 This is a class on the New Testament Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, an introduction for Muslims. I will be your instructor, insha'Allah, Ta'ala, Ali Al-Thai. Before we begin, the actual first Gospel, which is going to be the Gospel according to Mark, just a few words about the importance of having interdisciplinary knowledge. This vastly improves our outreach efforts, our da'wah efforts to the non-Muslim community, especially the Judeo-Christians in the West. It's important for us to understand where they're coming from and to be able to make those connections in our religious faiths. The discipline of comparative religion is really a Muslim contribution to the world. And this is basically by consensus of even Western scholars that the first scholars to actually write objectively about religion, religions in general, documenting them, talking about their historical development, their origins and founders, were really Muslim theologians. And some of the great ones are Shahrastani and Abu Rayhan Al-Biruni, who's polymath, who's basically credited for inventing this discipline known as comparative religion. So this is something that is an art form or a science that is part of our tradition as Muslims. This is something that we gave to the world and this is something that we need to engage in. The Christians at the time, in the medieval times when these scholars were writing, most of their works were primarily polemical in nature. They weren't trying to objectively or near-objectively present other religions, especially Islam. They're basically vilifying Muslims and Islam and attacking them. The first Christian to really write a sort of academic, if you will, refutation of Islam was a man named John of Damascus or John Demesene, who lived in the 8th century in Damascus, obviously, under Muslim rule. The majority populace at the time, however, was Christian and he knew Arabic. But the problem with John Demesene is that he actually believed that Islam was a Christian heresy, not a separate independent faith. So his understanding of the religion was very weak and he has a book concerning heresies. And the final chapter is called concerning the Ishmaelite heresy. He doesn't even call the Muslims Muslims. He calls them Ishmaelites or Hagerians. Then we have Peter, the so-called venerable, who was the abbot of Cluny, who wrote books about Islam as well and in order to refute religious beliefs of the Muslims. But here again, primarily, we don't have objective presentations of the religion. What we have is a polemical sort of attacks, a vetrolic sort of attacks against the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, for example. He actually claims Peter, the venerable, he actually claims that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was born or actually passed in the year 666. And of course, if you know anything about the date, 666, this was the number of the Antichrist, according to the book of Revelation, which is a book that we're going to be talking about briefly, although this class is basically focused, more focused on the four Gospels, Anayila, Arba'a, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the New Testament tradition. We're going to talk about these other books as well to understand these books a little more in detail. Of course, you have Thomas Aquinas, whose theology and philosophy is still the standard in the Roman Catholic Church, even to this day. And of course, he's known for the Sumo Theologica, which is his masterpiece, his Magnum Opus, where he talks about, it's really three sections, the Pima Parse, which is talking about Dodd. And the second part talks about virtue, ethics, and then the third part talks about Issa, who is Jesus in the Christian tradition. But he wrote another book as well, which is not as well known, but it's called the Sumo Contra Gentilis, which means basically the refutation of the infidels or the non-Christians. And this book is really geared towards Jews and especially Muslims. And a lot of scholars actually believe that Thomas Aquinas here is specifically rebutting some of the things that he's read from Abu Hamad al-Ghazali. So this is the Christian tradition in the medieval times. We don't have anything really objective, again, more polemical in nature, nothing ironic, nothing really scholarly or academic. But in Muslim circles, you have this unbelievable growth of knowledge and this birth of this discipline known as comparative world religion. So it's important for Muslims not only to be able to present the religious beliefs of others objectively or near objectively, because true objectivity is probably a myth, but at least present the religion in a sense that is fair and try to be balanced and at least represents the majority of what those people actually believe regarding their religion. But also there's a hermeneutical aspect to it. In other words, there has to be an aspect of the study where you can actually evaluate the religious claims of others as well. So this is very, very important. Of course, every science has ten mabadi, as they're called. There's ten foundations of every fan or every ilm, every science or art. And we won't go through those. But traditionally, this is called al-Milal wal-Nihal, studies in nations and creeds. In Kitab al-Milal wal-Nihal, for example, by Ibn Hazm, he talks about this aspect, analyzing other religions, but also giving an evaluative sort of commentary on the truth or falsity of these religions as well. And this is obviously done with academic rigor, not to be disrespectful towards those religions. The first thing we'll do, inshallah, is sort of give you an introduction to the Bible itself. What is the Bible? The word Bible comes from a Greek word, ta-tan biblion, which means the book. So for example, many of the ulama believe that when Allah says in the Quran, ahl al-kitab, the people of the book, al-kitab here is the Bible, because the word Bible literally means the book. Now, more in detail, more specifically, the Bible is actually a collection of books. It's actually a bibliography, a collection of books. You have the Old Testament, the so-called Old Testament. And of course, this is Christian terminology. When we say Old Testament, ahad ul-qadim, for example, a Jewish rabbi would actually be offended by that terminology, because he doesn't consider the Old Testament to be old at all, that the Old Testament is binding and that the laws and commandments are eternally binding upon every person that believes in those scriptures. So this is a Christian terminology. If we want to be more precise in our language, we would call the Old Testament the tanakh, tanakh. And this is really an acronym. And it stands for Torah, Nibbim and Kitabim. So we look at the Old Testament, we're looking at 39 books, 39 books, beginning with the Torah. This is the written Torah, right? