Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – 1 2 The Muslim Concept of Jesus Discussion Between Mufti Abdur Rahman & Dr Brendan Devitt
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AI: Transcript ©
Bismillah your Walkman you're watching
Dr. Abdul Rahman is a fine academic and interpreter of
Islamic beliefs. And we're extremely grateful that he has
given us of our time and accepted our invitation to come and speak.
If you're a visitor from one of the local mosques in the Hitchin,
or Stevenage area, you're especially welcome. And please
make yourselves known to us
at the intervals, if you're from one of the other Christian
denominations in the area, you also are very welcome. I might add
to that if our good friend Ali Sharif is here he is especially
welcome and Muslim from the local mosque as well known to the
Christian fellowships in this town.
The goal of the witch Jesus series is to help Christians, Jews and
Muslims to better understand and appreciate our respective beliefs
about Jesus,
but also to help us become friends or, or better friends, as the case
may be.
I expected it to be a very educational evening for Christians
and Muslims alike. Christians are going to be very surprised or even
amazed that the kinds of beliefs which Muslims hold about Jesus,
concerning which we as Christians are painfully ignorant.
I hope in turn that Muslims will be stimulated by the kinds of
questions which I as a Christian believer and stirred to address to
a Muslim leader regarding Islamic perspectives on the identity of
Jesus.
Talking of questions, if you would like to ask Dr. Abdurrahman a
question, then please write it on paper provided here at the front
and at the back of the building during the interval, which will be
at about roughly quarter to eight.
It'll be attentive to minute breaking have coffee and biscuits.
And you can put the questions in the baskets at the front or the
back. And then if they are relevant to our subject tonight,
Jesus in the Koran and Muslim thought. And if it's simple, and
it's not too long, it stands a chance of being aired.
So think about that. I am thinking of the best we had from the
atheist philosopher, Dr. Julian Virginie.
Some of you may have attended that badly and a half ago. And some of
the questions were pages long, massive big philosophical and
scientific treatises, and they weren't asked so you can relax
Abdo you you will be asked very simple questions tonight. Now all
that remains for me to do now is to ask you on behalf of the
Christian and Muslim communities in this area to give a very warm
welcome to Dr. Abdur Rahman.
When you were 15 years of age after you learned the Qur'an off
by heart, is that right? That's right. It took a few years but
yeah, yeah, yeah. How on earth? Did you do that? I wonder myself
sometimes. But I think when you're younger, if, from a physiological
point of view, I think if you look at it that way, it's the brain is
a muscle. So the more you use it, the more it will take in nowadays,
we become very visual. But I think then Muslims, we actually believe
it's a miracle. Because we've got, for example, my daughter She
memorized at 11. So she beat me all the Koran, the whole Quran.
Now, just in case there's anybody here who hasn't read the Quran or
knows about it. And can I just show you an English translation?
You will know Arthur R breeze, translation. Now this is produced
by an Oxford University Press. And it has about the best part of 700
pages in it. I'm flicking through it. Now. Abdo memorized the whole
thing. The Arabic the Arabic to make it simpler. So
yes, the Arabic indeed.
The question want to ask you is how did you physically go about
doing that? Did you open it and just reading close your eyes and
go back? Or did you write or what? Yeah, I think different people
have different experiences with this. I mean, I know somebody who
would memorize the whole thing in six months. But it took me about
three and a half years, you believe? Yes, because they can
test him. We mean, you bring anybody if they say that you don't
need a certificate, a paper certificate, you just get them to
read. And then every year you have to actually prove it because in
Ramadan, we have a special prayer in which you have to recite it by
heart. But the way I used to do it is I used to take it started off
with a few lines. So you read them over and over again. A lot of it
is rote, because at that time I didn't understand Arabic. So I was
learning something that I didn't understand. So it's rote learning.
