[sangkancil] Re: FW: H-Net* FW: NABI ISA DISALIB????
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Othman Mohd. Noor wrote:
>
> Dear Cik Gu Ghani,
> Being a christian now, could you please elaborate on the issue discussed
> below so that we can find the truth about the crucification of Jesus. I
> want to learn. Thank you.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: anas [SMTP:anuaral@tm.net.my] <mailto:[SMTP:anuaral@tm.net.my]>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 1998 6:53 PM
> To: Charles Rundi
> Cc: HizbiNet Articles
> Subject: Re: H-Net* FW: NABI ISA DISALIB????
> Setahu saya mengikut pandangan ramai ulamak Islam yang disalib adalah
> SIMON CYRENE dan bukan JUDAS ISCARIOT.
<snipped>
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Dear Othman,
I am taking the liberty to post this on my web-page so I don't have to
be repeating my answer when next someone ask me the same question. What
is written here is my own view. I do not represent the view of any
Christian denomination, or of the Shi'ahs. Any similarity you may find
is coincidental.
This is an old piece of dry bread we in Malaysia should have fed the
fishes with a long time ago. You must already know we have no reliable
historical record whatever about Jesus other than the Scriptural and
so you can say and believe in anything you wish. In fact, there is no
such thing as a historical Isa-al-Masih (Jesus the Saviour) and unless
you belong to the Tradition and understand what the "Saviour" (al-Masih,
or al-Mahdi) is, you'll fail to perceive what Jesus means, and what the
differences of view concerning his crucifixion is about.
I must once again state I belong to the Tradition. Hence, how I perceive
this *issue* may be quite different from what most Christians or
Shi'ahs may believe.
Let's go step-by-step. First, Simon, or Judas, or whoever else
replacing Isa al-Masih (Jesus Christ) at the crucifix is not stated
anywhere in the Qur'an. What is stated in the Qur'an are these:
"That they rejected faith; that they uttered against Mary a grave false
charge.
"That they said, 'We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger
of Allah' - but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but it was made
to appear so to them, and those who differ about this are full of
doubts, with no certain knowledge, but only conjecture to follow.They
certainly did not kill him -
"Nay, Allah raised him up to Himself; and Allah is Omnipotent, Wise. -"
Q.4:156-158.
In the verses above Jesus is clearly stated as the 'son of Mary', which
is obviously to drive home the point that he was not born of a human
father. He is a "Word from God, held in honor in this world and the
Hereafter and of the company of those nearest to Allah (al-muqarabin).
He shall speak to the people as a babe and in maturity and he shall be
of the righteous." (Q.44-46) Please note that these Qur'an verses are
about Jesus' birth. Then, in Q.3:59, Jesus' birth is likened to that of
Adam :"The similitude of Jesus before God is as that of Adam; He created
Him from dust, then said to him, 'Be': and he was."
What are we told? We are told (a) Jesus was without a human father and
was created the same as Adam, directly from the command of God - "Be!"
and he was.
We are not dealing here with a person who was born through the process
of procreation like you and I, i.e. a creature of the flesh. Jesus is
a Word of God (Logos). Can anyone kill a Word of God? Can a Logos be
killed? Is there a means to destroy or even to alter the Word of God?
(b) In Q.4:156-57 (see above) at a glance it would seem we are told the
crucifixion "was made to appear so to them." It was an appearance. But
was the appearance only about the crucifixion? If so, why was it said in
Q.4:156 that they made a false accusation against Mary when she gave
birth to Jesus? Wasn't Jesus himself an appearance of the Word of God
according to the Qur'an? He has to be or his creation would not have
been likened to the creation of Adam, made by God from dust, or clay and
then by His command "Be!" he was conceived by Mary, and then was born
as an appearance of the Word in the flesh and who spoke as a babe. How
else can we perceive this? Would you want to try and give us an
alternative perception?
(c) Jesus was a Messenger of God, from the company of those nearest to
Him, and who is held in honor in this world and the Hereafter. In other
words, he is an archetype, immortal and transcendental as are the
angels who are themselves Messengers (see Q. 35:1), or is there any
other possible perception of the description in the Qur'an?
He came by a miraculous birth, he talked to people in his infancy, he
healed the sick and he gave life to the shapes of pigeons he made from
clay, by the will of God, he prayed for a table of viands and it
appeared. He is himself a miracle (Q. 23:50; 43:61) Then, with 12
disciples who never knew him before he showed a Way to the Kingdom of
God. All that is in the Qur'an. If there's such a person among us and
then he disappeared, do we adhere to his ministry or should we endlessly
debate about whether he had died on the Cross or not, how was he raised
again, can we call him Son of God or Son of Man or is he actually an
ordinary person like us who eats, drinks, sleeps and therefore we should
simply call him Isa, the ordinary? Do we hope for such a one to return
or should we also debate about that?
"..and those who differ about this are full of doubts, with no certain
knowledge, but only conjecture to follow." (Q.4:157)
There's a graffiti on the wall of a public lavatory I read and shall not
forget. It said, "When a person is pointing to the moon, fools look at
his finger."
The next question you may want to ask is about why he is termed the Son
of God and wouldn't that be blasphemous? Fact is, to the Christians,
everyone who receives Jesus in himself as the Truth, the Way and the
Life becomes cleanse of his/her sins, meaning he is the Intercessor
(Intercession - Shafa'at - see Q.2:255), the same as Muhammad is upheld
by most Muslims. Then such a person would be termed "a child of God", as
opposed to those who remain in sin. It's a matter of perceiving a
relationship with God as personal and in intimacy, like Abraham is
called the "Friend of God". Would not that be blasphemous too - that God
should have a human being as a Friend?
Next you would probably ask me about the Trinity - Father, Son, Holy
Ghost. To this I'd ask, are you not body, mind and soul (personality)?
You'd agree that these three are conceptually separable. But what
happens should we actually separate our body from our mind and from our
soul? We'd either be dead bodies or we'd be a zombies.
When we are perceiving the process of creation as a whole, the three
factors would become, (i) the Creator, (ii) the One Mind, which we can
call the "Word" or "Logos", and (iii) the Life, which we call "Spirit"
in accordance with the Scriptures. Perhaps you'd agree we can also
simplify these three factors in the creative process by saying the
Creator is "Father", the One Mind is the "Son" and the Life, is the
Spirit. This Spirit is with the "Son", since it is in him that all of
Life is expressed.
It would be somewhat like how the ancient alchemists used the symbols of
the Sun as the Father, the Moon as the Mother, and the Earth is the Son.
Light is the Spirit and God is the Light of Lights. You'd have to be
born in the Earth to understand the process of your becoming and to
return to the Light of Lights - the One and Absolute Self the Malays
call Diri Sendiri (meaning Diri Yang Berdiri Sendiri), the Self that
exists by Himself and having no likeness with anything that's created.
Most Christians call this Diri Sendiri, Father, and to get to Him, one
must go through the Son by receiving him in himself.
How these matters are expressed is culture. But are we perceiving the
same thing in different words or are we having different concepts?
However, if we are playing the role of a patriarch who is making the
move to found a new nation (qaum), it's likely we'd want the members of
our community to uphold the same terms for the same concepts so there's
loyalty to the single (absolute) leader in whose image the nation shall
be conceived and shaped..
This is how I understand why Muhammad (mpbuh) rejected the Trinity in
Medinah in the 7th. century. But we can see as Islam gained maturity,
Muslims who were sufis did not bother to participate in the contentious
semantics. What for? Especially in Malaysia, whatever for?
regards,
-Tok Aji-
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