MUHAMMAD IN THE CHRISTIAN CONTEXT

Concentrating on the commonalities between the Abrahamic Faiths

By Moin Ansari

I have tried to define Islam in Christian and non-religious terms. Elaine Pagels and the Naag Hamdi texts not withstanding, there is historical precedence in understand the message of Muhammad in the Christian context. This commonality will help us understand the message and therefore Islam and Muslims. UNDERSTANDING the genesis of the religion will help us understand each other and this will help us gain understanding of world events.

Once we have understood Muhammad in the Christian context, then it is much easier to understand Jesus in the Muslim context. American Deists have already done that in many ways

The hordes are not coming. They have always been here. There is nothing to fear from Muslims who are like Unitarians or like Jefferson or Madison.

MUHAMMAD IN THE CHRISTIAN CONTEXT

The status of Muhammad has to be understood in the context of Christian Dogma and Christian beliefs of “inerrancy”, "infallibility" “inspiration” and the liberal interpretation of the Gospels. The discussion of the status of Jesus Christ has always been a topic of discussion between Christians. In many ways the discussions of Jesus Christ and the theological differences between Islam and Christianity are essentially a discussion about the so called heresies of Arias and Eusebius of Caesarea that germinated in the city of Antioch (as mentioned by Jefferson). Many churches have taken a liberal approach to the interpretation of the Bible and consider is inspired or infallable.

Historically, Arianism was a majority opinion among Christians, but this began to change when Emperor Constantine intervened on behalf of and Trinitarians. The Council of Nicea in 328 headed by Emperor Constantine adopted the Nicean concept of Trinity, Arias was exiled and his promulgation "anethmized". Arianism survived until 381AD in the Western Roman Empire and then thrived in the Easter Roman empire. After that Arianism went underground. Evangelists sent to the Germanic peoples converted the Goths to Arianism. When the Germanic people entered the Roman empire they entered it as Arians and used this form of Christianity to differentiate themselves from the Romans. The Germanic peoples were Arians. Arianism did not die. Arianism led to the Brotherhood that was mainly responsible for the renaissance. Arianism survives in the works of John Locke, Isaac Newton, Milton Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.

Archbishop Dmitri of the Orthodox Church in America has identified Islam as the largest descendant of Arianism today. There is similarity in Islam's teaching that Jesus was a great prophet, but very distinct from God, although Islam sees Jesus as a human messenger of God without the divine properties that Arianism attributes to the Christ. Islam sees itself as a continuation of the Jewish and Christian traditions and reveres many of the same prophets.

Nontrinitarians claim the roots of their position go back further than those of their counterpart trinitarians. Some ancient sects, such as the Ebionites, said that Jesus was not a "Son of God" but rather an ordinary man who was a prophet, a view of Jesus shared by Islam. The doctrine of the Godhead, as mentioned by Jefferson according to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is similar to Arianism

 

John of Demascus actually calls Islam Hetrodox Christianity. John of Damascus is called the first apologetic of Islam and a detractor. In his book the "Heresies of Ishamail" he pretty much defines Islam in the light of Arianism and what he defines as Nestorianism. Nestorius (c.386-c.451) was a pupil of Theodore of Mopsuestia in Antioch and later became the Patriarch of Constantinople. He preached against the use of the title Mother of God (Theotokos) for the Virgin Mary and would only call her Mother of Christ (Christotokos).

 
John of Damascus in today's light would not be considered an apologetic of Islam. I would consider him a proponent of Islam since he ties Islam to a kind of a Gnostic Gospel.

Since the Quran and the teaching of the Quran are considered divine and divinely inspired, obviously this is heresy in Islam since it reduces the prophet and Quran to external influences. However it is fascinating to see the link between Islam and Christianity. If we read Arianism and Nestorianism, and Unitarianism in conjunction with what the Archbishop of Canterbury says, it paints a picture of immense interaction between Islam and a much closer relationship than generally accepted.

