Adil Khan, grade 10 student, Montreal
Published in canadaBdNews.com
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(When we Muslims mention the name of a Prophet or a Messenger, we are required to invoke Allah’s blessings on him. In this short essay I am using the Anglicized words and names such as God, Abraham, and Ishmael)
Between the years 2051 and 1991 BCE, that is approximately 4000 years ago, there lived a man named Tereh either at a place called Ur near the Euphrates river in the present-day Iraq, or somewhere in southern Turkey. Tereh made and sold clay statues which the people used as objects of worship. His son Abraham was very inquisitive since his childhood. While grazing animals in the desert he looked at the mighty sun in the sky and thought that the sun was God. He soon realized that the sun could not be God because it rose and set. God had to be an unchangeable being. He looked at the sky at night and saw that the stars also were changing their positions. Hence he concluded that the stars could also not be gods. The people of his region of the Middle-East at that time worshipped statues of gods and goddesses. Abraham’s father had a shop that sold these statues to worshippers. Once when Abraham was left in charge of his father’s shop, he took an axe and cut the heads of all the statues of the shop. On his return to the shop the father asked why he did what he did. He replied that the statues were no gods because they could not defend themselves against my attack on them. This answer of Abraham did not please his father.
Since Abraham’s idea of God went against the prevailing views of the people of the time, the people resented what he was saying. Hence Abraham had to leave his ancestral home. At God’s order he went to the Canaan which is Palestine, including Israel, today. There God called him and asked him to worship Him, and only Him. In return God promised him prosperity and a nation of many children. Abraham accepted God’s call. This is the first covenant (agreement) that Abraham made with God.
Now the question is: how could Abraham have a nation of children? He didn’t have any child of his own. His wife Sarah then gave her slave woman Hager as a gift to her husband so that he could have a child with her. Soon Ishmael was born. Lo and behold, now Sarah, a ripe old woman of 90 years, became pregnant. When Abraham was told about Sarah’s pregnancy, he laughed and laughed because it did not make sense to him that a 90-year-old woman would conceive a child. When Sarah gave birth to his son, he was called Is-haq (Isaac), laughter.
Later at God’s command Abraham and his son(sons?) were circumcised to confirm or seal the agreement that he previously made with God. To fulfil this agreement Jews and Muslims also circumcise their male children. This act of circumcision was Abraham’s second covenant with God.
Sarah now felt jealous about Ishmael and his mother Hager, and compelled Abraham to abandon them both in the desert.
To test his faith, God asked Abraham to sacrifice what he loved most: his son. Abraham blindfolded himself and cut the throat of his son. When he removed his blindfold, he was surprised to see that God by a miracle removed his son from under the knife and put an animal there instead. He saw his son standing beside him. Abraham passed God’s test of his faith.
Up to this point the Judeo-Christian-Muslim story is the same. Then the story differs as to who was sacrificed. According to the Judeo- Christian belief, Isaac was sacrificed; but according to Muslims it was Ismail who was sacrificed.
“The two brothers, Isaac and Ishmael, are the forefathers of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Jews and Christians trace their origin to Isaac, and the children of Ishmael are believed to be Arabs, and by extension, Muslims. Thus Abraham is the grandpa of all of us–Jews Christians and Muslims. We all are members of the same family of grandpa Abraham.”
Abraham and his life play a central role in all the three religious traditions in questions. Jews and Christians often mention Abraham in their prayers. We Muslims mention Abraham’s name in our prayers many times a day. We re-enact many of the activities of Abraham and his family as part of the ritual of hajj, pilgrimage to Makkah. We believe that at God’s command Ahraham built the Ka’bah with the help of Ishmael. Pilgrimage to Makkah is one of the five obligatory duties of Muslims.
If we look at an ordinary family of ours, we see that the children of the same parents have certain things in common, and yet they differ among themselves in many respects. In the same manner, Jews, Christians and Muslims have a great deal of beliefs in common; yet we have differences in the details of our beliefs and practices. Let us now talk about some of the things that we have in common with each other.
