If Islam didn't have Jesus as a prophet....

[smaneck]

Meanwhile, my view is that since there were more Christians believers (calling themselves with a focal point that is Jesus Christ) as compared to pagan Arabs (who had no name to call themselves…I think), Jesus had to be part of the “formula”

MJ

Huh? There were a few Christian kingdoms to the north and of course, Yemen was Christianized, but for the most part Arabs were pagans.

 

[smaneck]

One thing is for certain, there are no direct quotes to the New Testament in the Quran (or the Old Testament, for that matter). Half of the time, when “Jesus” is “quoted,” it is more so as an argument against the Christian position (look, for example at S. 5:116).

Actually the Announcement to Mary is nearly identical in the Qur’an as it is in the Bible. There are no direct quotes because the Bible had never been translated into Arabic. In fact Arabic was only beginning to develop a written language during the time of Muhammad. The Qur’an is the very first book to be written in that language.

In Medina, when he had more power, he started to be a bit more confrontational, and then by the time he had retaken Mecca and the Jews/Christians clearly weren’t impressed with Mohammad’s so-called prophesies, that’s when all the troublesome passages in the Quran started to be revealed.

The tension between Muslims and Jews begins in Medina, but not for the reasons you named. When Muhammad first came to Medina the Jews living there signed a compact agreeing to support the Muslims militarily and recognizing their religious liberty. Muhammad did not expect them to become Muslims but he did expect they would support his mission to the Arabs. Instead they publicly mocked him. Worse, they began to act as spies for the Meccans. This was long before Muslims conquered Mecca. The conquest of Mecca occurs only a couple of years before the Prophet’s passing. Not much of the Qur’an is revealed after that.

 

[smaneck]

The people of the book then were supposed to follow Islam and those that did not were considered kufurs (rebellious infidels). I don’t know whether Muslims would say this openly as it may not be politcially correct but they do not consider the present day Jews, Christians or Zaorastians (spelling?) as the people of the book where that special privilege is being accorded to. No, privately if they are candid enough, they would say we are the infidels who reject the message of Allah as revealed to Mohammad and therefore are the enemy of Islam.

The only Muslims who take this position are the radicals reformists who began to emerge in the 18th and 19th centuries. To take their position as the standard one would be like taking American Evangelical Christianity as the standard form. The form of Islam you seem to take as standard is that of the jihadists and terrorists which differs from more normative Islam in the following ways:

1. They believe the gate of ijtihad (interpretation) remains open unlike most Sunnis who believe it was closed in the 9th century.
2. The believe in something called takfir wa hijr. This means they hold it impermissible for a Muslim to live in a country not governed by Islamic law without seeking to overthrow and make it Islamic. Otherwise they should immigrate to a place which is truly Muslim. Most Muslims believe they can live peaceably in a non-Muslim country so long as they are not being persecuted.
3. They hold that any nominally Muslim government which does not abide by the shariah (Islamic law) is therefore really apostate. Such a government should be overthrown and its leaders killed. For this reason, hitherto, most of the violence of Islamist groups was aimed at other Muslims. This position, I might add, is basically the same one held by the Kharijites in early Islam. The Kharijites were the faction responsible for assassinating the Imam Ali and have been considered dangerous heretics by both Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims alike.
4. They insist in regarding Christians and Jews as infidels rather than people of the book, and therefore are willing to withdraw their protection and even persecute them. This is the reason why there has been so much violence against Christians in both the Sudan and in Egypt.

 

[Reuben_J]

Actually, there isn’t that much evidence of Christian influence. Certainly there were some Christians in Mecca, including Khadijah’s uncle but the only role he appears to have played was to assure Muhammad that his vision of the Archangel Gabriel was real. However, a lot of stories about Jesus were floating around Arabia at the time.

The evidence for both ways, Christian influence or the absence of it, were scarce. There is no independent evidence to show both to verify either assertion. But it is significant if we are to admit that Khadijah and Khadijah’s uncle were of a Christian sect. The uncle, Waraqa was a prominent Christian probably with a position of bishop if compared to the hierarchy of Christians today. He seemed to have strong influenced on Mohammad with regards to affirm him on the vision but he was certainly a major source of information on Christianity albeit heresy for Mohammad too.

