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Jesus a prophet of Islam? Diaa Mohamed

Diaa Mohamed is the founder of Mypeace, an Islamic organisation seeking to promote understanding between Christians and Muslims and is behind the recent posters proclaiming Jesus as a prophet of Islam. He sat down with John Dickson in the CPX studio for a conversation about the differences in how Muslims and Christians view Jesus.

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  • Duncan Cumming
    This is an excellent example of how two people, passionate about their faiths, can totally disagree and yet treat each other with respect and honesty. I wholeheartedly support Diaa’s aims of educating Australians about Islam.

    I would accept Diaa’s portrayal of Jesus in Islam as an accurate reflection of modern Islam. However he doesn’t discuss any of the questions that exist within Quranic commentary regarding this. Diaa presents his view as representative of all Muslims when this is not strictly true.

    He certainly reflects the mainstream view that Jesus did not die but fails to mention that there are other parts of the Qur’an that support the idea of Jesus dying, see Al-Imran 3:55, Al-Ma’ida 5:117, Maryam 19:33.

    Also, the idea that Jesus couldn’t have died because he was a chosen prophet of Allah is a later Muslim polemic not supported by the Qur’an. The Qur’an regularly accuses the Jews of having killed the prophets that came to them, which Allah must have permitted.

    There is also evidence for an early traditional interpretation within Sunni Islam of Jesus literally dying and being raised to life by Allah. So although the popular majority of the modern Ummah rejects the historical evidence for Jesus’ death on the basis of it disagreeing with the Qur’an, not all of the historical Ummah does. Good examples of Muslims who were open to the possibility of the literal death and resurrection of Christ are Al-Razi and Sayyid Qutb.

    If the Qur’an is unclear about how and when Jesus died and leaves the question open, then it becomes a question of historical inquiry. If no conclusion can be drawn from the Qur’an, as Qutb says, then it opens the path to go to the historical documents to decide on the question of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

    Although huge chasms exist between popular modern Islam and Christianity there may be ways of building platforms together to draw closer and to create a greater respect for each other’s traditions.
    on January 1, 1970