles of a Caucasian (white) man-god,
and you have broken the shackles of a permanent inferiority. But intellectual
bondages are harder to shatter: the slave himself fights to retain them.
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