It's easy for the first chapter because you're learning a fresh
And then it starts getting more difficult. It actually gets easier
to memorize new, but it gets more complicated to keep revising the
back part. Because then you have to retain everything. You can't
just keep learning new and forgetting the back. But I had a
good teacher. And I think there were times when my father thought
maybe he's not going to do it. But I pulled this the Arabic lends
itself to memorization. It's a very, it's a very musical
language, in a sense. So I mean, it that definitely, that
definitely helps. And some parts of it are easier to memorize in
that sense than others. Sure. And how often do you read the Quran
each day? There's certain chapters that we try to read every day,
because they hold certain virtues. And then we expect it to read a
chapter a day, which the Quran has about 30 sections. So one section
a day, preferably speaking, depends on how busy you are. But
generally, we're encouraged to read as much as possible.
If anyone here in the audience who doesn't read Arabic wanted to dip
into the Koran and read it for themselves. Is there a specific
English translation that you would recommend? There's a few that I
could probably recommend because no single translation is the best
translation because at the end of the day, it's the translators
perspective of sure right? But arborists is quite good. Then
there's my professor Abdul Halim Muhammad, Abdul Halim, who's a
lecturer at So as he's done Oxford's published his his one.
Then there's the Glorious Quran by Ahmed Zaki Hamid, that's a very
nice one as well. Muhammad you pick those is very nice. He was a
time of the British Empire. But it's a bit archaic now. It's a bit
like the King James by Exactly, yes. And to some degree, Aubrey is
as well. But yes, Arbor is more he's trying to match the the
cadence of the Quran. Yes. Which is good for the one who
understands Arabic because they can appreciate it.
The question is now, do you still remember all of the Quran by
heart? Absolutely. We have to because you have to, I'm not going
to test you here. But I know that the beginning of the Quran, and
the business is very simple.
But it was just nice for you to hit you'd like to have some
Arabic, would you? Yes. Very good. So what I'd like to hear it as
well. So just at the beginning of the Quran, there's
a section which are very translates simply as the opening.
Which could you can I read it in English, then would you would you
recite it in Arabic? That's an easy one. Yeah. And you can I
imagine this is one you do every day is absolutely. So this is our
but it's a little bit quaint. The English is a little bit quaint,
but it says in the name of God, the merciful, compassionate,
Praise belongs to God, the Lord of all being the All Merciful, the
all compassionate, the Master of the Day of doom, the only we serve
to Thee alone, we pray for sucker guidance in the straight path, the
path of those whom thou hast blessed, not those against whom
thou art wrathful nor of those who are astray. Now, how does that
sound in Arabic? They're all there'll be learn him in a shape
on your Ragini Bismillah Umrah learn you Rami writing Al
Hamdulillah your beleid I mean, overall money writing money Kenya
women, Dean, you're gonna do you're gonna starin at Dino su
Otto Stokely Cyril Todd Levine unarmed rd him all you know, do
Brd him when I'm on the scene. Me mean. I think we should give a
round of applause for that. Thank you very much.
Just just while we're talking about this, what this word Qur'an
actually mean, right?
Etymology Klee in that sense. Some say it's from Cara, which means to
read, and others. It's the thing which is read. So it's very strong
in that sense. And of course, what we all want to know too is what
the Muslims believe about the origins of the Quran. Where does
the Quran come from? How did it come about? Yeah, Muslims believed
that God revealed about 104 books, or scriptures, most of them small
scriptures to Abraham, Adam, peace be upon them. And then there were
four major books one was the Torah to Moses, peace be upon him. The
Psalms to David peace be upon him, the Evangel or the Bible, to Jesus
peace be upon him, and then the Quran to Muhammad
But peace be upon him. The the need for new the need for new
scriptures as such was that
when a prophet came Muslims, their belief is that
messages were distorted, sometimes changed and so on. So new
Scripture came down. So the Quran is essentially revealed to me to
Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa salam peace be upon him. And then
he, he disseminated it. He called the scribes, he got them to write
it, people memorized it from him. And essentially, that's how it was
preserved. But that's one of the things that we have to preserve it
in Arabic. Yes. So and this, we're talking in terms of Christian
dates, we're talking about the seventh century, aren't we? Yes,
1400 years ago, and it might be interesting for us as Christians
that Muslims have a different dating system. That's right. So
obviously, when Muhammad came around, that was the year one,
about five, the difference between Jesus and Muhammad peace be upon
them is 579 years approximately. So he came 579 years afterwards.
