City Circle: The merit of Jesus Christ in Islam

My first ever attendance to a city circle event was on a topic that is of profound interest to me. That being 'The Merit of Jesus Christ in Islam'. The speaker was Abu Muntasir, a popular Islamic Scholar and president of Jimas which is a leading body of young british muslims.

For anyone whose not familiar with the basic tenets of Islam. God, the Almighty had sent many prophets and messengers during the course of time, the first being Adam and the last Muhammad (peace be on them both), the purpose of which was to guide people from the lowest depths of darkness up unto the true light of righteousness and piety. One of these mighty messengers of God was Jesus (pbuh) sent to the children of Israel on a specific mission to confirm the law of the torah (that which was revelaed before to Moses, peace be on him) and as many scholars say, to also lay the foundations of the emergence of a final messanger to be sent from God Almighty.

The audience included memebers of the Christian community and other faiths who were interested to learn what Islam had to say about Jesus.The speaker using references from the Quran and Hadith (sayings and teachings of the prophet) explained the Islamic viewpoint and compared it to that of christian theology. He highlighted many similarities and many differences. The major differences being:

• In Islam, it is essential to accept that God is One, with no partner i.e. a son. In Christianity, it is incumbent to accept that God has a son.
• The quran states that Jesus was not killed nor crucified but was taken up by God and that he will return back to this world at at a time decreed by God, then lead a normal life following the law of God and die a normal death. Christians belive that he was killed and crucified and that he came back i.e. the resurrection. This is necessary for the Christian theological doctrine of blood sacrifice and atonement for sins, which is rejected by Islam that makes it clear that no person shall carry the burdens of another and that every individual will be held accountable for their own sins
  

There are quite a few similarities. This can vary given that there are now many christian denominations present today:

• Jesus was born from a Virgin, Mary.
• That he could perform many miracles such as healing the lepers and giving back sight to the blind. In Islam we may add, the first first mircale of Jesus was that he spoke from the cradle to defend his mother from the false speech of the people that were around her at the time. Islam does stress however that the miracles performed by Jesus were by the permission of God thus strengthening the Islamic viewpoint that all things are done by the authority and will of Almighty God alone.
• That he was charitable and kind in nature (even to his enemies). Was gentle in speech and forgiving.

On the whole, the event didnt produce any argumentation between the various faiths present as to the way they viewed Jesus. It did however encourage the need to be able to have constructive dialogue and debate between the two faiths as to understand better the viewpoint of the other religions. The nature and character as exemplified by this mighty messenger of God that these faiths unanimously agree on can be used I believe as the foundations on which we conduct ourselves with one another in the works of inter-faith dialogue.