 

[Darryl1958]

Do you think Islam would have survived today?

I think not.

Simply because the Quran mentions him more than Mohammed.

MJ

The Koran can be regarded as much as a political document, as it is a religious one. Islam arose in the time when all the major world powers had their official churches, Catholic Byzantine, and Persian Zoarastrianism. Finding themselves a world power unexpectedly, as much a result of Persian and Byzantine exhaustion than anything else, there needed to be another state religion to fill that void.

Islam is an eclectic blend of everything that came before, be it Christian or more specifically Arian, Jewish and Zorastrianism. Inheriting a world full of Christians, it was indeed useful to do a little name dropping with the name of Jesus for sure. Jewish influences were great enough to deny the divinity, and Christian sources were mainly unorthodox and heretic enough so that the person of Jesus is pretty much beyond recognition for any any fully literate in Christianity, but as long as the name of Jesus was present, the preponderance of Christians were illiterate enough about their faith so as to think that they were remaining true to it even as they became Muslims.

Jesus is a name in the Koran, a prophet like so many of the other names of the Bible from Adam on down are prophets. He is not a savior.
But in order for Islam to grow, all that was necessary was the name.

 

[smaneck]

But it is significant if we are to admit that Khadijah and Khadijah’s uncle were of a Christian sect.

It has never been suggested that Khadijah was a Christian, just her uncle and he was a convert.

The uncle, Waraqa was a prominent Christian probably with a position of bishop if compared to the hierarchy of Christians today.

No, I don’t think so. He was unusual only that he apparently knew some Hebrew and could read the Bible in that manner.

He seemed to have strong influenced on Mohammad with regards to affirm him on the vision but he was certainly a major source of information on Christianity albeit heresy for Mohammad too.

That we don’t know. Only that he was consulted after Muhammad received his first revelation.

 

[smaneck]

The Koran can be regarded as much as a political document, as it is a religious one.

The same thing could be said of the Torah.

Islam arose in the time when all the major world powers had their official churches, Catholic Byzantine, and Persian Zoarastrianism. Finding themselves a world power unexpectedly, as much a result of Persian and Byzantine exhaustion than anything else, there needed to be another state religion to fill that void.

I would agree that this is the reason Arabs so quickly acquired an empire. I would also agree that many of their practices (such as the treatment of religious minorities) was in imitation of the Sassanian practice.

Islam is an eclectic blend of everything that came before, be it Christian or more specifically Arian, Jewish and Zorastrianism.

The same could be said of Christianity.

Inheriting a world full of Christians, it was indeed useful to do a little name dropping with the name of Jesus for sure.

Keep in mind that Muslims only conquered half of the Byzantine Empire whereas they conquered the entirety of the Sassanian Empire where Christians were an insignificant minority.

Jewish influences were great enough to deny the divinity, and Christian sources were mainly unorthodox and heretic enough so that the person of Jesus is pretty much beyond recognition for any any fully literate in Christianity, but as long as the name of Jesus was present, the preponderance of Christians were illiterate enough about their faith so as to think that they were remaining true to it even as they became Muslims.

There is more to it than that. The portions of the Byzantine Empire which quickly fell to the Arabs were those parts inhabited by those who spoke Aramaic rather than Greek. Yes, they followed a different form of Christianity than than the Orthodox/Catholic version imposed by the state, but they were far from ignorant of their religion. The fact is that they felt persecuted by the Byzantines. They didn’t much appreciate having Greek landlords either. So when Arabs, with whom they had more cultural affinities showed up, their attitude was ‘come right in, sit right down.’ It is not often recognized that the Arabs who participated in those invasions were Christian as well as Muslim (which is why I call them Arab, not Muslim.) Syrian Christians even gave their navy to the Arabs to help them conquer Egypt. As far as conversion goes, that was a much slower process. So much was Islam seen as God’s revelation to the Arabs, Christians in conquered territories in these early days were not even being encouraged to convert. It will be a full three centuries before the majority of the population becomes Islamicized.