We Jews, Christians and Muslims are all believers in one God. In fact it’s Abraham who made the belief in one God the cornerstone of his religious life. Jews and Muslims tremendously emphasize on the belief in one God. Non-Christians may feel that the Christian idea of God as God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Ghost contradicts the idea of one God. There is no doubt that for a non-Christian
(and for that matter, for many Christians) it is difficult to understand the principle of God being one in three; but all Christian with a strong belief have no doubt about God being one.
Jerusalem, the city of peace, is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims. The Western Wall of the Temple of David is the holiest of the holy to Jews. To Christians Jerusalem is holy because Jesus was ‘crucified’ there. According to Muslim belief, Masjidul Aqsa, the farthest mosque, in Jerusalem is the place from where Prophet Muhammed went to the heavens to meet God. This celestial journey of Muhamed from Jerusalem to the court of God is called mi’raj or Ascension.
Jews, Christians and Muslims all believe in the existence of the Prophets such as Noah, Joseph, and Moses. We Muslims also accept Jesus as our Messenger. One may ask why Jews and Christians do not accept Muhammad as their messenger. The answer is that Muhammad came about 3300 years after Moses and about 1400 years after Jesus. That is, there was no Muhammad when Judaism and Christianity were established. How could then these religions accept Muhammad as part of their faith when he did not exist? I shall further say that Muslims, for example, cannot expect Jews and Christians to accept Muhammad as their Messenger because if they did, they would all become Muslims. A Muslim is the one who believes in one God and Muhammad as His Messenger. I do not think that it is reasonable for us Muslims to expect all Jews and Christians of the world to join the fold of Islam.
Many of the stories in the Judeo-Christian holy book, the Bible, are very similar to those in the Quran. Read the story of Moses. See how he was thrown into the river and picked up by the family of the Pharaoh, the miracles that he performed (e.g., turning a stick into a serpent, dividing the waters of the Red Sea), God talking to Moses, and the story of the burning bush. Also read the story of Joseph going to Egypt. You see that these stories are very similar to those described in the Judeo-Christian Bible.
Let us now talk about how Muslim view Jesus. As I have mentioned above, Muslims think that he is a Messenger of God. God revealed the Gospels to him. According to our belief, he was born of Virgin Mary. God made only two people of the world in a special way, that is, without a father. Adam had no mother or father; he was made of clay at God’s command; and Jesus was born without a father– exactly what Christians believe.
The Quran calls Jesus the spirit or breath of God probably because he could give life (breath) to the dead. Both Christians and Muslims believe that Jesus was a miracle-maker. Further, both Christians and Muslims believe that Jesus is the Messiah. According to Muslim belief, it is Jesus who will come back one day to establish a kingdom of God on earth. Our difference with our Christian cousins is with regard to the crucification of Jesus. To us Muslims he was not crucified. He was raised by God to the heavens, and he will come back to this world before the Doomsday, to bring people to the right path for the last time. He will then die as an ordinary human being and be buried like everyone else.
The above discussion shows that we Jews, Christians and Muslims have a great deal in common. Moses came first. Hence his grandchildren, Jews, are our oldest cousins. Next came the Jesus and his followers, Christians. They are our younger cousins. Last came Muhammad and his followers, the youngest of the grandchildren of Abraham. Jews and Muslims are very close to each other in respect of their beliefs and practices. Our Christian cousins are slightly farther away from both of us because of their belief in the doctrine of Trinity, belief in God as one in three. The Quran emphatically says that we Muslims do not accept the idea of God having a father or a son. Thus the details of the beliefs and views of the members of our family differ. What is important for us all is that we should live in peace and harmony as members of the same family which we are. If Abraham were alive today, he would like to see his grandchildren happy living in the east and the west, north and the south. He would also wish that we love and care for all members of his family.
I would like to end this article with grateful thanks to my grandfather Dr. Abdur Rabb for his inspiration and help in writing this essay.