The Story of Jesus (‘Isa) Peace be upon him, the Prophet of Allah
In many verses of the Glorious Qur’an Allah the Exalted denied the claim of the Christians that He has a son.
A delegation from Nagran came to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). They began to talk about their claim about the Trinity, which is that Allah is three in one, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with some disagreement among their sects. That is why Allah affirmed in many verses of the Qur’an that Jesus is a slave of Allah, whom He molded in the womb of his mother like any other of His creatures, and that He created him without a father, as He created Adam without a father or mother.
Allah the Almighty said:
(Surah 3: 33-37)
Allah declared that He had elected Adam (PBUH) and the elite of his offspring who obey Allah. Then He specified the family of Abraham (PBUH), which includes the sons of Ishmael (PBUH), and the family of ‘Imran, the father of Mary.
Muhammad Ibn Ishaaq stated that he was ‘Imran Ibn Bashim, Ibn Amun, Ibn Misha, Ibn Hosqia, Ibn Ahriq, Ibn Mutham, Ibn ‘Azazia, Ibn Amisa, Ibn Yamish, Ibn Ahrihu, Ibn Yazem, Ibn Yahfashat, Ibn Eisha, Ibn Iyam, Ibn Rahba’am, Ibn David (Dawud).
Prophet Zechariah’s (PBUH) wife’s sister had a daughter named Hannah. She was married to ‘Imran, a leader of the Israelites. For many years the couple remained childless. Whenever Hannah saw another woman with a child, her longing for a baby increased. Although years had passed, she never lost hope. She believed that one day Allah would bless her with a child, on whom she would shower all her motherly love.
She turned to the Lord of the heavens and the earth and pleaded with Him for a child. She would offer the child in the service of Allah’s house, in the temple of Jerusalem. Allah granted her request. When she learned she was pregnant she was the happiest woman alive, and thanked Allah for His gift. Her overjoyed husband ‘Imran also thanked Allah for His mercy.
However, while she was pregnant her husband passed away. Hannah wept bitterly. Alas, ‘Imran did not live to see their child for whom they had so longed. She gave birth to a girl, and again turned to Allah in prayer:
(Surah 3: 36)
Hannah had a big problem in reference to her promise to Allah, for females were not accepted into the temple, and she was very worried. Her sister’s husband, Zechariah, comforted her, saying that Allah knew best what she had delivered and appreciated fully what she had offered in His service. She wrapped the baby in a shawl and handed it over to the temple elders. As the baby was a girl, the question of her guardianship posed a problem for the elders. This was a child of their late and beloved leader, and everyone was eager to take care of her. Zechariah said to the elders: “I am the husband of her maternal aunt and her nearest relation in the temple; therefore, I will be more mindful of her than all of you.”
As it was their custom to draw lots to solve disagreements, they followed this course. Each one was given a reed to throw into the river. They had agreed that whoever’s reed remained afloat would be granted guardianship of the girl. All the reeds sank to the bottom except Zechariah’s. With this sign, they all surrendered to the will of Allah and made him the guardian.
To ensure that no one had access to Mary, Zechariah built a separate room for her in the temple. As she grew up, she spent her time in devotion to Allah. Zechariah visited her daily to see to her needs, and so it continued for many years. One day, he was surprised to find fresh fruit which was out of season in her room. As he was the only person who could enter her room, he asked her how the fruit got there. She replied that these provisions were from Allah, as He gives to whom He wills. Zechariah understood by this that Allah had raised Mary’s status above that of other women.
Thereafter, Zechariah spent more time with her, teaching and guiding her. Mary grew to be a devotee of Allah, glorifying Him day and night.
‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib narrated that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said:
(Sahih Al-Bukhari)
Abu Musa Al-Ash’ari also narrated that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said:
While Mary was praying in the temple, an angel in the form of a man appeared before her. Filled with terror, she tried to flee, praying: “‘Verily! I seek refuge with the Most Beneficent (Allah) from you, if you do fear Allah.’ (The angel) said: ‘I am only a Messenger from your Lord, (to announce) to you the gift of a righteous son.’ She said: ‘How can l have a son, when no man has touched me, nor am I unchaste?’ He said:
(Surah 19:18-21)
The angel’s visit caused Mary great anxiety, which increased as the months went by. How could she face giving birth to a child without having a husband? Later, she felt life kicking inside her. With a heavy heart, she left the temple and went to Nazareth, the city in which she had been born and where she settled in a simple farm house to avoid the public.
But fear and anxiety did not leave her. She was from a noble and pious family. Her father had not been an evil man nor was her mother an impure woman. How could she prevent tongues from wagging about her honor?
