Huff Post: By: Alayna Ahmad: The Christian world celebrates the resurrection of Jesus in the festival of Easter. For almost all Christians, Jesus is the Son of God who died to save mankind. Islam rejects this belief and views Jesus, also known as Isa, as a Prophet and the Messiah of the Israelites. So who was this Muslim Jesus?
The Bible and the Quran both agree that Jesus was born by miraculous birth to the Virgin Mary. There is a chapter in the Quran named Mary and she is mentioned 34 times in the Quran, which is much more than the entire New Testament. She is honored greatly in Islam and is celebrated as a role model for Muslim women worldwide. For Muslims, Jesus was the seal of the Hebrew Prophets and a man of perfect purity. Unlike all other human beings, except his mother Mary, he was not touched by Satan at his birth. In the Quran, when Satan attempted to approach the child, he was only able to touch the covering caul. The Quran has great regard for Jesus where he is mentioned 25 times in contrast to the Prophet Muhammad who is only mentioned four times.
There are many miracles attributed to the Quranic Jesus. One of these was his ability to speak from the cradle. His mother Mary was mocked for giving birth to a child out of wedlock. To protect his mother from the taunts of society, Jesus spoke and said; “Lo, I am God’s servant [and] a Prophet. […] Peace be upon me, the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I am raised up alive!” (Quran 19:30-34) In addition, other well-known miracles recorded in both the Quran (with God’s permission) and the Bible include healing the sick, giving sight to the blind and bringing the dead to life.
The Quran makes clear that Jesus was sent to earth to preach a new gospel (Injil in Arabic), which reaffirmed the message of ‘One True God’, given to the earlier prophets. However, his teachings had become distorted over time. In the Quran, Jesus foretells the coming of a messenger after him named Ahmad, which is another name for Mohammad. Many Islamic scholars since the 8th century have argued that this is also evident in the Bible, originally written in Koine Greek.
Categories: Belief, Bible, Church, Islam And Jesus, Islam Interfaith, Islam: A Religion of Peace