And actually, Muhammad Sallallahu sallam said that he was the last
prophet before me. So Jesus was the last prophet according to
Muslims before Muhammad, but there was a gap of 579 years.
We'll talk about that further as we go on. And one of the things
that will intrigue anybody who reads the Quran or makes an
attempt is the contents. For instance, if I just turn back to
Aubrey, his translation,
if you open it, for instance, and this is this is how our book has
translated to surahs. Is that right? That they're called the
chapters of the corona surahs. This is some of the chapters
you'll be reading. The first one is the opening, which Abdo read
for us, then the next chapter is called The cow, then the house of
Imran women, the table cattle, the battlements. But as you go on,
they're very strange for us as Christians that they don't sort of
resonate at all. But when you you move on a little bit further, you
begin to get chapters in titled Jonah, Joseph, Abraham, Mary, and
so forth. So after would it be fair to say that the Quran is made
up in terms of its contents of of service that are, if you like,
specific to Islam, Islamic insights, but also then it's
drawing upon the traditions of the Torah, and the Injeel? The gospels
but is that it right? So I guess there's three major themes in the
Quran. The first is to establish the oneness of God, right? That's
like a major theme in the Quran called doe heat. Yeah, so you got
many verses, because the Meccans of the time they believed in many,
many idols, it was about establishing one God, they
actually believed in a supreme being, as the majority of humans
in the world at any given time, do believe in something Almighty. But
it was just about making the oneness. So that's the first
theme. The second theme is to draw on the stories of the past. And
that accounts purely to take heed lessons, admonish, persuade,
dissuade. So look at what happened to the people of lat look at what
happened to the people of Noah. So it speaks about the ark, and it
speaks about the floods and so on. So it draws a lot on the stories.
And then the third one is injunctions pray, this is how you
give the point you fast and don't come, don't fall indicate Don't
lie, don't steal, etc. So it's the injunctions the third one, right.
So in a sense, an ignorant Christian like myself could expect
to find new material. And also then familiar characters I will
know from
the Jewish Bible and the Christian scriptures that sometimes he
quotes them clearly says worker Dubna led him, we prescribed upon
the Jews that an eye for an eye, yes, this is what we revealed in
the previous scriptures. It's it actually says that we're here just
it says, we're here to confirm what was in the previous
scripture. So you'll actually see that yeah, mentioned over and over
again, is, I think one of the first things certainly I noticed
when I sort of dipped into the Koran several years ago, was that
it isn't, it isn't a narrative as such. So as in our Christian
scriptures, you will begin with
creation in Genesis, and you will go on to the book of Revelation,
and you have a if you like a historical story, a sequential
story taking place. It's not like that in the Quran. The Quran
itself actually explains, well, I've got some rough enough, he has
Al Quran, Ilya Kuru it says, because the whole point of the
Quran is to admonish and to remind. So the whole point is that
they will bring a bit about the story of Moses or Jesus. And then
after that, we'll speak about something else. And then some
chapters down, we'll talk about Moses and Jesus again, you know,
in another perspective, or for another purpose. The whole idea is
as the Quran says, Your death will haunt vichara if the story in the
first instance didn't get to
Your heart, then hopefully in the second instance, or the third
instance. So it's to keep changing so that it doesn't get boring
either. And it's just not some narrative. Just, you know, tell
them what you're going to tell them, tell them and then tell them
what you told them. It's not about that it's got its own unique
style, remind us of the part of the world in which Muslims believe
God delivered a message to Muhammad. So we're talking about
the Middle East, we're specifically this specifically
today, which we would consider the western border of Saudi Arabia.