After some months, she could not bear the mental strain any longer. Burdened with a heavy womb, she left Nazareth, not knowing where to go to be away from this depressing atmosphere.
She had not gone far, when she was overtaken by the pains of childbirth. She sat down against a dry palm tree, and here she gave birth to a son. Looking at her beautiful baby, she was hurt that she had brought him into the world without a father. She exclaimed: “I wish I had died before this happened and had vanished into nothingness!”
Suddenly, she heard a voice nearby: “Grieve not, your Lord has placed a rivulet below, and shake the trunk of this tree, from which ripe dates will fall. So eat and drink and regain the strength you have lost; and be of good cheer, for what you see is the power of Allah, Who made the dry palm tree regain life, in order to provide food for you.” For a while she was comforted by Allah’s miracle, for it was a sure sign of her innocence and purity.
She decided to return to the city. However, her fears also returned. What was she going to tell the people? As if sharing his mother’s worry, the baby began to speak: “If you meet any person say: ‘I have vowed to fast for The Beneficent and may not speak to any human today.'” With this miracle, Mary felt at ease.
Most of the people realized that the baby was unique, for if Allah wills something, He merely says “Be” and it happens. Of course, there were some who regarded the baby’s speech as a strange trick, but at least Mary could now stay in Nazareth without being harassed.
Allah the Exalted revealed:
(Surah 19: 16-39)
It was said that Joseph the Carpenter was greatly surprised when he knew the story, so he asked Mary: “Can a tree come to grow without a seed?” She said: “Yes, the one which Allah created for the first time.” He asked her again: “Is it possible to bear a child without a male partner?” She said: “Yes, Allah created Adam without male or female!” It was also said that, while pregnant, Mary went one day to her aunt, who reported that she felt as if she was pregnant. Mary in turn said that she, too, was feeling as if she was pregnant. Then her aunt said: “I can see what is in my womb prostrating to what is in your womb.”
The Jewish priests felt this child Jesus was dangerous, for they felt that the people would turn their worship to Allah the Almighty alone, displacing the existing Jewish tenets. Consequently, they would lose their authority over the people. Therefore, they kept the miracle of Jesus’s speech in infancy as a secret and accused Mary of a great misdeed.
As Jesus (PBUH) grew, the signs of prophethood began to increase. He could tell his friends what kind of supper waited for them at home and what they had hidden and where. When he was twelve years old, he accompanied his mother to Jerusalem. There he wandered into the temple and joined a crowd listening to the lectures of the Rabbis (Jewish priests). The audience were all adults, but he was not afraid to sit with them. After listening intently, he asked questions and expressed his opinion. The learned rabbis were disturbed by the boy’s boldness and puzzled by the questions he asked, for they were unable to answer him. They tried to silence him, but he ignored their attempts and continued to express his views. Jesus became so involved in this exchange that he forgot he was expected back home.
In the meantime, his mother went home, thinking that he might have gone back with relatives or friends. When she arrived, she discovered that he was not there, so she returned to the city to look for him. At last she found him in the temple, sitting among the learned, conversing with them. He appeared to be quite at ease, as if he had been doing this all his life. Mary got angry with him for causing her worry. He tried to assure her that all the arguing and debating with the learned had made him forget the time.
Jesus grew up to manhood. It was Sabbath, a day of complete rest: no fire could be lit or extinguished, nor could females plait their hair. Moses (PBUH) had commanded that Saturday be dedicated to the worship of Allah. However, the wisdom behind the Sabbath and its spirit had gone, and only the letter remained in the Jews’ hearts. Also, they thought that the Sabbath was kept in heaven, and that the People of Israel had been chosen by Allah only to observe the Sabbath.
They made a hundred things unlawful on Saturday even self-defense or calling a doctor to save a patient who was in bad condition. This is how their life was branded by such hypocrisy. Although the Pharisees were guardians of the law, they were ready to sell it when their interests were involved so as to obtain personal gains. There was, for example, a rule which prohibited a journey of more than one thousand yards on the Sabbath day. What do we expect of the Pharisees in this case? The day before, they transferred their food and drink from their homes two thousand yards away and erected a temporary house so that from there they could travel a further thousand yards on the Sabbath day.
Jesus was on his way to the temple. Although it was the Sabbath, he reached out his hand to pick two pieces of fruit to feed a hungry child. This was considered to be a violation of the Sabbath law. He made a fire for the old women to keep themselves warm from the freezing air. Another violation. He went to the temple and looked around. There were twenty thousand Jewish priests registered there who earned their living from the temple. The rooms of the temple were full of them.
