Children of Abraham

Richard L. Shafer

 

As I write this, our Jewish brothers and sisters are celebrating Passover[1] this year April 5-13, 2004.  We’re celebrating Holy week, and looking forward to Easter, the most important event in Christianity.

 

Easter is the one event on which Jews, Christians and Muslims most often disagree.  Muslims disagree with Christians over the reality of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, and they and Jews reject Jesus’ divinity, and therefore the subsequent Christian doctrine of the Trinity.  For Muslims and Jews, and some early Christian sects, God is single, one, and unity.  The disagreement about Jesus’ being God has led to wars between Muslims and Christians; and to persecutions of Jews by Christians, and persecutions of Christians and Muslims by each other.    

 

The Koran, the holy book of Islam, speaks highly of Jesus, calling Him the Messiah, the Apostle of God, “[God’s] Word which He cast to Mary:  a Spirit from [God].”  It teaches of His virgin birth, sinless life and ascension into Heaven.  The Koran, however, denies that Jesus is God, or is the Son of God.   

 

In ISLAM, CHRISTIANITY, AND THE WEST: A TROUBLED HISTORY, [2] Rollin Armour, Sr. tells us that the Koran is accepted by Muslims as the direct word of Allah.  The Koran, not Muhammad, is the equivalent to Jesus in Christianity.

 

Delivered early in the seventh century, through a man thought to be illiterate, the Koran’s words may well reflect the Arab society into which Muhammad was born. Muhammad, as military leader, thought his job was to bring faith in the one God to a people who had hitherto worshiped many gods.  Preaching Allah, “The God,” Muhammad would have demanded belief in God’s unity, not Trinity, or any other multiple.  Indeed, the basic beliefs of Islam[3] begin with the confession:  “I bear witness that there is no god but God, and Muhammad is his Apostle.” 

 

Moreover, communities of Jews and Christians, some non-Orthodox, lived among the Arabs in Muhammad’s time.  Although Christianity had become the “state” religion of Rome and Constantinople in the 4th century C. E., some of the Gnostic and other Christian sects may have remained in the Middle East, including the Nestorians[4] in Persia.  So it is possible that Muhammad had some contact – direct or indirect - with Jews, and perhaps also with Christians who did not accept the Orthodox concept of Trinity.  Might such contact have influenced the course of his recitation of the Koran[5] and his pronouncements about Jesus?

 

By the way, on May 2nd this year, Muslims will celebrate Muhammad’s birthday.

 

Happy Easter, and Happy Passover!

 

Copyright Richard L. Shafer


[1] “The primary observances of [Passover] are related to the Exodus from Egypt after generations of slavery. This story is told in Exodus, Ch. 1-15. Many of the [Passover] observances are instituted in Chapters. 12-15.” See http://www.jewfaq.org/holidaya.htm

[2] Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 10545.  (Available in the Temple UMC library.)  Armour is professor emeritus in the Christianity department at Mercer University, and has also taught at Stetson and Auburn Universities.  He lives in Macon, Georgia.

[3] The Five Pillars include daily prayers, regular charity, fasting during Ramadan and the pilgrimage to Mecca, in addition to declaring faith in the one God.

[4] The core of the teaching of Nestorius – declared a heretic in 431 - was that there was a clear division between Jesus' qualities as god and human. The Roman Catholic Church held that these 2 qualities were unified in the same character of Jesus. See http://i-cias.com/e.o/nestorian.htm

[5] In Arabic, the word “Qur’an” – what we call the “Koran” - means “the recitation.”