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. In Deuteronomy, this is called the written Torah. This is the beginning of the Christian Bible, the beginning of the Old Testament. Then after that, after these five books, you have 34 other books. But concentrating on these five books. So in these five books, you have, like we said, Genesis. This is, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. This is how it begins. And you have the story of the creation of Adam, there's two different versions of it. You have the flood, you have the story of Ibrahim, the book of Genesis will actually end with the death of Yusuf, in Egypt, Genesis. Then you have Exodus, which is the story of Musa, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Leviticus and Numbers is the 613 Mitzvot, or the commandments that were given to the Prophet Musa, according to the religion of Judaism that are recorded in these two books. And Deuteronomy means second law, Deuteronomus, which is basically a summary of what was already stated in the first four books and a few more prophecies and laws and whatnot. So this is called the Torah. And we have to remember also that the Jews believe in two Torahs, not just one Torah. There's the written Torah, which is the first five books that I just explained, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. But Jews also believe, and this is a classical Jewish position, and the religion of Judaism has gone through a lot of turmoil. It was effectively ended when the second temple was burnt in 70 of the common era. We'll talk more about that when we talk about the Gospel of Mark. Insha'Allah, Ta'ala. But the principal formulators or articulators of the Jewish religion are also from the Middle Ages. So you have people like Maimonides, and you have people like Joseph Albow, and you have Bahia. You have Rashi, these different rabbis and sages in the Middle Ages. Most of them working in Arabic in Muslim countries, articulating their religion and being systematic. These are systematic theologians. And this is the first time in their history that they really had the ability to do this. Because under Christian Europe and Christendom, a lot of these things were outlawed, and the Jews were pretty much under the microscope during their entire existence in Christian Europe. And oftentimes they were exiled from different countries. We'll talk about that as well. That comes into play when we look at the Gospel of Mark and Matthew as well. But the Jews believe, in addition to these written books, there's an oral Torah, right, an oral Torah. So this is called the Torah Be Tetuv in Hebrew, the written Torah. And there's a Torah Be Peh, which is by mouth, an oral Torah. And this oral Torah was also given to Musa A.S. And it was not intended to be written down. And the purpose of the oral Torah was to safeguard the true meanings of the written Torah. So this would safeguard against somebody, for example, going to the written Torah and extracting, you know, legal rulings or exegeting the text by himself if he doesn't have the requisite knowledge. So he'd have to actually go to a rabbi, and the rabbi, he would sit with the rabbi, and the rabbi would teach him the written Torah in light of the oral Torah, right? So oral tradition was very, very important. And this is interesting in our tradition as well. We have the tradition of the Sennad, right, the chain of transmission. And it's really incredible because Islam did not have these church synods and councils that we'll talk about as well, where these bishops come together and they literally will vote on a certain issue to make it Christian orthodoxy. And the reason for that is because there's such disunity in the religion. And there's so much sectarianism, you know, firqah, that these ecumenical, so-called ecumenical councils were something that was very much needed. If you look at Islam, Muslims, you go to Mecca, for example, Muslims are basically doing the same thing, whether they're Maliki or Shafi'i or if they're Shi'i or Ibadi, whatever they are, Salafi, basically they're doing the same thing. So this is a testament to the strong Sennad in our tradition. However, the early scholars of Islam, for example, Ibn Asher, when he wrote his al-Murshid al-Mu'een, you know, 300 Samad lines of poetry, which is really a distillation to use the words of Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, a sort of a muhtasar, a summary of a greater text, which was a summary of a greater text, which was a summary of a greater text, which was a summary of a major text by Imam Malik Ibn Anas. The reason why these texts were distilled or made more comprehensive is because the Salaf would write these books and treatises under the impression that the student of knowledge would sit with a scholar who would then give that student the oral transmission of that text. So the oral transmission is very, very important. In the Gospels, Esa'alayhi salam, when he's in Jerusalem, he's approached by Pharisees, a group of Jewish scholars, doctors and lawyers of the law, and they say, under whose authority are you doing these things? They wanna know the Senate of Esa'alayhi salam is very, very important. And of course, Esa'alayhi salam is a messenger of God, and that's what he said, I'm a messenger of God. Of course, according to the tradition in the New Testament, he actually gives a different answer because he's very confrontational at times with the Pharisees. But obviously, the Senate of Esa'alayhi salam is that he's a messenger of God and he receives revelation from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So that's important to understand as well. Now the oral Torah eventually was written down and it was written down after the Christian era. And again, the reason why that happened is because when the second temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 of the common era in order to preserve the ethos of the religion of Judaism, the oral Torah was eventually written down and now you have the beginning of what's known as rabbinical Judaism, right? You know, post-temple Judaism. And the first part of the Talmud, which is called the Mishnah, that's the actual oral Torah that was eventually written down. We'll talk more about what is the Talmud later, inshallah ta'ala, because it's going to come up when we talk about the Gospel of Matthew, which is the most Jewish, if you will, of the four Gospels of the New Testament. So you have the Torah, then you have the next 34 books in the Old Testament, which are split between what's known as the prophets and the writings. So basically, if a book in the Old Testament is named after a prophet, it's considered to be from the prophets, which is called Nibim in Hebrew. If it's not the name of a prophet, like for example, if it's first kings or second