Christians have only witnessed one side of the life of Jesus ﷺ: the “Meccan” side. They’ve only witnessed the unmarried, oppressed Jesus ﷺ. They have never witnessed the “Medinan” side, which is his second coming, so to speak. They’ve never witnessed him leading an army, being a political leader, being a married family man, and developing a society. He ﷺ never wrote a constitution binding different religions together under one banner–a stark contrast from Christendom with its historic intolerance and monolithic, homogeneous societies enforced by genocide after genocide through the centuries. They never saw him ﷺ emigrate away from and then conquer Jerusalem and give his enemies amnesty. They never saw him ﷺ turn enemies into friends, upholding his true message after his death (no, Paul doesn’t fit this description).
His life was interrupted by the Jews who disbelieved in him trying to murder him ﷺ. His Hijra was to Heaven. His conquest of Jerusalem yet to come, further into the end times, after the deceptive Messiah, the anti-Christ. His army will comprise of Muslims. There is little guidance in how to raise a family, run a state, treat your neighbor, fight a war, do business, and worship God beyond some vague, open-ended parables. There’s a few gems here and there, interspersed among a sea of confusion. The Bible is more of a reflection of the various, and very human, authors than of the subject itself.
This lack of practicality has many consequences. You have nuns trying to imitate the celibacy of the unmarried Jesus ﷺ, even though he never taught celibacy. You have friars and priests doing the same. You have Gnosticism (and elements of it) where the lusts and desires are seen as entirely Satanic, rather than something to be controlled and properly directed. It goes against the fitra, the primordial nature of humankind that God put inside of us all. In Islam these things are guided and controlled, not eliminated. Our mountains of sources–the Qur’an and hadith and seas of scholarly works–provide the true guidance in that.
Even still, how much of Jesus’ ﷺ life has been witnessed by Christian sources is debatable (a very small portion). Most of it is lost and was never recorded, meanwhile the little that was recorded is wildly inaccurate with loads of interpolations by perhaps well-meaning, anonymous scribes, but who didn’t have accuracy or long-term considerations in mind. These early Christian writers (like Paul and the authors of the gospels) were a small, oppressed minority, many of whom believed the second coming was going to happen in their own lifetime. It didn’t, so then you have the Johannine works which then fabricated a high Christology. Paul’s own works even exhibit both a low and high Christology, sparking great debates. The lack of accuracy sparked centuries of debate, persecution of heresy after heresy, Gnosticism, seven ecumenical councils, and finally the Reformation and dozens of denominations that sprung from simply reading the confusing Bible without Orthodoxy to guide it.
The ironic result we have today is the “Enlightenment” (darkening?) of Europe and the secular states we have today. They figured that instead of worshiping a man (Jesus ﷺ), they could worship the self and create their own “Kingdom of Heaven” on Earth via their own personal efforts.
The opposite occurred. The result was the worst slavery the world had ever seen (the Atlantic Slave Trade), colonialism and raping the world of its economies to feed greedy Europe, the 30 Years War which killed 8 million people, Communism which killed 100 million people in 100 years, the cold war, and two world wars which killed many tens of millions. Then Muslims are somehow demonized while they produce endless pornography and watch Hellraiser and Saw II.
May Allah ﷻ open the eyes of the West. Amin.
Halaqa 