Piety is the central virtue in the religion of Islam, because it emphasizes the significance of religious devotion, focusing on doing good things for the sake of God. Piety is in a position of high importance, because it is an essential element that branches out to all of the other key virtues of Islam. All Muslim prophets would base their teachings on piety, because without religious devotion, the following of the other virtues loses its point, since it excludes God.
In Islamic tradition, prophets are used by God as media tools for delivering messages to common people. People learn about their religion and God’s expectations from divine revelations, and prophets’ saying and actions. Muslims believe that God kept sending many prophets to different groups of people, because they would not follow or preserve the divine commandments, or divine virtues. Therefore, the same religious virtues were revealed over and over through different prophets, ending with the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Prophets’ actions and sayings create a certain image, an image of a Muslim role model. To the surprise to some Christians, Jesus has a status as one of the most respected prophets in Islam. However, Muslims do not refer to Jesus as a Christian prophet, because they believe in all prophets being messengers of one and only God, with the same message, respectively.
Tarif Khalidi’s book The Muslim Jesus contains a variety of Islamic traditions that aid in creating an image of Jesus, from a Muslim point of view. The sayings include Jesus’ personal experience, opinion on the issues and some exemplary stories to reinforce Muslim piety. Those sayings show the reader that Jesus was a very pious character, which goes hand in hand with the virtues of Muslim religion.
The virtues that are repeated most often in Jesus’ sayings are tied very close together. Those virtues are the following: the humility through declining worldly things, mercy, and complete dependence on God. The most popular virtues from Khalidi’s collection of Jesus’ sayings work well together to get an overall picture of what Jesus would be like, as a Muslim role model.
First of all, humility is a compound virtue that may be interpreted in more than one way. The most common way to explain the virtue of humility is an example of a down to earth person, who is humble and modest, who does not think he or she is better, or more important than anybody else. In saying number 32, Jesus stresses the importance of humility being the best way of worshiping God. Then, Jesus presents himself as a humble person, because of the absence of pride in him (45, 53) – he thinks of himself as a worst person, not the best person. Jesus also teaches other people to think the worst of themselves (91). Even though that might sound pessimistic, but in reality, this way of thinking increases one’s desire to improve. Jesus presents himself as a being with low self esteem (45) for the purpose of motivating people to become more religious. His sayings and behavior trigger the conscience and makes people feel guilty for their pride. When a prophet, who is a chosen messenger of God, calls himself so insignificant, then an ordinary person would immediately think that he or she must be worth nothing at all. So, how do people dare to think big of themselves, when even a prophet declares that in fact he is just worthless comparing to God. So, the Jesus’ actual message rather suggests that one should focus on worshiping something greater than themselves, and stop being so proud, because they are not that important in comparing to the Creator.
Jesus also encourages giving up worldly things for the greater reward at the day of Judgment (55). He feels sorry for people who are attached to this world (51), and strongly believes that wealth leads to avoiding the virtue of humility through developing pride and high self esteem (62).Jesus warns that rich people will not earn the reward of heaven, because they tend to focus on their luxuries rather than worship (63). Therefore, Jesus recommends to be happy with what you have (110), without having excesses. Jesus was poor (77), and through his sayings he encourages people to be poor. If a person is poor, he or she has no material things to be proud of, nothing to lose or worry about – the only thing that person has is a belief in God, and that is what one should focus on. This way Jesus shows people an example of religious devotion through humility and dismissal of worldly things. In Qur’an, God does not exactly command people to be poor, but excess of possessions and obsessions with worldly affairs are indeed discouraged.
The next most common virtue was the virtue of mercy and kindness. The saying number 37, focuses on God telling Jesus about the virtues he loves the most. Therefore, people who practice such virtues, may expect a reward from God, if God is willing to give it to them. In the Holy Qur’an, every chapter starts with the “ in the name of God, … the most merciful…”; this way God shows people that mercy is one of His attributes, therefore it is a very good virtue for humans to practice. Jesus also teaches piety through mercy, by treating others with kindness, the way one would like to be treated himself (48). This way a person would benefit himself and the community, through establishing a friendly environment, and, at the same time, that person would strengthen his virtue of piety, through pleasing God.
Next most commonly occurring virtue in Jesus’ sayings is complete trust and dependence on God. Saying number 15 is very interesting, because it resembles some verses from Qur’an about God taking care and feeding the birds and animals. Jesus’ saying also points out that all animals depend on God for their food, and God takes care of them. Therefore, God has the power to take care of the humans, too. It does not mean that a creature does not have to participate in their survival. For example, a bird, or an animal, has to look or hunt for food, and it will find it. The same with humans, it does not mean that one can just stay at home and the food will come to them – one has to work for it. The meaning of such saying is rather that people do not have to be obsessed with money, or unnecessary excesses and luxuries, because God will be able to provide everybody with just what they need for survival, if they take an action in achieving this goal. Then, Jesus explains that piety is a priority that is done for the sake of God, not for the sake of people (20,57). It requires a sincere intention to earn a good afterlife (20). This virtue of total devotion to God is closely related to the virtue of humility and leaving the worldly things behind, for the reward of God’s mercy and entrance to paradise.
From a Muslim perspective, Jesus’ role in Islam rather helps than hinders relations between Muslims and Christians. Information about Jesus from good sources, like Qur’an, might help Christians to view Jesus in a new way. While Muslims believe the Qur’an to be a final, most complete and perfect word of God, Christian might not accept Jesus’ identity described in there. However, it might give some food for thought, because similar biblical stories are mentioned in the Qur’an, so there must be some common source for that. Therefore, Christians may feel some sort of a connection to Muslims, rather than seeing them as “the other”. As of Arabic traditions about Jesus collected in Khalidi’s book – those, in my opinion, would not hinder relations between Muslims and Christian either. While reading those sayings, there may be some differences of how Christians and Muslims view Jesus as a character. However, those differences are simply evidences of oral traditions of
No comments:
Post a Comment