kings or first or second Samuel or other books like that, first or second Chronicles, then this is called Kitubim, the writings. So you have Nibim and Kitubim. So therefore you have the Torah, first five books, then you have the Nibim and Kitubim, which represent the latter 34 books of the New Testament. So you take the T, or the Tau from Torah, the Nun from Nibim, and the Ka'af from Kitubim. You have T-N-K, and you add a few vowels and you have the word Tanakh. So this is what the Jews call the Old Testament. It's an acronym, Torah, Nibim, Kitubim, the Tanakh. Christians call this the Old Testament. Jews call this the Tanakh, okay? Now the Christians also believe that all of the Ahkam, all of the legal rulings of the Old Testament have been abrogated. And this is a very controversial issue in the news today with different, most of them are either fundamentalist Christian authors, some of them are atheists, that will bring up this issue with regards to the Quran. The Muslims believe that the latest revelation will cancel the one that came before that. And they say, well, this is true in every case. Therefore all of the verses in the Quran that talk about peace have been abrogated. Of course this is not true, and it's not as simplistic as that, and this requires a lot of scholarship. But basically they'll say this idea of nasch, right? This idea of cancellation, abrogation of different verses in the Quran. They kind of take this as being a way of Muslims sort of covering up these contradictions, so-called contradictions in the Quran, not realizing that this actually happens in the Bible as well. Christians believe that all of the Ahkam of the Old Testament are summarily abrogated by the New Testament. They've been completely abrogated. They're a mansukh of the New Testament. So that's important to understand. So basically Christians now are under no obligation of the Torah that they don't have to circumcise their male children. They can eat pork, right? They're allowed to get a divorce now because in the Torah apparently it says that you're not allowed to get a divorce. Even within the New Testament itself, right, intra-New Testament, you have abrogation. You have nasch. You can see this very clearly, Matthew 15, 24, which we'll talk about obviously the Gospel of Matthew. When Jesus commissions his disciples initially, he says, go into, he says, enter ye not into any Gentile land. Don't go into the lands of the Gentiles, into the Goyim, only go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But at the end of the Gospel, right, Matthew chapter 28, you have the great commissioning, go into all nations, right? So Esalaam, at least what it says in Matthew is abrogating the previous command that he had given to the Hawadiyun or to the disciples because now their training has been complete as it were. So we have this evolution of teaching. We have this in the New Testament. We have it going from Old Testament to New Testament. We have this in the Quran as well because this is how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala speaks to humanity. Humanity needs progression. That's how we are, right? So that's the Tanakh. Now what's interesting also is that the oldest complete version of the Old Testament in the Hebrew language is dated to 1008 of the common era, so this is after Islam. This is the oldest complete version of the Old Testament in the Hebrew language. So this is some 2,300 years removed from Musa A.S., right? So that's a big span of time. Of course you have the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls which were discovered by a Muslim Bedouin in Qubran in Palestine in 1947, but the Dead Sea Scrolls are not complete. There are many different types of books that are missing books. The Book of Esther is completely missing. There's portions of the Book of Isaiah that are missing. There are no Tashkil, there are no diacritical notations in the Dead Sea Scrolls, so it's a big mystery as to how to actually pronounce many of the passages there. So it's not considered to be complete. The oldest complete version of the Old Testament is dated 1008 of the common era. This is called the Masoretic Text. The name of the scribes that produced the text were called the Mazarets. It's also called the Codex Leningrad. So that's important to understand. Now, talking about the New Testament, coming to the New Testament now. The New Testament obviously again is Christian terminology. The Jews do not believe in the New Testament in any way, shape, or form. Jews do not believe in Isa A.S. at all. There's no belief about him. He is mentioned in the Talmud at times. Christians will point to certain things in the Old Testament as far as prophecies of Isa A.S. and Allah Alhamdulillah, some of them seem to be pretty legit. There are prophecies of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in the Tanakh as well that are very compelling. But Jews, they don't believe in Isa A.S. in any way, shape, or form. They don't believe in the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. The Talmud mentioned some few disparaging things about Isa A.S. that we won't go into, but Allah Subhanahu Alaihi Wasallam tells us basically when they said, Wa qawlihim inna qatalna al-Masih ibn Maryam Rasulullah that they said in boast, we killed Isa A.S. and then they have some sort of descriptions that they give on how they killed him and cursing him and things like that that we won't go into. And they also said a few things about Maryam A.S. as you can imagine, Allah Subhanahu Alaihi Wasallam also addresses this, Wa bi kufrihim wa qawlihim ala Maryam abuhtan al-Azimah that they utter against Maryam A.S. a Calanist grave charge. So that's mentioned in the Talmud and this was written by rabbis after the Christian era. This is also one of the reasons why many times in the Middle Ages, in Christian countries, the Talmud was ordered to be burned by church authorities because they came to learn of these things that are written in Jewish scriptures. We'll talk more about that, inshallah, as well. So we look at the New Testament, basically we have four Gospels that begin the New Testament. These are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is the focus of our study for this course. Looking at these four books and looking at their origins, their authorship, basically the who, what, when, where, why of these four books. Looking at the evolution of Christology of these four books. What is Christology? This comes from a word Christos, which means Christ or Messiah in Greek and logos or logia, which means the study. So Christology is the study of Christ. So how does Mark look at Jesus? How does Matthew envision Jesus from a theological standpoint? How does Luke, how does John? Are they the same? Are they different? It's very, very important. Who wrote these books? Were they