Jesus is a name in the Koran, a prophet like so many of the other names of the Bible from Adam on down are prophets.

It is more complicated than that. The Qur’an explicitly refers to Jesus as the Messiah and as the Word of God. He referred to as the Spirit of God as well. But I grant you this does not imply that he is a savior. I guess the real question is to what extent did Jesus see himself as a savior?

 

[Darryl1958]

The same thing could be said of the Torah.

The same thing has been said about Torah.
On the other hand, the Bible as a whole is more of a compilation of sacred writings, composed over millenia, in a wide array of different circumstances for the chosen of God.

Its origin as a whole does not belong to any specific political event.

I would agree that this is the reason Arabs so quickly acquired an empire. I would also agree that many of their practices (such as the treatment of religious minorities) was in imitation of the Sassanian practice.

Could be.

The same could be said of Christianity.

Not as much, no.
Not with any real accuracy anyway.
Christianity is based in one specific historic event, which is the biography of Jesus Christ as God and human and divine sacrifice. The focus of Christianity is fulfillment of Scripture, as Scripture exists in the Law and the Prophets and the Writings that have come before in the sacred history of God’s chosen people, Israel.
It is an almost exclusively sourced from existing Scripture in order to allow understanding.
To the extent that Muslims reject OT Scripture as corrupted, they exclude themselves from that kind of understanding

Keep in mind that Muslims only conquered half of the Byzantine Empire whereas they conquered the entirety of the Sassanian Empire where Christians were an insignificant minority.

Egypt, North Africa, Jerusalem, and Syria were not insignificant in producing the first generations of Christians thinkers for sure. Turkey was the stomping grounds of Christianitities greatest evangelists as well, Paul of Tarsus.
Christianity was not insignificant at all to the lands of the House of Islam, nor are the books of apocryphal Christianity insignificant to the creation of the Koran. Persians were wholy absorbed;Christiandom was only half absorbed. That is the main difference.

There is more to it than that. The portions of the Byzantine Empire which quickly fell to the Arabs were those parts inhabited by those who spoke Aramaic rather than Greek. Yes, they followed a different form of Christianity than than the Orthodox/Catholic version imposed by the state, but they were far from ignorant of their religion. The fact is that they felt persecuted by the Byzantines.

Many were persecuted by the Byzantines. It wasn’t just a feeling. Copts may not have felt so culturally akin to semitic Arabs at the time, but they knew only too well the boot of the Byzantine.
And the further from the centre of Byzantine power, the greater the heterodoxy. Arabia in particular was fully on the outskirts.
I touched on the heterodoxy already with my allusion to Arian Christianity (which is a metaphor to describe the milieu as much as an historical event).
One must also understand however that the preponderance of Christians before the printing press, like the preponderance of people everywhere, were illiterate. For the preponderance then, as communication was made even slightly more difficult with the more educated Christian elites, name-dropping of Jesus and the other prophets could be very effective in the centuries long process of Christians becoming Muslims.

…

It is more complicated than that.

Suffice to say, any centuries long process is more complicated than what can be described in a paragraph. History books are the source for details. An internet post is a vehicle for a quick insight and a generalized understanding only.
The OP question was specific. My answers was limited to answering that.

The Qur’an explicitly refers to Jesus as the Messiah and as the Word of God. He referred to as the Spirit of God as well. But I grant you this does not imply that he is a savior. I guess the real question is to what extent did Jesus see himself as a savior?

Not Saviour,
Nor God either.
As the interpretation of for this name-dropping tendency became more and more set in stone in the House of Islam, the whole import of the orthodox Christian message is lost.

From the vantage point that the NT writings of the first Christian century are corrupted, and relying mainly on the apocryphal writings of later Christian heterodoxy, and a voice from an illiterate and heavily Jewish influenced Arabic mercantile culture a half a millenium later, I would guess that the real question would be “which source for the historic Jesus should be more considered more historically authentic”?
That would be a rhetorical question of course.