Fletcher in his book “The Cross and the Crescent” lists a lot of commonalities between Islam and Christianity and informs us the Syriac Christian Churches felt liberated when the Muslim took over the Holy lands. In all Muslims lands taken over by Muslims from Christians, the number of churches built went up phenomenally. The Syriac and Coptic Christians were closer to "Unitarians" and the heterodox Christian doctrine of Nestorianism. From a Christian perspective These were all the "heresies" that eventually got purged by Emperor Constantine and got included into Islam

MUHAMMAD THE REFORMER: Muhammad was a reformer in a sea of paganism. With the Arian Goths in decline, the land was hungry for the purest form of monotheism. He was taking Arabia and the world back to monotheism. He pointed out the excesses of the synagogue just like Jesus had done 600 years earlier. Muhammad also tried to reform the established church just like Martin Luther did a thousand years later. Muhammad was extremely successful because the pagans and the progeny of Arians accepted the new monotheist message. Islam spread like wildfire.


 

CHRISTIANITY AT THE TIME OF MUHAMMAD: The "Christianity" and "Judaism" that existed at the time of Muhamamad was pre-reform Catholicism and Orthodox type of Judaism. It was very different than the Christianity and Judaism that exists today. The Christianity was probably based on the he scriptures called Diatesseron and the Catholic Epistles or Peshitta. Since the Qur'ân talks about a Gospel, it would suggest Diatesseron more than Peshitta. Muslims consider the Quran to the 3rd and Final Testament and also think of the Torah and the Bible as Holy Books. The Quran is the word of God. The Hadith is the sayings of the prophet, so the Hadith is similar to the Bible. Christian Arab Kingdoms of the Ghassanids and Muntherits became the powers controlling the Arab Peninsula from Syria as far south as Yemen and Oman, and from Iraq as far south as the Arab Sea. The other Christians near Muhammad were the Nabatians. The Nabateans were settled in northern Arabia and by the 6th century BC, they moved to what is now Jordan where they formed their state and kingdom. Petra, their capital, was a trading center between Arabia and the Mediterranean Sea.

REJECTING DOGMA IN THE SPIRIT OF ECUMENICAL HARMONY: . Dogma creates problems If we move away from dogma we find the power of ecumenical harmony. Based on my research on the Church's adherence to "infallibility" and "inerrancy", we can surely find common ground in our beliefs. Our belief is similar to the Christian belief as researched by Pagels and discussed in the Da Vinci Code (Naag Hamdi Texts and the Lost Bibles). In the broad spectrum of today's Christianity, Islam is closest to the Unitarians, the flag bearers of Arianism. We are also close to the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and other liberal churches who are willing to work with Muslims. The Pope has declared that Islam is an Abrahamic faith and that belief in Islam qualifies a soul to enter heaven, a thought described by Moses Maimonides in his Epistle to the Yemenites in the 12th century.

Martin Luther, the Protestant reformation and the Jewish reformation came centuries later, and achieved the same type of reformation in destroying the unyielding/tyrannical power of the Pope/Rabbi/Vatican. The Luther reformation was aimed at those who remained with the Church

FOUNDING FATHERS OF THE USA

Sir Isaac Newton, Jefferson, Adam, Franklin and others used these Unitarian ideas and are today called "Deists". The founding fathers of America were Deists whose ideas very similar to those expounded by the Arians, Unitarians and Islam. John Locke (influenced by Ibn Tufail), James Madison and Benjamin Franklin (friends of the most famous Unitarian Joseph Priestly), Thomas Jefferson (who also owned a coy of the Quran), Isaac Newton (who wrote extensively in defense of "Arianism" "A Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture"), Milton were all Unitarians in some form or another. These Deists had ideas about Jesus which were FAR from the dogma and their ideas were very close to those that we have in the Islamic faith. Jefferson actually wrote a Bible free of "dogma".

The USA is truly a conglomeration of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and those expounding a clash of civilizations are simply hate mongers. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin were too enlightened to be bogged down in dogma. They gave u our glorious constitution, and Jefferson even gave us a Bible. Using these documents there is a lot of hope ecumenical harmony in the USA which will surely reverberate back to South Asia and the Middle East.