written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Who are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? How do we know that they wrote these books? What language did they write these books in? Where were they written? Why are they important? Why are there only four of them? All of these questions are very, very important. And the vast majority of Christians that I've come across in 15 years or so of interfaith work, the vast majority of Christian laity, those who kind of just go to church once a week and that's about it, they have no idea the origins of these books. They just kind of go to church and listen to the sermon and that's spiritually uplifting for them, obviously. But if you want to actually get into the studies a little more in depth, we have to sit with scholars of the New Testament and listen to what they have to say about the state of the book. And it's very, very interesting for Muslims and this could really be a good starting point for very quality da'wah or invitation to the religion of Islam. Many of the issues that they have with the New Testament in particular the Gospels can be resolved by studying Islamic tradition, the Quran, the Hadith of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and the work of the Ulama of Islam. So you have the four Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This begins the New Testament and then you have what's known as a book of Acts which is called Ahmad al-Rusul, the Acts of the Apostles and the Catholic version. So this is basically early ecclesiastical history or church history or apostolic history. What was happening to the Sahaba, if you will, of Isa A.S. after his ascension into the heavens. So here we have the book of Acts which documents the early church. What was going on with James and Peter and Paul in the early church. And then you have what's known as the Apostolic letters and epistles and this makes up the greater or the greatest portion of the New Testament and there's 11 of these Apostolic letters and epistles and these are written by Paul and Paul is an interesting person. He actually authored 14 of the 27 books of the New Testament. Paul of Tarsus, he was a Pharisee from the tribe of Benjamin who initially persecuted the early Christian movement and then according to his own testimony that we read in the book of Galatians and also what Luke says in the book of Acts a few times, a couple of times at least. On the way to Damascus, he has this vision of the resurrected Christ and he's immediately converted and then according to Paul tells Paul to go and evangelize the Gentile nations around the Mediterranean. So Paul goes to places like Ephesus and Roman Athens and Thessalonica and Corinth and he evangelizes them with his own understanding of what he believes the gospel to be. And that's fine but the problem now is when we actually read the letters of Paul we see that he has major conflict, major difference of opinion not with pagans and Jews obviously that's a given but with other types of Christians, fundamental difference of opinion that he has with them. And if you read the commentaries again if you read from Christian scholars who are Paul's opponents like in the book of Galatians when he rails against these people and calls them hypocrites and so-called pillars he calls them dogs and so on and so forth. Who is he talking about? The vast majority of Christian commentators FC Bauer is the authority on the book of Galatians. He says Paul is actually talking about other disciples of Jesus that were sent from Jerusalem who studied with James who's the brother of Esalaam. So in other words and we'll go over this later when we talk about the gospel of Matthew inshallah in other words Paul has major, major difference of opinion fundamental difference of opinion with other apostles that are from Jerusalem that have studied with James and who is James? James is the brother of Esalaam according to history and according to Christian history and he's also the Khalifa if you will of Esalaam, James and James in Hebrew is Yaakov had Sadiq Yaakov or Yaakov which is James in English and the reason why Yaakov became James is because early on many of the Christians they try to distance themselves from their Jewish roots because there's a lot of animosity between Christianity and Judaism but James is Yaakov and his laqab that was given his sort of surname or nickname that was given to him by Esalaam according to Christian history is Had Sadiq which is the exact equivalent of As-Sidiq so his laqab is the same as the laqab of the Khalifa of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Abu Bakr As-Sidiq and this is an interesting coincidence they have the same nickname so then you have the Catholic epistles so basically the four gospels you have the book of Acts and then you have 21 total epistles letters or correspondences most of them written by Paul some of them written by Peter and John one written by James and one written by Jude but we have to say at this point the vast majority of these books all of the books of the New Testament the vast majority are actually anonymous nobody knows who wrote them and this is not my opinion this is not the opinion of secular Western scholarship this is the opinion of Christian scholars in Christian seminaries because this is a fact of the issue when we say Matthew, Mark, Luke and John these books are anonymous nobody knows who wrote these books why are they called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? we'll talk about that when we get to the Gospel of Mark inshallah ta'ala so you have four gospels the book of Acts 21 letters and epistles and then finally at the end of the New Testament you have the book of Revelation which is an apocalypse which are basically a dream that a man named John of Patmos had while he was on this island he was exiled and he had these visions at the end of time what's going to happen in the end of time and he wrote those visions down and that's the end of the Bible so the Bible is a very linear book so you have Genesis 1.1 Genesis means beginning because the first word of the Bible Genesis 1.1 is b'reshit b'reshit means in the beginning b'reshit bar'a elohim etha shemaim the etha erits in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and that's how it begins once upon a time and then you read through the entire Bible very linear you go through the ancient patriarchs then you go to the time of David and Solomon the time of the judges in the divide of the kingdom then you have the Babylonian the Assyrian invasion Babylonian invasion then you have the Persian period then you skip across the Greek period into the Roman period and the New Testament and at the end of the New Testament you have the book of Revelation so again very linear once upon a time and then they lived happily ever after and