Now, you have to remember to put things in perspective
geologically, or geopolitically, sort of North you had the
Christians the Roman Empire, and then the rest of it towards the
the East you had the Persian Empire. These were the two big
empires of the time. And Mecca, which is in Saudi Arabia today,
was considered to be
a really uncivilized tribes are conglomerate of tribes, who
themselves used to pride themselves on their language.
That's why Arabic actually means the ability to articulate yourself
well, eloquently, and they would call everybody else none eloquent,
Arjun, everybody else is called non elegant because the Quran the
Greek terms, yeah, but everybody used to consider because there was
a very warring tribes. Now the Quran came down to these people.
And it just calmed everybody down. And that's why Allah, it says in
the Quran, Allah for bina coulby him that he come, he consoled the
hearts and brought them together. Whereas you people had been
fighting for such a long time. So that was the initial group that it
came to. We have this misperception as Christians. And I
do hear Christians from time to time using this expression that
the Koran just dropped out of the sky and landed in the dust written
now we do have that idea notion that that's how the Koran sort of
came about. But that's not strictly true as thought it's very
interesting because
Moses, recent piece of your funding received tablets. But when
it came to Muhammad, peace be upon him.
He would.
The Quran was revealed over 23 years, piecemeal, bit by bit based
on the circumstances based on somebody asked the question, and
what's related is the Prophet peace be upon him would suddenly
look down, he'd stopped perspiring, because this was God's
divine words being revealed on a human being on a creation of God
from the Almighty. So that's an amazing thing that an amazing
experience and a phenomenon so and then after the revelation would
end, then he would explain it. So this would happen over and over
again, sometimes a verse would come down, sometimes an entire
chapter, sometimes an addition to what's already been mentioned, a
different injunction. So it came down piecemeal, over 23 years. And
during his experience, there were times when he thought he was going
mad, or was being assailed by demons in the beginning, that is,
when it was his first experience, the angel Gabriel came to him in
human form and said, Read and he says, I'm not a reader, because he
was unlettered, he hadn't studied to read or write. And
so he said, Read is that I'm not a reader, he said, Read, I'm not a
reader, he said, Read, and then he embraced him very hard. When he
came home, he was trembling, because again, this if you if you
think about it, with the belief that these are the words of the
Divine coming down on to a mere human being, how do you take that
burden on because the Quran itself says that if we were to have
revealed this Quran, the words of God onto a mountain, the mountain
would have, would have come to pieces, but this is the human
heart that's taken it right as this great burden, if you
understand the divine aspect of it. So he came home, he was
trembling, and his wife comforted him. And he said, that is not
because there was this question, when you have these weird
experiences, that what could it be? It could be some kind of
possession, it could be some kind of influence? And his wife said,
No, it can't be because and she praises them, you know, unlike
many other wives to their husbands, but she actually praised
them. She said, No, you help the poor, you are very hospitable. You
make those who need to earn you get them to earn, you're basically
out there helping people there's no way that you could have an evil
influence. And then after that, it was fine. Right? Now enough is
here tonight, coming from a Christian background, won't know
that Muhammad had a Christian uncle.
He had an uncle who had a who had embraced Christian, the Christian
tradition at that age, but then he died before right before the
Prophet became a prophet. Okay, so he knew nothing about revelations
or Well, when he received his first revelation.
Muhammad salah, and his wife took him to that. It wasn't his uncle,
it was her uncle he or her brother. Yes. And, and he said,
Yes, that's, I know that experience. That's the same angels
that's come to the previous
Is profits. And
unfortunately, I'm not going to be there when your people will evict
you from your hometown. He said, will they do that? He said, Yes,
they will do that, because that was a prophecy that he knew about.
