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Jesus in Islam and Christmas by Islami City
12/20/2011 - Religious Interfaith - Article Ref: IC0312-2171By: IslamiCity IslamiCity* - |
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Many Christians are unaware that the true spirit
of reverence which Muslims display towards Jesus
and his
mother Mary spring from the fountainhead of their faith as prescribed in the
Holy Quran. Most do not know that a Muslim does not take the name of Jesus
, without saying Eesa alai-hiss-salaam i.e. (Jesus peace be upon
him).
Many Christians do not know that in the Holy
Quran Jesus
is
mentioned by name twenty-five times. For example:
.. We gave Jesus the son of
Mary Clear (Signs) and strengthened him with the holy spirit. .. Quran 2:87
Behold! the angels said:
"O Mary! Allah gives thee glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name will
be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter
and of (the company of) those nearest to Allah. Quran 3:45
And in their
footsteps We sent Jesus the son of Mary, confirming the Law that had come
before him .. Quran 5:46
The Quranic Titles of Jesus
Though Jesus is mentioned by name in twenty-five
places in the Holy Quran he is also addressed with respect as: "Ibne
Maryam" - son of Mary; as Masi (Heb) Messiah - translated as Christ;
"Abd-ullah" servant of Allah; "Rasul -Ullah" - Messenger of
Allah.
He is spoken of as "the word of God",
as "the spirit of God", as a "Sign of God", and numerous
other epithets of honor spread over fifteen different chapters. The Holy Quran
honors this great Messenger of God, and over the past fourteen hundred years
Muslims continue to hold Jesus as a symbol of truth.
Christmas and 25th of
December
Jesus
is
commonly considered to have been born on the 25th of December. However, it is
common knowledge among Christian scholars that he was not born on this day. It
is well known that the first Christian churches held their festival in May,
April, or January. Scholars of the first two centuries AD even differ in which
year he was born. Some believing that he was born fully twenty years before the
current accepted date. So how was the 25th of December selected as the birthday
of Jesus
?
Grolier's encyclopedia says: "Christmas is
the feast of the birth of Jesus Christ, celebrated on December 25 ... Despite
the beliefs about Christ that the birth stories expressed, the church did not
observe a festival for the celebration of the event until the 4th century....
since 274, under the emperor Aurelian, Rome had celebrated the feast of the
"Invincible Sun" on December 25. In the Eastern Church, January 6, a
day also associated with the winter solstice, was initially preferred. In
course of time, however, the West added the Eastern date as the Feast of the
Epiphany, and the East added the Western date of Christmas".
So who else celebrated the 25th of December as
the birth day of their gods before it was agreed upon as the birth day of Jesus
? Well, there are the people of India who rejoice, decorate
their houses with garlands, and give presents to their friends on this day. The
people of China also celebrate this day and close their shops. Buddha is
believed to have been born on this day. The great savior and god of the
Persians, Mithras, is also believed to have been born on the 25th of December
long before the coming of Jesus
.
The Egyptians celebrated this day as the birth
day of their great savior Horus, the Egyptian god of light and the son of the
"virgin mother" and "queen of the heavens" Isis. Osiris,
god of the dead and the underworld in Egypt, the son of "the holy
virgin", again was believed to have been born on the 25th of December.
The Greeks celebrated the 25th of December as
the birthday of Hercules, the son of the supreme god of the Greeks, Zeus,
through the mortal woman Alcmene Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry among the
Romans (known among the Greeks as Dionysus) was also born on this day.
Adonis, revered as a "dying-and-rising
god" among the Greeks, miraculously was also born on the 25th of December.
His worshipers held him a yearly festival representing his death and
resurrection, in midsummer. The ceremonies of his birthday are recorded to have
taken place in the same cave in Bethlehem which is claimed to have been the
birth place of Jesus
.
The Scandinavians celebrated the 25th of
December as the birthday of their god Freyr, the son of their supreme god of
the heavens, Odin.
The Romans observed this day as the birthday of
the god of the sun, Natalis Solis Invicti ("Birthday of Sol the
invincible"). There was great rejoicing and all shops were closed. There
was illumination and public games. Presents were exchanged, and the slaves were
indulged in great liberties. These are the same Romans who would later preside
over the council of Nicea (325 CE) which lead to the official Christian
recognition of the "Trinity" as the "true" nature of God,
and the "fact" that Jesus
was born
on the 25th of December too.
In Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon
says: "The Roman Christians, ignorant of his (Christ's) birth, fixed the
solemn festival to the 25th of December, the Brumalia, or Winter Solstice, when
the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of Sol " vol. ii, p. 383.
Christians opposed to
Christmas
There are several Christian groups who are
opposed to Christmas. For example, they take the verse from the Bible in
Jeremiah 10:2-4 as an admonition against decorating Christmas trees.
The King James Version reads: "Thus saith
the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen.... For the customs of the people
are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of
the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten
it with nails and with hammers, that it move not."
In order to understand this subject, it is
helpful to trace some of the history of Christmas avoidance, particularly its
roots in Puritanism.
The Puritans believed that the first-century
church modeled a Christianity that modern Christians should copy. They
attempted to base their faith and practice solely on the New Testament, and
their position on Christmas reflected their commitment to practice a pure,
scriptural form of Christianity. Puritans argued that God reserved to himself
the determination of all proper forms of worship, and that he disapproved of
any human innovations - even innovations that celebrated the great events of
salvation. The name Christmas also alienated many Puritans. Christmas, after all, meant "the mass of Christ." The mass was
despised as a Roman Catholic institution that undermined the Protestant concept
of Christ, who offered himself once for all. The Puritans' passionate avoidance
of any practice that was associated with papal Rome caused them to overlook the
fact that in many countries the name for the day had nothing to do with the
Catholic mass, but focused instead on Jesus' birth. The mass did not evolve
into the form abhorred by Protestants until long after Christmas was widely
observed. The two customs had separate, though interconnected, histories.
As ardent Protestants, Puritans identified the
embracing of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the early 300s CE
as the starting point of the degeneration and corruption of the church. They
believed the corruption of the church was brought on by the interweaving of the
church with the pagan Roman state. To Puritans, Christmas was impure because it
entered the Roman Church sometime in this period. No one knows the exact year
or under what circumstances Roman Christians began to celebrate the birth of
their Lord, but by the mid-300s CE, the practice was well established.
Islam requires Muslims to
respect the faith of others
Regardless of historical facts and theological
differences that Christians may have among themselves or theological
differences Muslims may have with Christianity we cannot disregard the
sentiments of practicing Christians who use this occasion to revere Jesus
.
Prophet Muhammad
was
always very respectful towards the Christians. According to Islamic historians,
Ibn e Saad and Ibn e Hisham, once there was a delegation of Byzantine
Christians, who were traveling from Yemen to Madinah. The delegation was lead
by a bishop by the name of Zqyd
al-Usquf, who came to discuss a number of issues with Prophet Muhammad
. When the time of their prayer came, they asked the Prophet if
they could do their worship in the mosque of the Prophet. He answered,
"Conduct your service here in the mosque. It is a place dedicated to
God."
We should never ridicule the
religious beliefs of others, no matter how much we disagree with them. God says
in the Quran: "And
insult not those whom they worship besides God, lest they insult God wrongfully
without knowledge. Thus We have made fair-seeming to each people its own
doings; then to their Lord is their return and He shall then inform them of all
that they used to do". Quran, 6:108
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