this is how man will write right but if you look at the Quran the Quran is not linear the Quran is circular so initially when the western orientalist who has a four structure that is very much Christian because he is Christian when he reads the Quran it seems like it's a jumbled you know a chronological mess why isn't this in order and the Quran actually addresses this issue the Quran says they say to you why don't you have this in order why don't you have it in chronology because that's how man thinks but the Quran is not written linearly it's written circularly and there's a great wisdom as to why Allah SWT will return to certain themes in the Quran it will not present his book in a linear fashion the oldest complete version of the New Testament so remember we talked about the Old Testament the oldest complete version of the Old Testament in Hebrew like we said is dated to 1008 of the Common Era this is after Islam this is a medieval text called the Masoretic Text when it comes to the New Testament the oldest complete version of the New Testament in Greek is dated to 375 of the Common Era so considerably earlier than the Old Testament which is very strange because obviously the Old Testament was written first however this text which is called the Codex Cyanidekis or is cataloged as Aleph 01 the entire text is actually online I think it's a Codex Cyanidekis dot org or dot com or something if you can read Greek although it is translated there the actual manuscript was photographed under two different types of light in if you can actually read it on that website but this still dates to about 330 Samad years after the ascension of Isa alayhi salam so this is also very very late and the thing about the Codex Cyanidekis is is that there's actually extra books in the Codex Cyanidekis like the Epistle of Barnabas the Shepherd of Hermes these are extra books that are not found in the traditional 27 canon books of the New Testament as we have them today and there's reasons for that as well and we'll talk about those as well you know why are there 27 books in the New Testament why not 28, why not 29 why are there four Gospels why is there only one ecclesiastical history the Book of Acts what about these other letters and epistles that were written why are those included in the New Testament so this is a very interesting study when I get to that inshallah ta'ala but just a word quickly about our Christology as Muslims so this very importance of very interesting things here is that again Christology is the study of Isa alayhi salam the study of Isa alayhi salam, the study of Christ and obviously our primary text in this area of study, in this discipline is the Qur'an the Qur'an is considered Dali al-Qat'i it is a definitive proof text it's mutawater in its transmission it's multiply attested in its transmission we believe that the Qur'an is the word of God the speech of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so we believe that Isa alayhi salam is a genuine prophet, a prophet the word prophet comes from the Greek prophetes and this is actually a Greek word we say nabi in Arabic in the word in Hebrew is navi and the word navi is found many many times in the Old Testament there's actually a prophecy that we'll talk about in the book of Deuteronomy which is called hannavi kamul moshe in Hebrew the prophet who is like Moses and this is a prophecy of someone to come in the future that Musa alayhi salam prophesied that will come in the future that is similar to him and we'll talk about that very very interesting we believe that Isa alayhi salam was born of a virgin we believe that he could perform miracles bi ibnillah so this is important we believe in mu'ajizat in different types of miracles there's mu'ajizat which are miracles that are performed by prophets al anbiya wa al mursaleen bi ibnillah ta'ala so prophets they have this ability by the permission of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to produce these physical sort of signs you know kharkul adat these breaks of natural law in order to sort of support their missions now these are not definitive proofs because false prophets can also perform miracles so you have to look at the sincerity of a prophet you have to look at the nature of his message if he's preaching tohd if he's preaching selflessness, altruism all of these types of things have to be considered taken into consideration his istiqama in the sharia of the religion all of these things are very very important because there are different types of miracles there are things called istidraj which sometimes translated as divine begailment that a non-muslim can do which seems to be a break in natural law but in reality there's no tofiq and what that person is doing and that person does not have istiqama and that person is calling to his own hawah so it's very very important that when we see these types of things and these things don't happen much anymore it's because the state of the human the state of the human condition but in the pre-modern world these things were very very common and the Erlamah had certain stringent measures that they would look to when these things would happen and of course we have miracles, karamat these charismatic exploits or talents of al awliya of saints and these are well documented as well, thousands of miracles and it's part of our aqidah as Muslims, at least as Ahlus Sunnah and al jama'ah that we believe in the the karamat al awliya the miracles of the awliya and there's many of them mentioned like we said in Imam Abu Jaffer that's how he mentions them Imam Ibrahim al-Lakani in the Johara he mentions that those who deny the miracles of the awliya then you deny them it's part of our essential aqidah so Isa alayhi salam he could perform these miracles because he has a station of Nabua he is a prophet we also believe that Isa alayhi salam is a messenger of God an apostle of God apostle also comes from a Greek word apostalos which means someone who is sent out or sent forth Isa alayhi salam he or someone who receives some sort of message and Isa alayhi salam obviously receives a revelation from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala which is called al-injil injil seems to be the Arabic sort of way of saying iwan giliyon or evangelon right which is also a Greek word according to the Quran Isa alayhi salam is also the Christ he is Hamashiach he is al-Masih he is the Christ in other words he is the one the anointed one that the bani israel were waiting for to come and unite them or to give them the true essence of the religion according to our conception of the Christ one of his primary functions is to prepare the bani israel and by extension prepare the world for the coming of Ahmad Isa alayhi salam who is the final messenger of God and this is based on a verse in the Quran in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us