Jesus observed that the visitors were much fewer than the priests. Yet the temple was full of sheep and doves which were sold to the people to be offered as sacrifices. Every step in the temple cost the visitor money. They worshiped nothing but money. In the temple the Pharisees and Sadducees acted as if it were a market place, and these two groups always disagreed on everything. Jesus followed the scene with his eyes and observed that the poor people who could not afford the price of the sheep or dove were swept away like flies by the Pharisees and Saducees. Jesus was astonished. Why did the priests burn a lot of offerings inside the temple, while thousands of poor people were hungry outside it?
On this blessed night, the two noble prophets John (PBUH) and Zechariah (PBUH) died, killed by the ruling authority. On the same night, the revelation descended upon Jesus (PBUH). Allah the Exalted commanded him to begin his call to the children of Israel. To Jesus, the life of ease was closed, and the page of worship and struggle was opened.
Like an opposing force, the message of Jesus came to denounce the practices of the Pharisees and Saducees and to reinforce the Law of Moses. In the face of a materialistic age of luxury and worship of gold, Jesus called his people to a nobler life by word and deed. This exemplary life was the only way out of the wretchedness and diseases of his age.
Jesus’ call, from the beginning, was marked by its complete uprightness and piety. It appealed to the soul, the inner being, and not to a closed system of rules laid down by society.
Jesus continued inviting the people to Almighty Allah. His call was based on the principle that there is no mediation between the Creator and His creatures. However, Jesus was in conflict with the Jews’ superficial interpretation of the Torah. He said that he did not come to abrogate the Torah, but to complete it by going to the spirit of its substance to arrive at its essence.
He made the Jews understand that the Ten Commandments have more value than they imagined. For instance, the fifth commandment does not only prohibit physical killing, but all forms of killing: physical, psychological, or spiritual. And the sixth commandment does not prohibit adultery only in the sense of unlawful physical contact between a man and a woman, but also prohibits all forms of unlawful relations or acts that might lead to adultery. The eye commits adultery when it looks at anything with passion.
Jesus was therefore in confrontation with the materialistic people. He told them to desist from hypocrisy, show and false praise. There was no need to hoard wealth in this life. They should not preoccupy themselves with the goods of this passing world; rather they must preoccupy themselves with the affairs of the coming world because it would be everlasting.
Jesus told them that caring for this world is a sin, not fit for pious worshipers. The disbelievers care for it because they do not know a better way. As for the believers, they know that their sustenance is with Allah, so they trust in Him and scorn this world.
Jesus continued to invite people to worship the Only Lord, Who is without partner, just as he invited them to purify the heart and soul.
His teaching annoyed the priests, for every word of Jesus was a threat to them and their position, exposing their misdeeds.
The Roman occupiers had, at first, no intention of being involved in this religious discord of the Jews because it was an internal affair, and they saw that this dispute would distract the Jews from the question of the occupation.
However, the priests started to plot against Jesus. They wanted to embarrass him and to prove that he had come to destroy the Mosaic Law. The Mosaic Law provides that an adulteress be stoned to death. They brought him a Jewish adulteress and asked Jesus: “Does not the law stipulate the stoning of the adulteress?” Jesus answered: “Yes.” They said: “This woman is an adulteress.” Jesus looked at the woman and then at the priests. He knew that they were more sinful than she. They agreed that she should be killed according to Mosaic Law, and they understood that if he was going to apply Mosaic Law, he would be destroying his own rules of forgiveness and mercy.
Jesus understood their plan. He smiled and assented: “Whoever among you is sinless can stone her.” His voice rose in the middle of the Temple, making a new law on adultery, for the sinless to judge sin. There was none eligible; no mortal can judge sin, only Allah the Most Merciful.
As Jesus left the temple, the woman followed him. She took out a bottle of perfume from her garments, knelt before his feet and washed them with perfume and tears, and then dried his feet with her hair. Jesus turned to the woman and told her to stand up, adding: “O Lord, forgive her sins.” He let the priests understand that those who call people to Almighty Allah are not executioners. His call was based on mercy for the people, the aim of all divine calls.
Jesus continued to pray to Allah for mercy on his people and to teach his people to have mercy on one another and to believe in Allah.
Jesus continued his mission, aided by divine miracles. Some Qur’anic commentators said that Jesus brought four people back from the dead: a friend of his named Al-‘Azam, an old woman’s son, and a woman’s only daughter. These three had died during his lifetime. When the Jews saw this they said: “You only resurrect those who have died recently; perhaps they only fainted.” They asked him to bring back to life Sam the Ibn Noah.
When he asked them to show him his grave, the people accompanied him there. Jesus invoked Allah the Exalted to bring him back to life and behold, Sam the Ibn Noah came out from the grave gray-haired. Jesus asked: “How did you get gray hair, when there was no aging in your time?” He answered: “O, Spirit of Allah, I thought that the Day of Resurrection had come; from the fear of that day my hair turned gray.”
