aidan

I have recently started to read the Quran and am immediately struck by how often Muhammed expresses great love and respect for Jesus and he often admonished people for not heeding Jesus.Yet there is so much conflict in the world between Moslem and Christians.I would welcome your thoughts on this beloved brethren

wombatwolf

It seems to be quite a travesty on both parts of the aisle. After the 9/11 attacks, garbled and out of context quotes from the Qu'ran began appearing on protest signs, there are rallies against the "Islamization of America" coming up...there really is little explanation other than pure misguidance.

And random news quips from Iran or Saudi Arabia or Egypt in the wake of the revolutions seem to be only fanning the fire. Hate groups have increased by more than 50% in the past five or six years. Most of the people attacking the Qu'ran believe that "Allah" is the literal name for another God (not just the word God in another language), and explain away their prejudice by convincing themselves that "Islam is a political ideology, not a religion, so it is not protected under Freedom of Religion" and they have no desire to research any other side of the story.

In an ideal world we would all believe what we want without resorting to attacking or demonizing any other groups of people, but ignorance of the first group of terrorists led to the hatred of massive bodies of Christians/Westerners, and that hatred roused the hatred of Muslims who felt (rightly) victimized en masse.

The fact that Jesus is admired and loved by Muhammad means nothing to people who have thrown themselves so far into their belief (that Islam is evil) that no logical argument could possibly deter them, and in fact would only make them angrier. As for why Muslims are so upset with Christians, my theory is that it is for this very reason, the fact that they are so demonized causes people to act out in anger, which in turn perpetuates the cycle infinitely. I don't know how to stop it, either, or if we can. As was quoted to me when I brought this up, we may just have to set examples and be good citizens and hope it catches on.

cire perdue

When the angel said, 'O Mary! verily, God gives thee the glad tidings of a Word from Him; his name shall be the Messiah Jesus the son of Mary, regarded in this world and the next and of those whose place is nigh to God. And he shall speak to people in his cradle, and when grown up, and shall be among the righteous.' She said, 'Lord! how can have a son, when man has not yet touched me?' He said, 'Thus God creates what He pleaseth. When He decrees a matter He only says BE and it is; and He will teach him the Book, and wisdom, and the law, and the gospel, and he shall be a prophet to the people of Israel

(The Qur'an (E.H. Palmer tr), Sura 3 - Imran's Family)

I got this off Ocean, but did not see with a quick look examples of what you mention. I was very glad to see this however. Glad you posted the thread.

aidan

" 'God said,Jesus,I will take you back and raise you up to Me,I will purify you of the disbelievers.To the Day of Resurection I will make those who followed you superpor to those who disbelieved." The Family of Imran 3;55.Clear evidence of His love and respect for Jesus

arthra

For me one of the best examples of the close identification of Prophet Muhammad and Jesus Messiah can be found in the Kitab-i-Iqan:

"Every discerning observer will recognize that in the Dispensation of the Qur'án both the Book and the Cause of Jesus were confirmed. As to the matter of names, Muhammad, Himself, declared: "I am Jesus." He recognized the truth of the signs, prophecies, and words of Jesus, and testified that they were all of God.

"In this sense, neither the person of Jesus nor His writings hath differed from that of Muhammad and of His holy Book, inasmuch as both have championed the Cause of God, uttered His praise, and revealed His commandments. Thus it is that Jesus, Himself, declared: "I go away and come again unto you." Consider the sun. Were it to say now, "I am the sun of yesterday," it would speak the truth. And should it, bearing the sequence of time in mind, claim to be other than that sun, it still would speak the truth. In like manner, if it be said that all the days are but one and the same, it is correct and true.

"And if it be said, with respect to their particular names and designations, that they differ, that again is true. For though they are the same, yet one doth recognize in each a separate designation, a specific attribute, a particular character.

"Conceive accordingly the distinction, variation, and unity characteristic of the various Manifestations of holiness, that thou mayest comprehend the allusions made by the creator of all names and attributes to the mysteries of distinction and unity, and discover the answer to thy question as to why that everlasting Beauty should have, at sundry times, called Himself by different names and titles."

~ Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 20-22

Yeshua

"...A comparison of the Law of Christ with the Law of Muhammad will teach us that both of these must be believed to be true. I believe that the following must be maintained...Therefore in the Qur'an the splendour of the Gospel shines forth to the wise, to those who are led by the Spirit of Christ...The goal and intent of the book of the Qur'an, is not only not to detract from God the creator or from Christ or from God's prophets and envoys or from the divine books of the Testament, the Psalter, and the Gospel, but also to give glory to God the Creator, to praise and bear witness to Christ (the son of the Virgin Mary) above all prophets, and to confirm and approve of the Testament and the Gospel. When one reads the Qur'an with this understanding, assuredly some fruit can be elicited from it...For we find passages in the Qur'an that are useful for us...Moses had described a path to God, but this path was neither taken up by everyone nor was it understood by everyone. Jesus illuminated and perfected this path; nevertheless, many even now remain unbelievers. Muhammad tried to make the same path easier, so that it might be accepted by all, even idolaters. These are the most famous of the said paths to God, although many others were presented by the wise and the prophets..."

- Nicholas of Cusa (1401 –1464), Roman Catholic Cardinal

Nicholas of Cusa, a Catholic cardinal of great prominence in the Church, uttered these words 600 years ago over 100 years before the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther, who said that Muhammad was "a devil and the first-born son of Satan".

"...Cardinal Cusa claimed that God sent a variety of prophets into the world in order to reveal Himself to humanity. To achieve this goal these prophets created a variety of faiths, the customs of which have, over time come to be regarded as immutable truths founded not by prophets, but by God. Since the human person has freewill, and because over time opinions, languages and interpretations undergo change, humanity needs a number of visitations to eliminate the religious errors which inevitably develop. In this manner Cusa gives such figures as Buddha and Muhammad a similar status to that of prophets of the God of Israel whose teachings over time have been distorted. In short there is but one religion, but a diversity of religious faiths. Because of this Cusa does not think that religious diversity need be a source of conflict. For Cusa since the diversity of faiths are merely different ways of articulating the same underlying truth, there is no real basis for mutual attacks over these differences..."

- Ethical implications of unity and the divine in Nicholas of Cusa By David John De Leonardis

aidan

Todays world is encumbered by too much religion and not enough love of God

Sboyce

I feel the love for Jesus from Muhammed is unprecedented! Never before did we see such lofty stature and explanation from One to another One! It's reflection is only seen as the Bàb looks forward to Him Whom God Shall Make Manifest!

Yeshua

"What, then, shall I say of love, without which faith can do nothing?" - Saint Augustine, fourth century Church Father (Enchridion)

Yeshua

Here's a nice quote for you on prophet Muhammad from the esteemed and sadly missed Catholic priest and Jesuit theologian Fr Jacques Dupuis (who passed away in 2004):

"...Seen in its historical context, Muhammad's monotheistic message indeed appears as divine revelation mediated by the prophet, This revelation is not perfect or complete; but it is no less real for all that...[The fullness of God's revelation in Jesus] is no obstacle, even after the historical event, to a continuing divine self-revelation through the prophets and sages of other religious traditions, as for example, through the prophet Muhammad. That self-revelation has occured, and continues to occur, in history. No revelation, however, either before or after Christ can either surpass or {fully} equal the one vouchsafed to Jesus Christ...The acknowledgment of Muhammad as a genuine prophet of God is no longer unusual in Catholic theology...The prophet is one who is able to interpret correctly the present manifestation of salvation history. It is a small step to grant Muhammad the status of genuine prophethood and the Qur'an as containing genuine prophecy. Although the New Testament is unique in that it contains the penultimate revelation of God...the holy scriptures of all nations, along with the Old and New Testaments, represent the various manners and forms in which God addresses human beings throughout the continuous process of the divine self-revelation to them..."

aidan

To what was Jacques Depuis referring when he said the New Testament was the penultimate revelation of God?

Yeshua

Dear Brother Aiden

You are hawk-eyed!

The New Testament is the "penultimate" revelation of God in Catholic theology. Penultimate means "next to last" not "last", which is a key distinction between Catholicism and Islam. The latter posits that the Qur'an is the final revelation of God for humanity. Yes, Islam expects the coming of the Mahdi and the return of Jesus, but neither of these figures are seen as "supersceding" the revelation of Muhammad in traditional Islamic understanding, merely drawing it to its necessary completion.