that Isa alayhi salam said oh children of Israel and the messenger of God sent to you confirming the Torah which came before me and this is very important when we talk about does Isa alayhi salam confirm the Torah or does he cancel it or is it somewhere in the middle this is a big controversy a big difference of opinion at least amongst Christians uh... as to the function of the law the Torah when it comes to Isa alayhi salam and then he says and to give you glad tidings of a messenger to come after me whose name is Ahmed and of course we know the name Ahmed is another name for the name of the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam some of the ulama have mentioned that the name of the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam in the terrestrial in the celestial realm above the uh... the mulk in the malakut in the jabarut is Ahmed sallallahu alaihi alaihi salam or his name on the yawm al qiyamah will be Ahmed allahu alam unlike Judaism that does not believe that Isa alayhi salam is the christ so even though this is a jewish concept right the concept of the messiah is a jewish concept uh... the jews did not accept Isa alayhi salam as the messiah and there have been many uh... would be messiahs in their in their history uh... a lot of messianic claimants uh... Isa alayhi salam to them is just another one of those um... and then they had uh... you know in the year six of the common era Judas the Galilean who claimed to be the messiah uh... Barabbas at the time of Isa alayhi salam might have claimed to be the messiah certainly Barabbas the son of the father is a messianic patronimic uh... and it seems like his followers were touting him to be the messiah uh... after Isa alayhi salam you have a number of messianic claimants uh... the most famous of course is simon barcochba uh... who was executed by the romans in one twenty five of the common era this was a global movement basically thousand sixty thousand or so jews were killed in jerusalem uh... by the romans because of this uprising and you have other ones down the line uh... in the middle ages uh... you have uh... shabtai svi who died in uh... sixteen sixty six or he actually uh... claimed to be the messiah in the year sixteen sixty six uh... and uh... he was a european jew who went to jerusalem was endorsed by big rabbis in jerusalem to be the messiah he was captured by the uh... the ottoman sultanate uh... and because he was claiming to be the messiah and you know just claiming to be the messiah is not like you're claiming to be some spiritual mystic it carries with it uh... a very clear political implication so anyone who claims to be the messiah is basically claiming to be the rightful king of the planet earth so the ottomans uh... they understood that about his claim so this is treason this is clear hyana so they gave him a choice because hyana even by today's standards if you make hyana against for example of an american citizen uh... uh... conspires against his own government this is treason and it's punishable by death and it's the same in the pre-modern world as well so the ottoman sultan he said to shabtai svi he said you have a choice either repent uh... of your claim and will let you go and you can be muslim or you're going to be put to death and of course shabtai svi very famously he relinquished his claim uh... to messiah ship and became a muslim and changed his name to muhammad something and he lived uh... the rest of his life as a normal muslim sort of always been these messianic claimants the most famous of whom was a side of the salam at least from a jewish perspective he was not the messiah christians in in muslims obviously except him as the messiah and this is a great uh... uh... topic of unity that we can come together as muslims and christians of course is significant significance of what it means for him to be the messiah at times is radically different between christianity and islam but nonetheless we both both groups believe that he was the messiah so again when i say the words you know the christ uh... we immediately we think of christianity and that's just the way that we've been you know sort of socialized it's an immediate signifier of christianity but the christ concept is a very jewish monotheistic concept also if i say for example if i say the holy spirit right if i say the holy spirit immediately most people at least will think of christianity because the christians are sort of monopolized this term the holy spirit but the ruach kodosh in hebru holy spirit has its origins in judaism not in christianity the christians took from that concept obviously and they changed it theologically but it is a jewish concept it is a monotheistic concept even if i say something like god the father right that sounds like christian confessional language right if for example if i quote to you the nicene creed this is basically the the orthodox akida of christianity it says in the greek language pisteo omen and as henna feon patera panto cratora we believe in one father god the creator of all right god the father it immediately reminds you or makes you think of christianity but god the father i mean god is called father in the old testament in the book of isiah chapter sixty four verse sixteen one of the du'a that are mentioned by isiah one of the supplications is atadunai avino you are the lord our father right and of course the jews do not mean this in a literal sense right so again when the jew says god is our father he means rub he is our sustainer he is our cherisher we have that sort of uh... it's a symbolical title right that we have that love of god as if canna as if he is our father of course this whole concept according to islam was destroyed the sort of metaphysical metaphysical aspect of god being our father and it was made very much uh... literal uh... by the christian uh... bishops and various ecumenical church councils that g that that god the father is literally literally the father of jesus who begot is salat so that's obviously something that's condemned in the court on also condemned in jewish circles as well uh... so that's important to to remember how did he say this is not because if you read in the new testament gospels you read is salat referring to god as his father how does he mean it does he mean that god is his father who begot him literally no jesus eight piece be upon a salat is in a very jewish context so the way that he's using these terms is in a very jewish way we cannot ignore the social and theological context of the christ event of the jesus event uh... because then uh... we're reading into things anachronistically is salat when he refers to god as his father he doesn't mean it in the nice scene sense of the word that's an anastas anachronistic reading outside of time that's not being logical in the way we approach