And Muslims believe as well don't they that the Koran was was shaped
also, again, this sort of contradicts our Christian notion
that it just dropped out of the sky. It was shaped to by the
influences at Mecca and Medina as well. So aren't there sayings
which right from different contexts is that? Well, yeah,
because in the Maquis in when he was in Mecca for the first 13
years of his life, then that's when it was all about just
establishing the oneness of God, they were under persecution. They
didn't they were being persecuted by the idol worship as of the time
when they went to Medina when they migrated there in the 13th. year,
there was now 10 years in which it was more about now injunctions how
to live as a Muslim, because now they had their own state as such,
they had their own rule that they could freely practice their
religion because they found a safe haven. So there was that
migration. So now, any verses that came down in the early period,
they called the MEK, the Meccan verses, and anyone that came after
was revealed off there was a call them Medina and verses. So that's
the distinction. Okay.
Is there any verse in the Quran that sums up the message of the
revelation that Muslims believe came to Muhammad? What what's the
what's the theological center or core of the Quran? I think the
main thing is, there's different verses that, for example, is the
pseudo class, which means the chapter of sincerity which
actually speaks about godhood. God is one cool who Allah who would
say that he is one, Allahu Samad. He is the self subsisting one, he
doesn't need anybody.
And then it says, lamb nearly dweller, Muller, he was not born
from another, and neither does he be get another, and there is
nobody co equal unto him. Then there's the throne verse. And
again, it just speaks about the power of God, that God
there is none other than he He is the Living One. Sleep of slumber
doesn't overcome him. administrating the affairs of the
universe doesn't hire him. So it's all in that sense. And then so I
don't know if there's one particular verse that sums up
everything, but I think that's the core message is to get somebody
back to God. And of course, you have the context behind all of
that is the polytheism of the time off the time. And also we chat
about this a little later on the I suppose to the encounter with with
Christians and their beliefs as well, which was in Medina, which
was much later. So there are some verses in that. And then the
Prophet peace government actually wrote to her Oculus who is the
leader of the Roman Empire of the time, and he says, Come to tarot
either, Kelly Martin Sawa in Baden Albania come come to a formula
that we that we proclaimed that is the same between us too. And I
guess he negated the concept of the Trinity and the concept of the
Sun hood as such of Jesus, but said, let's come to at least God.
And what's interesting is that Hercules, unlike the Persian
leader, the Persian leader, took the letter and just tore it up to
pieces. And then Prophet Mohammed actually said at that time that
God will tear up His Kingdom, the way he taught my letter. And
that's exactly what happened. The Roman Empire was actually greater
than the, sorry, the Persian Empire was actually greater than
the Roman Empire at the time, they just won a battle. But with the
Roman Empire, it actually carried on for a long time, he respected
the letter, he actually called one of the people of Mecca that were
in his area. And he said, What is this all about? And he showed he
showed goodness towards it. And of course, what we mean by Roman
Empire, at this particular period in history is the Byzantine
Empire. Right? The constant Yes, yes. Right. Which was a kind of
Christian on it before constant.
No. Exact Constantine. Yes. I'm 332. So so it's a Christianized
Roman Empire that was eventually to lead into the middle of not the
pagan Rome. Yeah, yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I suppose, you
know, our series is, is entitled which Jesus and you've given some
wonderful background and the various topics are connected with
the Quran. I suppose one of the key questions you want to think
about tonight is this is who is Jesus? According to the Quran? As
a Christian, it's intriguing to, to read the Quran and discover how
little one reads about Muhammad. He doesn't. He doesn't present
himself very much. Only he's only mentioned four times. And I think,
from my reading of the Arabic mentioned four times by name, yes,
Muhammad, yes. But 35 times then Jesus has mentioned or referred
to, um, so strangely, for Christians, Jesus is mentioned
many more times than, than Muhammad. And so I think it's
intriguing that Muhammad doesn't present
himself
and that Jesus is quite prominent in the Quran.