 

[The_Wanderer]

Mohammed got the bulk of his information by interacting with heretical Christians on his travelling route when he used to trade as a merchant.

God bless,

Don’t forget the Jews and Zoroastrians.

 

[Reuben_J]

It has never been suggested that Khadijah was a Christian, just her uncle and he was a convert.

No, I don’t think so. He was unusual only that he apparently knew some Hebrew and could read the Bible in that manner.

That we don’t know. Only that he was consulted after Muhammad received his first revelation.

It has never been suggested that Khadijah was a Christian because it was not mentioned as so by many early Muslim literature. There is certainly lack of strong evidence that she was not a Christian.

Waraqa on the other hand was obviously a heretic Christian, and you are right technically if he was not because Christians who were around the vicinity of Mecca and that part Arabia were not of mainline Christianity.

 

[Reuben_J]

The only Muslims who take this position are the radicals reformists who began to emerge in the 18th and 19th centuries. To take their position as the standard one would be like taking American Evangelical Christianity as the standard form. The form of Islam you seem to take as standard is that of the jihadists and terrorists which differs from more normative Islam in the following ways:

1. They believe the gate of ijtihad (interpretation) remains open unlike most Sunnis who believe it was closed in the 9th century.
2. The believe in something called takfir wa hijr. This means they hold it impermissible for a Muslim to live in a country not governed by Islamic law without seeking to overthrow and make it Islamic. Otherwise they should immigrate to a place which is truly Muslim. Most Muslims believe they can live peaceably in a non-Muslim country so long as they are not being persecuted.
3. They hold that any nominally Muslim government which does not abide by the shariah (Islamic law) is therefore really apostate. Such a government should be overthrown and its leaders killed. For this reason, hitherto, most of the violence of Islamist groups was aimed at other Muslims. This position, I might add, is basically the same one held by the Kharijites in early Islam. The Kharijites were the faction responsible for assassinating the Imam Ali and have been considered dangerous heretics by both Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims alike.
4. They insist in regarding Christians and Jews as infidels rather than people of the book, and therefore are willing to withdraw their protection and even persecute them. This is the reason why there has been so much violence against Christians in both the Sudan and in Egypt.

Then too the assertion that the Bible was corrupted. Mohammad and the Quran do not say so albeit there are bad monks and Christians who tried to misinterpret it. A good point where Mohammad considered the Bible was still authentic when he said (in the Quran) for the Christians to refer to their own book.

This is of course an anomaly later on for the Muslims for it was found out that thers were some parts of the Quran that contradict the Bible, among them specifically the death and the resurrection. If Mohammad’s source of Jesus’ story was from Waraqa and the heretic Christians living around the area, then it makes sense for the Quran to come out with that revelation.

 

[MartinJordan]

Then too the assertion that the Bible was corrupted. Mohammad and the Quran do not say so albeit there are bad monks and Christians who tried to misinterpret it. A good point where Mohammad considered the Bible was still authentic when he said (in the Quran) for the Christians to refer to their own book.

This is of course an anomaly later on for the Muslims for it was found out that thers were some parts of the Quran that contradict the Bible, among them specifically the death and the resurrection. If Mohammad’s source of Jesus’ story was from Waraqa and the heretic Christians living around the area, then it makes sense for the Quran to come out with that revelation.

I would think,that where things went wrong as far as reading the Bible was concerned is that whether Mohammed even knew there was a Teaching Office that interpreted the Bible? I would assume not many Christians could even read! So historically how much did Islam actually understand about Christianity?

MJ

 

[Reuben_J]

I would think,that where things went wrong as far as reading the Bible was concerned is that whether Mohammed even knew there was a Teaching Office that interpreted the Bible? I would assume not many Christians could even read! So historically how much did Islam actually understand about Christianity?

MJ

I would think so, MJ. The area around Mecca was pretty much isolated from the main communication route for it to be exposed to inter-nationals contact especially from mainline Christianity. There were obviously Jews and heretic Christians present who had very different views of the Bible or of Jesus. The Jews were of course in contempt of Christinity and the heretics did not consider Jesus as divine. It is possible Mohammad believed those Christians as representative of Christianity belief and thus had a dislike for the Jews.