the new testament that's not how he meant it he simply using the the terminology or the synagogue liturgy that's available to him that's why when we read the lord's prayer in matthew chapter six and matthew chapter eleven uh... i'm sorry matthew chapter six and luke chapter eleven something in that matthew and luke have in common uh... when he teaches his disciples how to pray he says in the in the syriac language avundavashmayo our father who art in heaven not just my father's but all of us and he means this obviously in a metaphorical sense not in the literal sense but a lot subhanahu wa ta'ala in the quran he refrains from using this attribute of ab or walad or ibn we don't use these you know abinah allah we don't use these types of things anymore because they've been corrupted over time by christian orthodoxy so that's uh... important to understand as well so the quran says that they say that allah has begun children but i don't want to come on no these are servants raised to honor these are servants that have taken that they're simply saying these are sons and daughters of god they're not literal sons and daughters of god we don't say that anyone we do not say that allah subhanahu wa ta'ala begets nor nor was he begun we that's what we believe lamya lidh walam yulat that's what we say lamya lidh walam yulat and that's what we believe god did not give birth no was he given birth to so that's very very important uh... of course when christians say that jesus is begotten not made uh... unless they're mormon they're not saying that you know god had physical relations with madhyam alaihi salam for example the mormons will say that but the vast majority of christians that are protestant orthodox in easter and and uh... catholic they don't believe that when they say jesus is begotten and this is important when jesus is begotten not made they simply mean that is alaihi salam is uncreated he's not created by god he's not from the market right this is what they mean that the sun has pre-eternality which again is a paradox because they still believe however that he was caused by god he was caused by god which means what that god is a monarch then that god has priority over the sun because he is the the cause of the sun who is the effect but christian scholars would say no there is no essential or temporal or ontological priority of the father over the sun because these things were done outside of time nonetheless muslims would disagree and say even so if something causes something else the effect of that cause is by its very nature inferior to the primal cause whether it was inside or outside of time for example i have a ring on my hand and if i move my hand like this the ring moves it's done at the same time my hand in my ring moves at the same time but can my ring move without my hand? no my hand is still causing it to move even though it's done at the same time therefore my hand is superior to the ring because my ring cannot do anything by itself so this is one of the logical arguments we can use against this idea that alaihi salam is uncreated yet caused by God this is an orthodox belief of the christians and some of it is based on neoplatonic ideas we won't get too much into christology because this is supposed to be a basic course so we're going to look at the four gospels but maybe in the future inshallah ta'ala we'll talk more about christian theology the origins of theology what is christian theology or orthodox christology and we'll talk more about that inshallah so even if you look at the old testament you have titles like baneh elion right like in psalm eighty two six it says that you are all gods all sons of the most high baneh elion sons of the most high so this is an honorific title that God calls the israelites you are my sons this is not meant to be uh... in the literal sense so this idea of triune gods right a trinity divine incarnation that god comes down to earth in the form of a living creature right incarnation this is a a latin root incarnate to be in flesh god does not come down and reside in flesh these are christian ideas these are christian dogmatic beliefs that jews do not believe in they don't believe in these things the jews will use this type of language in a figurative sense it's very important for us to understand that jews will say yes god is our father we are sons of god there's a holy spirit but none of that is meant literally they believe very much as muslims do that allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is wahid an ahad he's one of a kind there's nothing like unto him leis iqamith lihi shaytan this is what they believe and this is evident if we read uh... the old testament as well so we would say as muslims then that islam restores the true christology the true belief about islam uh... the the actual teaching of islam because we believe the quran as a revelation of god and we'll talk more about that later what's interesting here we're looking at the gospel of mark initially is mark chapter twelve verse twenty nine when ascribe comes to jesus uh... peace be upon him according to mark and he says uh... what is the greatest commandment and jesus responds in the greek language of course he spoke syriac in the new testament books are in greek which is an immediate disadvantage for christians the reason why they're in greek we'll get more into this later the reason why they're in greek because greek was the language of the uh... colonial power of that day the roman empire spoke greek so it's considered to be the lingua fonka of that area in palestine so syriac was a language that the jews were speaking mostly the peasants were speaking uh... so syriac really didn't have and syriac is a is a dialect of aramaic very similar to arabic islamic language it really didn't have that ability to go into these gentile lands uh... and uh... to be used in other christian congregations that paul eventually evangelized greek was sort of the language of the elites the language of the the colonizer so the language of the new testament became greek and not syriac so immediately we don't have what's known as the ipsisimavirba of islam in the new testament ipsisimavirba is a latin phrase that means the very words of islam we don't have those because islam his response to this rabbi in mark chapter twelve verse twenty nine was in syriac we have no idea what he said in syriac or it might have been in hebrew uh... but what we do have are greek translations at best so that's the difference between ipsisimavirba and ipsisimavux ipsisimavirba are the very words of someone like we have hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam we believe that these are the actual words of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam of course we have hadith that have variations and so on and so forth but it's still in his language and if