Allah the Almighty said:
(Surah 5: 110-111)
Almighty Allah also revealed:
(Surah 3: 48-54)
Jesus continued calling people to Almighty Allah and laying down for them what might be called “the law of the Spirit.” Once when standing on a mountain surrounded by his disciples, Jesus saw that those who believed in him were from among the poor, the wretched, and the downtrodden, and their number was small. Some of the miracles which Jesus performed had been requested by his disciples, such as their wish for a “holy table” to be sent down from heaven.
Allah the Exalted said:
(Surah 5: 112-115)
It was related that Jesus commanded his disciples to fast for thirty days; at the end of it, they asked Jesus to bring food from heaven to break their fast. Jesus prayed to Allah after his disciples had doubted Allah’s power. The great table came down between two clouds, one above and one below, while the people watched. Jesus said: “O Lord, make it a mercy and not a cause of distress.” So it fell between Jesus’ hands, covered with a napkin.
Jesus suddenly prostrated and his disciples with him. They sensed a fragrance which they had never smelled before. Jesus said: “The one who is the most devout and most righteous may uncover the table, that we might eat of it to thank Allah for it.” They said: “O Spirit of Allah, you are the most deserving.”
Jesus stood up, then performed ablution and prayed before uncovering the table, and behold, there was a roasted fish. The disciples said: “O Spirit of Allah, is this the food of this world or of Paradise?” Jesus said to his disciples: “Did not Allah forbid you to ask questions? It is the divine power of Allah the Almighty Who said: ‘Be,’ and it was. It is a sign from Almighty Allah warning of great punishment for unbelieving mortals of the world. This is the kernel of the matter.”
It is said that thousands of people partook of it, and yet they never exhausted it. A further miracle was that the blind and lepers were cured.
The Day of the Table became one of the holy days for the disciples and followers of Jesus. Later on, the disciples and followers forgot the real essence of the miracles, and so they worshiped Jesus as a god.
Almighty Allah asserted:
(Surah 5: 116-120)
Jesus went on with his mission until vice knew that its throne was threatening to fall. So the forces of evil accused him of magic, infringement of the Mosaic Law, allegiance with the devil; and when they saw that the poor people followed him, they began to scheme against him.
The Sanhedrin, the highest judicial and ecclesiastical council of the Jews, began to meet to plot against Jesus. The plan took a new turn. When the Jews failed to stop Jesus’ call, they decided to kill him. The chief priests held secret meetings to agree on the best way of getting rid of Jesus.
While they were in such a meeting, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, Judas Iscariot, went to them and asked: “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?” Judas bargained with them until they agreed to give him thirty pieces of silver known as shekels. The plot was laid for the capture and murder of Jesus.
It was said that the high priest of the Jews tore his garment at the meeting, claiming that Jesus had denied Judaism. The tearing of clothes at that time was a sign of disgust.
The priests had no authority to pass the death sentence at that time, so they convinced the Roman governor that Jesus was plotting against the security of the Roman Empire and urged him to take immediate action against him. The governor ordered that Jesus be arrested.
According to the Book of Matthew, Jesus was arrested and the council of the high priests passed the death sentence upon him. Then, they began insulting him, spitting on his face and kicking him.
It was the Roman custom for the condemned to be flogged before they were executed. So Pilate, the Roman governor, ordered that Jesus be flogged. The Mosaic Law stipulates forty lashes, but the Romans had no limit, and they were brutal lashes. After that, Jesus was handed to the soldiers for crucifixion. They took off his clothes and kept them. They put a crown of thorns on his head to mock him. According to custom he carried his cross on his back to increase his suffering.
Finally, they reached a place called Golgotha, meaning the Place of Skulls, outside the walls of Jerusalem. Instead of giving him a cup of wine diluted with scent to help lessen the pain on the cross, the soldiers gave Jesus a cup of vinegar diluted with gall. Then they crucified him and, as a further mockery, two thieves with him. So it is written in the Bible.
But the faith of Islam came with views quite different from that of the extant gospels with regards to both the end of Jesus and his nature.
The Glorious Qur’an affirms that Allah the Exalted did not permit the people of Israel to kill Jesus or crucify him. What happened was that Allah saved him from his enemies and raised him to heaven. They never killed Jesus; they killed someone else.
Allah the Almighty declared:
( Surah 4:157-159)
Almighty Allah also revealed:
(Surah 3: 55 )
Almighty Allah refuted the claims of the Jews and the Christians in many verses of the Glorious Qur’an.
(Surah 19: 88-95)
Allah the Exalted also declared:
(Surah 6:100-103)
Almighty Allah commanded:
(Surah 4: 171-1)