 

[smaneck]

Not as much, no.
Not with any real accuracy anyway.
Christianity is based in one specific historic event,

Islam as well is based on a specific historic event. In fact the specificity of that event is why you are calling it political.

which is the biography of Jesus Christ as God and human and divine sacrifice.
The focus of Christianity is fulfillment of Scripture, as Scripture exists in the Law and the Prophets and the Writings that have come before in the sacred history of God’s chosen people, Israel.

Yet that Messianic interpretation is really quite far from what was expected by the Jewish scriptures. The ideas so fundamental to Christian theology owe as much to Zoroastrianism as they do to the Tanak.

It is an almost exclusively sourced from existing Scripture in order to allow understanding.

Certainly it uses existing scriptures, but the NTs interpretation of them comes from a very different lens. Satan in the Tanak was merely God’s prosecuting attorney. In Christianity he suddenly becomes the Prince of this World tied in to the figure of Lucifer (who in the OT was Nebuchadnezzar.) Demons are hardly to be seen in the Tanak yet they are running all over the place in the New Testament. The only mention of a Resurrection in Tanak is in Ezekial where it refers to the rebirth of the nation of Israel after the Babylonian captivity. Where do these things come from? Largely from Zoroastrian influence on both Judaism and Christianity during the Hellenistic period. We see this in the Apocrypha where some of the demons have Persian names. We see it with Jesus on the Cross saying “This day you will be with me in Paradise” using the Persian word firdaws. We see it in the story of the Magi (Zoroastrian priests) who come to give gifts to the Christ child. We see it in the very notion of a virgin birth which is more Zoroastrian than Jewish.

To the extent that Muslims reject OT Scripture as corrupted, they exclude themselves from that kind of understanding

First you criticize Islam for taking too much from previous religions, now you blame Muslims for not taking enough! But I agree that the usual Muslim interpretation of the meaning of the ‘corruption of the holy text’ is misguided. IMO the Qur’an is referring to the misuse and misinterpretation of the Torah, not the a corruption of the text itself.

Egypt, North Africa, Jerusalem, and Syria were not insignificant in producing the first generations of Christians thinkers for sure. Turkey was the stomping grounds of Christianitities greatest evangelists as well, Paul of Tarsus.

Turkey (then Anatolia or Asia Minor) does not become Islamicized until well after 1000 A.D.

Christianity was not insignificant at all to the lands of the House of Islam, nor are the books of apocryphal Christianity insignificant to the creation of the Koran.

Certainly some of the stories found about Jesus in the Qur’an are to be found in non-canonical gospels but there is no reason to think the Arabs had access to the actual texts of those gospels. There is no evidence of any books being written in Arabic period prior to the Qur’an. In all likelihood these stories were part of an oral tradition. And perhaps they still are. I remember as a kid hearing the Kingston Trio sing a song about Jesus as a child making clay birds fly long before I read this story in the Qur’an.

Persians were wholy absorbed;Christiandom was only half absorbed. That is the main difference.

For the preponderance then, as communication was made even slightly more difficult with the more educated Christian elites, name-dropping of Jesus and the other prophets could be very effective in the centuries long process of Christians becoming Muslims.

It might be effective but given the fact that Iran eventually converted notwithstanding the fact their Prophet was not even mentioned in the Qur’an that seems unnecessary.

Not Saviour,
Nor God either.
As the interpretation of for this name-dropping tendency

Is the fact that the Qur’an does not stress the divinity of Jesus or Jesus as savior really make its mention of him merely name-dropping? Jesus himself did not stress these things!
They are later interpretations, as is the Trinity which is not articulated until the second century.

From the vantage point that the NT writings of the first Christian century are corrupted, and relying mainly on the apocryphal writings of later Christian heterodoxy, and a voice from an illiterate and heavily Jewish influenced Arabic mercantile culture a half a millenium later,

If you are referring to the Gospel of Barnabas, you are surely aware that that text was written centuries after Muhammad, let alone Christ. The stories about Jesus in the Qur’an, on the other hand, have a very ancient history, whether or not they found their way into the canon. It is really fairly late that Muslims begin disregarding the Bible and I would agree they were wrong to do so.