In Catholicism, we do not believe that the New Testament is the final revelation but rather the penultimate one, since we do expect a final revelation - the final, public revelation of God which will be the Second Coming of Christ, when he arrives to usher in the "New Heavens and the New Earth". In the work of Christ and the establishment of the Catholic Church, God has brought the covenant with Abraham - the Father of Faith and of the Nations - and the redemptive kingdom, to penultimate fulfilment.

I write penultimate because as previously mentioned the ultimate fulfilment of the Covenant of Abraham will be the Second Coming of Christ and the Revelation of the New Heavens and the New Earth at the Eschaton.

Until that glorious day of ultimate fulfilment, the covenant of grace and the Kingdom of Heaven find their penultimate fulfilment in the Catholic Church founded by the Lord Jesus Christ.

However, it should be noted that Catholicism regards Jesus as the supreme revelation of God, with the Bible being a revelation in the sense of a witness to him. The Catholic Catechism states that "the Christian faith is not a 'religion of the book.' Christianity is the religion of the 'Word of God', a word which is 'not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and living".

In light of this, we do not expect the revelation of another independent prophet of God who superscedes Jesus. This is impossible to accomodate within our eschatology, as Jesus in his person is the final, complete and supreme revelation of God.

But in the sense of the New Testament, as giving "witness" to Jesus, it cannot be called the final revelation of God since Christ will come again and that will be his final "manifestation" and thus the last revelation of God within this created and finite universe, with the proclamation of its passing into the New Heavens and New Earth.

Vatican II in its "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation" (Dei Verbum) explained thus:

"The Christian dispensation, therefore, as the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away and we now await no further new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ (see 1 Tim. 6:14 and Tit. 2:13)" - DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON DIVINE REVELATION DEI VERBUM

aidan

I note in the quotation the words dispensation,covenant and manifestation.As you know these words are central to our faith.Coincidence?

Yeshua

I don't know tbh

I don't think that Baha'u'llah actually ever used the word "dispensation" in Arabic or Persian. Dispensation is actually a Christian term which Shoghi Effendi believed was the appropriate and most accurate way of translating the meaning of the Baha'i scriptures, in this regard, into English.

Dispensation has been used by Christian theologians for many centuries, and became most prominent - or rather reached its climax - with the rise of the Protestant "Dispensationalist Theology" of the 19th century, which preached Progressive Revelation.

The concept of a "dispensation" itself - meaning periods of successive revelation allotted by God - dates back to Irenaeus in the second century. Other Christian writers and leaders since then, such as Augustine of Hippo and Joachim of Fiore (1135–1202), have also offered their own dispensation arrangements of history.

I think that the word used in the original Baha'i manuscripts is actually "Sharia", or "Law" (a prophet bringing a new "Law") rather than Dispensation, but I may be wrong and I leave it up to Baha'is to correct me if so.

As for "Covenant", well that is pretty fundamental to Christianity as well ie the Old and New Covenants, as well as the previous Covenant with Noah.

And the word "Manifestation", is fundamental to Catholic understanding of the "Epiphany" which in English actually translates as and means "Manifestation". On the Feast of the Epiphany we celebrate, "The Manifestation of God on earth as Jesus Christ".

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)

Read: Catholic Wisdom » The Feast of Epiphany: the Manifestation of God

Pope Benedict said in 2009:

"The Child Jesus Makes the Love of God Manifest to the World...St. Francis with his nativity scene highlighted the defenseless love, humility and goodness of God, Who in the Incarnation of the Word shows Himself to mankind in order to teach them a new way to live and love...In that Child", the Holy Father added, "God-Love becomes manifest: God comes unarmed and powerless, because He does not intend to conquer, so to say, from the outside; rather, He intends to be accepted by man in freedom. God becomes a defenseless child to overcome man's pride, violence and thirst for possession. In Jesus, God assumed this poor and disarming condition in order to triumph over us with love and lead us to our true identity".

So to this end I'm not convinced there really is much too the similarity