In a nutshell, who is Jesus according to the Koran? I think it
is. One thing about Jesus is that there's a lot of coverage on him,
as you mentioned 35 verses. So I would say if you look at chapter
chapter three, which is actually called the House of Imran, who is
the grandfather of Jesus, right from his mother's side, that's the
only side he had a Christian Muslim perspective. Anyway, then
chapter four speaks about the crucifixion, right? And then you
have chapter 19, which is actually chapter of Mary. So there's a
whole chapter called chapter of Mary. So in the first in the first
instance, it speaks about it goes back to the house of Imran the
family of emeralds, he had a man called Imran, whose wife wife's
name was Hannah, Hannah. And she vowed to God that when she became
pregnant that I'm going to give this child that I get to the to
the temple. She was expecting a boy because that's who you gave to
the service of the temple. When she be God. It says if quality
monitoring Marana Robbie in in North America, Murphy, botany
Mahabharata and photocopiable Mini in the country, Samuel Ideum. For
the metadata, Karla thrombey in Nevada to her own that's the
verses of the Quran. When she gave birth to it, she gave birth to a
daughter. So she was a bit upset that I won't be able to but God
consoled and said, Don't worry, this daughter is superior to many
men, right? Because this is going to be Mary. So she they she was
accepted by Zachariah, the prophet Zechariah, into the temple. And he
looked after her, and he would see miracles. And what I'm mentioning
right now is all just from the Quran. I'm not reading from the
Hadith yet. So when Zechariah would come to her in her chamber,
he would see that she has fruits out of season, and lucky hada
Where do you get these from? And she says, these are you know,
these are from God. Then when she gets old enough, suddenly, an
angel comes in front of her, and says to her that I've come from
God to tell you that you're going to have a child, how am I going to
have a child? I've never touched a man let me incessantly Bashar, no
man has ever touched me. I mean, that's, that's, that's quite a big
statement she made. And he says, God, God decrees as he wishes, and
he blew the soul into her. How that's not mentioned in the Quran,
how commentators have, you know, speculated or taken from some
traditions. When she started caring, it was a nine month
period, nine month
embryonic stages of, of Jesus, there was a person, a carpenter,
or somebody that used to work whose name was Joseph, this is
where Joseph the carpenter comes in. And he, he saw that she was
becoming pregnant in the sense that she was pregnant. So he said,
Look, I'm gonna ask you a question. Don't take it bad. But
how do you get a tree without a seed? How do you get how does
somebody get a child without, you know, without a husband?
Immediately she recognized and she explained that this is this is
from God, and this is a miracle, but then she realized that people
are not going to take this very well. Of course not right. So she
escaped she ran away. And then the Quran says that
Fernanda tool Mala eco? Fernanda Hammond, Tatia Allah zani Allah,
God
addressed her and said, Do not fear, do not grieve. Finally, she
had the child I when I visited Bethlehem about four years ago,
there are the three or four churches there that they say is
the place of the birth of Jesus. The Quran actually makes it out
that it was on the, by a river somewhere, the tour guide that was
actually taking us around, he explained, you know, he's normal.
And then after that, he said, personally, I don't believe that.
I don't believe this is the birthplace I think it's a few
miles away from here. God knows best. We're not gonna argue about
that. So
God says there that now she's very worried, obviously, now she has
the child. Now God tells you that when anybody from your community
approached, you say you are fasting and fasting in those days
meant you didn't speak either. Right, which would be really nice,
right for some people today, but he said, you know, say that I have
vowed to fast. So now she comes and the people found her missing
from the temple and they went looking for her.
This is where it doesn't mention this in the Quran, but some
commentators mentioned that they found a shepherd, right, who said,
I don't know where she is, but I saw something strange happening. I
saw stars shining a light in this Towards Bethlehem, which we call
beta Lamb, the house of meat, that's in Arabic, beta lamb means
the house of meat, right? So they went in
that direction they found her there with a child. And they're
lucky. However, where did you get this child from? You can imagine
the accusations that were flying around at that time. She just she
just gestured to them that I can't speak. And that's when the miracle
took place. And that's mentioned in the chapter of Mary chapter 19.