 

[smaneck]

It is possible Mohammad believed those Christians as representative of Christianity belief and thus had a dislike for the Jews.

That sentence doesn’t make sense to me. Obviously when the Qur’an makes statements regarding Christians it intends the Christians who were living among Arabs at the time.
As for Jews, I’m not sure what Muhammad may have believed about Christians is relevant to that. Muhammad’s relationship with Jews was entirely based on the breakdown in relations between the Jews and Muslims in Medina itself. There is no evidence he had a negative attitude towards them before that time.

 

[smaneck]

I would think,that where things went wrong as far as reading the Bible was concerned is that whether Mohammed even knew there was a Teaching Office that interpreted the Bible?

It is doubtful that he did, and even more doubtful that he would have accepted their authority if he did know.

 

[smaneck]

Don’t forget the Jews and Zoroastrians.

I think you guys are approaching this all wrong. Muhammad certainly had more contact with Jews than either Christianity or Zoroastrianism, but Zoroaster never even gets mentioned in the Qur’an and there is only vaguest allusion to magi. But it doesn’t matter. Zoroastrian ideas had penetrated both Judaism and Christianity centuries earlier. Arabs were familiar with stories from the Bible, Midrash and the apocrypha even if they had never seen the books. These things were ‘in the air’ so to speak. That is why the Qur’an often only tells half the story. Those who listened to it, already knew the other half! We don’t need posit Muhammad having intense dialogues with the practitioners of any of these religions to explain this.

 

[Reuben_J]

That sentence doesn’t make sense to me. Obviously when the Qur’an makes statements regarding Christians it intends the Christians who were living among Arabs at the time.
As for Jews, I’m not sure what Muhammad may have believed about Christians is relevant to that. Muhammad’s relationship with Jews was entirely based on the breakdown in relations between the Jews and Muslims in Medina itself. There is no evidence he had a negative attitude towards them before that time.

If Muhammad was influenced by a form of Christianity in his area at that time, it is possible he did not go well with the Jews for reasons the latter’s negative attitude towards the teaching of Christianity. And that not to mention that they still regarded Christians as heretics to Judaism, the reason why the Jews persecuted Jesus.

One has to remember that Islam honour Jesus unlike the Jews. Thus in effect they were not in agreement to Mohammad and that could have an effect on his attitude towards them. The Medina incident was probably the final straw from a relationship that never was cordial in the first place.

 

[Darryl1958]

I

slam as well is based on a specific historic event. In fact the specificity of that event is why you are calling it political.

 

[Darryl1958]

There is no evidence of any books being written in Arabic period prior to the Qur’an. In all likelihood these stories were part of an oral tradition. And perhaps they still are. I remember as a kid hearing the Kingston Trio sing a song about Jesus as a child making clay birds fly long before I read this story in the Qur’an.

People were mostly illiterate back then. Whether the story is passed on orally, on papyrus or digitally, makes very little difference that I am aware of.

It might be effective but given the fact that Iran eventually converted notwithstanding the fact their Prophet was not even mentioned in the Qur’an that seems unnecessary.

One must not forget Indonesia either. While the neutralization of the Christian message through amalgamating the name of Jesus into the Koran could be seen as significant, we should be well aware that this is not the whole picture.

Is the fact that the Qur’an does not stress the divinity of Jesus or Jesus as savior really make its mention of him merely name-dropping? Jesus himself did not stress these things!
They are later interpretations, as is the Trinity which is not articulated until the second century.

How do you know what Jesus stressed? Is your interpretation of Christian Scripture the authorative one now?
I am aware of Muslims brushing their teeth a certain way, or setting the age for marriage of girls in a certain way, or doing a whole list of things in a certain way, because that is the way that Mohammed did it. It just doesn’t seem that Isa plays that prominent a role in the lives of Muslims today, that’s all. Maybe there is a WWJD movement in Islam, but that would surprise me.