Modern Islam has gotten a bad image in the eyes of many Americans. We recall the assasination of one of our young idealists, Robert Kennedy, by a crazed extremist. We recall the nasty rhetoric of Nasser and Arafat and, later, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Those were days when the radicals were trying to outdo each other in their denunciations of the "Zionists" (Israel) and the "Crusaders" (America). They said all kinds of bizarre things, even if there were reasons for their anger. Perhaps you recall some of the vitriol. America was the Great Satan, they would defeat the wicked West, they would "win the baby war." They would defeat us by the "Valor of their Women" (have more babies). They would push the Zionist intruders INTO THE SEA.
Yet as Taslima Nasrin notes: "At one point in time, Islam was a powerful force for change, expanding throughout the world and winning the hearts of the multitudes. Historians tell us that Islamic civilization was the richest and most advanced civilization in the world during the early Middle Ages, particularly in the mid-eighth through the mid-eleventh centuries, and perhaps reached its peak during the ninth century. In comparison, the culture of Europe crept far behind. But gradually the glory faded, and Islamic civilization stagnated and ultimately declined. There were many causes for this." [From Taslima Nasrin's comments on Islamic Fundamentalism]
Nietzsche castigated the catholic Christianity of Western Europe, the Franks and Saxons and Germans, for the collossal crime of the Crusades. He said the Crusaders more properly might have prostrated themselves in the dust before the Islamic culture which at that time so far exceeded the unwashed, illiterate barbarian culture of Western Europe. He says the Crusaders wanted loot, to be sure. The East, including Byzantium, was rich, was cultured, and possessed storehouses of learning and literature and philosophy. Nietzsche calls the Crusades nothing but Higher Piracy.
In Spain, "Christianity ... cheated us out of the harvest of the culture of Islam..... The wonderful world of the Moorish culture ... was trampled down. Why? Because it owed its origins to noble, to male instincts, because it said Yes to life even with the rare and refined luxuries of Moorish life." See Marķa Rosa Menocal. Ornament of the World.
Nietzsche blasted Christianity, blaming the Church in Spain for being its own worst enemy. Morse scholarly historians have agreed. Consider this: "Of all the great world religions past or present, Christianity has been by far the most intolerant. This statement may come as a shock, but it is nevertheless true. " This statement comes from Perez Zagorin, a scholar of religious persecution, and religious freedom, in world history. For more on Zagorin and religious freedom.
Muhammad, in his lifetime, both praised Christianity and criticized it. Christians had the Bible, and knew better. If Christians had but listened and obeyed the message brought to them by Jesus, they would have been a light unto the world, a city set on a hill. Instead, they turned Jesus into an Idol, a graven image, while failing to heed and obey his teachings. A "god" you can worship, but a Prophet you must obey. Christians had perverted the gospel into a deviant sect, had fallen prey to lusts and wickedness, turned swine-eaters and idolaters, and deliberately diluted the pure message of Jesus into superficiality and laxity. They had become vain in their imaginations, had "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man."
Muhammad, while scolding Christians, did not leave Jews unscathed either. Jews, having honorably preserved the record of the prophets, were turning to tradition and interpretation and endless studies. To the modern age, the effect of Jewish uniqueness through the ages now appears clear -- that uiniqueness helped contribute to their survival as a distinct people. I am reminded of Nietzsche's description of the Jews as the strangest people in world history because, when confronted with the question whether "to be or not to be" -- they chose, "with a perfectly uncanny deliberateness," to be at any price, to survive, to live.
Muhammad rejected the Gentile (mostly European) theology turning Jesus into an idol. Obviously, the church's Curia has decreed that Jesus Christ is in fact, Superstar. There is no salvation outside the church. [extra ecclesiam nulla salus.] History, however, teaches that (theology aside) Jesus had real world roots, and real world teachings, flesh and blood antecedents. Indeed, Jesus was a winebibber and a Jew among Jews. He went, as he said he was Sent, only to his fellow Jews. He said he was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He even compared Gentiles to dogs. Still Muhammad invoked Jesus with greater frequency than any other biblical figure, and praised him more highly than any other prophet in the Qu'ran. Not even Abraham, that singular hanif, that Friend of God, is lauded with the insistency that Jesus is. For more on
Muhammad and 'Isa al Masih' (Jesus).
But what about Muhammad's criticism of the Jews? If Jews seem "stubborn" in their determination to live, to survive and endure as a people, did not Jesus assert that salvation is of the Jews? Did Jesus not proclaim that not one jot or tittle should pass from the law or the prophets till all be fulfilled? If Jews assiduously sought to protect their livelihoods, to promote their economic self-sufficiency, did not Jesus instruct his own (Jewish) disciples to "make friends" with the Mammon of economics and this-worldly materialism?
True, Muhammad called for a purification of the decadent habits that had crept into both Judaism and Christianity in his day. Mohammad rejected the wine-bibbing of both Jews and Christians. But at times Muhammad was very respectful of the biblical tradition which both Christians and Jews (for good or bad) share. Jesus, the "man in white," has a higher place in the Qu'ran than any other person except Mohammad himself.
The following is taken from Geoffery Parrinder's study "Jesus in the Qu'ran" (1977). Far from "hating" Jesus, the Qu'ran in fact accords the man Jesus very high honor and respect. Islam, as such, might be seen as a gentle (if indirect) rebuke to Christianity in history for its complacency, failing to live up to the ideals of the gospel of Jesus of Galilee. All too often we Christians, instead of simply doing what Jesus commanded (not an easy thing to do) took the easy way out of turning Jesus into an idol, exalting him beyond recognition, and then "disobeying" his basic instructions to us.
Titles of Jesus in the Qu'ran
Isa (Jesus) 25 times Ibn Maryam (son of Mary) 23 times Al-Masih (The Messiah) 11 times (all in Medinan suras) 'abd (The Servant of God) 3 times Rasul (Messenger) 10 times Ruh (Spirit) 7 times OTHER MENTIONS OF JESUS IN THE HOLY QU'RAN Nabi (Prophet) Kalima (Word) Aya (A Sign) Shahid (A Witness) Rahma (A Mercy) Wajih (Eminent) Mubarak (Blessed) Mathal (A Parable or Example) Min al-Muqarrabin (One brought near) Min al-Salihin (One of the upright, or Righteous shall he be) al-Sayyid Masih (the lord Messiah or the lord Christ)
[EFF Bishop says that the title Ibn Maryam was an honorific which Mohammad got for Jesus via Ethiopia (Abyssinia). Geoffrey Parrinder is not so sure.]
Ethiopic, the ancient language of Abyssinia, is the most closely related to Arabic of all Semitic languages.
"Take Jesus as your pattern," said the theologian mystic al-Ghazali.
The mystic Ibn 'Arabi said, "Muhammad is the Seal of the Prophets and Jesus is Seal of the Saints."
The miracles are called "Evidences" , etc
the gospel --- Injil
Christians were called Nazarenes --- Nasara
in reference to their Galillean (Judaic) origin
For Kahlil Gibran's hymn of praise to Jesus, here