Right which you could go and read if you want to in detail. Jesus
spoke as an infant, just a day older, something which is a
miracle he spoke as this child as an infant, he said, I am the
servant of God. And and he and God has chosen me etc, etc. In the
Abdullah at any al Kitab which Allah Nina BIA, which Aulani
mobile Mobarak and a&m I couldn't do what also I need a solid he was
a security madam to Allah has made me God has made me bless it, and
so on. Now, obviously, when a miracle like that takes place,
they will calm down, this is a miracle. So they were implicated,
they were comforted. And and then after that, just as with the
Christian sources, as far as I know, there is no mention of Jesus
anymore. 30 years he disappears, right? Neither the Christian
sources, neither the Muslim sources speak about Jesus anymore.
Suddenly, he reappeared reappears when he's 30 years old. In the
Quran, he suddenly starts telling people what they've got at home.
He tells people what they differ about, he tells he is able to cure
the leper. This is a brought up Oberle ACMA, well, abrasca or El
moto isn't Allah. This is this is in chapter three. So it mentions
that I can cure the leper, I can cure the blind, and he actually
did that the stories about the Quran, he quotes him saying this,
and I can even bring the dead back to life. And it's another thing he
says that I can I can make the form of a bird or something and
blown it with the name of God and it will become alive. So these
were all miracles that he was showing. So then we hear about him
for a number of years and then after that, the Quran in chapter
four speaks about
about the Israelites of the time, and how and this is where the
Quran is repudiating the Israelites and they believe that
they killed Jesus and it does it with a lot of passion here because
generally the Quran doesn't over emphasize things like that but
here it says we're calling him in cattle mercy her isa memoriam
rasool Allah and because they said that we killed Jesus the son of
Mary right well, Mr. Cthulhu they did not kill him. While masala boo
they did not crucify him. Well, I can should be alone, but the
matter was made ambiguous for them. Now my own commentary here
is that definitely somebody was killed on the cross. There's no
doubt about that because so many people witnessed it.
That's why the Quran is saying but the matter was made ambiguous for
them. And then it says woman Cthulhu who Yaquina they
definitely did not kill him. Now that's what the Quran says. It
doesn't tell you what, but Rafa then it says but Rafa hula who in
a God raised Him to himself, God raised Jesus to himself and he
wasn't killed. facts on the ground tell us somebody was killed? How
do you reconcile between the two? Now this is where I'll quote some
of the commentators, like quoted to be who's a famous commentator.
What he says here is that there's two possibilities, the
commentators give two possibilities. One possibility
they give.
See, the Quran is only trying to establish a hard fact that he was
not killed or crucified, but God raised Him to himself. Now the
country is trying to fill in the gaps here. So they're saying that
the one possibility is that Jesus found out that he was going they
were coming for him, because we know the story, right? They were
coming for him, the Romans and and at whoever's instigation, right.
So he, he was in a house with his disciples, and He asked one of
them to volunteer, volunteer to be like me, God will make his
features like myself, then he'll have to face whatever he has to
face, but then he'll be with Me in Paradise, which is a high
position. So one of them volunteered. And thus, he he gave
him his garment, or whatever the story is there, he went outside
and he was crucified and God raised Jesus. That's one opinion.
The other opinion again, these are speculative. The other opinion is
that one of the people from the army or whoever had come, they
officials, they actually came in to look for him. God raised Jesus,
and this particular individual when he went back out, he was made
to look like Jesus and thus he was crucified. Right? God knows best
exactly who was crucified. But what he what God establishes in
the Quran, the Quran empathically says, is that he was not killed.
Now, there was in belief here, two things. One is that we believe
he's up there on the second heaven or somewhere, he will come back at
the end of times to finish his mortal life off because he is the
one individual who hasn't died a mortal death yet, but has left
this world. He will come back towards the end of time, and he
will take care of the Antichrist.
This gets, you know, maybe if I could just hold you there for a
moment. You've raised some very interesting questions which I want
to sort of explore with you more fully, but it might be a good time
now, just coming up a minute or two to quarter good to pause there
with those thoughts. And, and we'll have a break, we'll come
back at eight o'clock, this team biscuits, coffee, whatever. And
then we can discuss this further and bring sort of Christian
questions to about what you've just been saying. So random
phosphor Abdurrahman.