a hadith is multiply transmitted and it's a strong hadith and all of the requisites of the strong hadith are there these represent the very words of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam the very words he chose the word order the syntax that he chose to express it and this is very very important because one of the first levels of tafsir is what's known as syntactical exegesis you can extract meanings by simply looking at grammar just by looking at the grammar you can extract meanings right for example inna a'ataina ka'al ka'othar a'ataina this is in the past tense why does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala say verily we have given you ka'othar in the past tense so now the grammar has a theological dimension but if you don't actually have those actual words of a prophet then you lose that dimension so this is the problem now with the new testament we don't have the gospel of matthew mark luke and john in syriac we have them in greek nonetheless isa alaihi sallam he responds to this uh... rabbi he says aqua israel courias hathayas haimun courias hais estin he says here or israel when he's asked a question what is the greatest commandment here or israel the lord our god the lord is one and here he's actually quoting from the Torah this is very very important isa alaihi sallam is asked point blank what is the greatest commandment and what does he do? does he talk about the trinity? does he talk about vicarious atonement? does he talk about he's the son of god? does he talk about transubstantiation and all these other sacraments that these catholics believe in or the orthodox believe in? no! what does he say? he appeals to the old testament he appeals to the concept of god in the Torah right? musad di qalima bayna yadaya minah Torah he's quoted in the Quran as saying i confirm the Torah so he's quoting from Deuteronomy 6.4 Deuteronomy 6.4 sounds like this in Hebrew Shema Israel Adonai Ilochanu Adonai Iqad here is real the lord our god the lord is one right? Iqad isa alaihi sallam he uses his word Iqad he's quoting from the Torah Iqad and Ahad are exact cognates of course the Quran says Qullu Allahu Ahad and there's a difference between Wahid and Ahad so students of arabic this is something that's very interesting and a nuance is that when we say that Allah is Wahid we're saying he's one but that doesn't negate the possible existence of other deities right? because by and large the Arabs at the time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam they worshipped Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but they also believed in the existence or the possibility of other deities right? so this is not Tuhid this is not monotheism this is henotheism there's a difference these are greek terms they're English now monotheism means you believe in one God and you worship one God there's only one God henotheism means that there's many gods but you choose to worship only one right? so for example if I say that I am one man I say I am one man that doesn't mean that there aren't other men in the world right? there's other men in the world obviously right? but I happen to be one of them but if I say I am one man now what I'm saying is I am the only man in existence there's no one else in all of the existence that has the qualities of man except for me so one of a kind when we say Allah is one we mean one of a kind right? so this is the word that's used by Isa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in March 1229 how do we know he used this word because he's quoting from the Old Testament and the Old Testament is in Hebrew and it says very very important concept and then he says if you keep reading the passage in Mark he keeps quoting the Torah he quotes the Torah over and over again why does he do that? because Isa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he confirms the Torah he says he says and you shall love the Lord thy God with all of thy heart all of thy the heart and all of your all of your self and with all of thy strength so loving Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam believe God is one and love Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and then he says love your neighbor as yourself this is the essence of the message of Isa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam the message of Musa alayhi sallam and the message of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam this is the essence of the message right so it's very very important and then you know this word Allah very interesting word that you know Allah the dominant opinion is that because we hear a lot of things from different types of people different you know Christian polemicists you have you know Muslim haters you know profligates on TV you are making a lot of money writing books about Islam and so on and so forth and they're saying you know Muslims worship a different God Allah is not the Judeo-Christian God right what's interesting is that Isa alayhi sallam himself the word he used for God was Allah and this is evident if you study or if you've read the Syriac translation of the New Testament so here we have the New Testament in Greek translated back into the language of Isa alayhi sallam which was done in the fourth century of the common era it's called the Peshikta on Arabic the Basikta meaning it's very simple Basikta means simple in Arabic and that's what it means in in Syriac as well very simple to understand Syriac and the word that Isa alayhi sallam uses over and over again for God is Allah Allah Allah this is the word that he uses so next time somebody comes to you and says Muslims worship Allah who's a different God or the Moon God or the Muslim God whatever they want to say you can tell them Isa alayhi sallam himself uses the word Allah for God as evident in the Peshikta translation of the New Testament the Old Testament also says لَوْتَعَسَئِ لَخَفْسَلْ وَكُلْتَمُونَ you shall not make unto thyself the image or the likeness of anything it's very very important establishing Tawheed in the Old Testament what does that mean? that means لَيْسَكَمِثْلِهِ شَيْئُونَ there's nothing like God whatsoever so the Christian will say for example yes God is one God is Ahad but Isa alayhi sallam is Ahad so then we say how can he be Ahad when he's a man a man there's other men that's not Ahad right also Ahad entails that he's independent Allah who summoned he's independent of everything meaning that he doesn't depend on food and water and gravity and sun and all of these types of things like we do he is completely independent of everything this is the meaning of Samad and the word Samad in the Quran is called the Hapax Ladamanan which means that it's the only occurrence of this word in the entire Quran what does it mean? means everything is dependent on Allah everything is dependent كل شيء يحتاج إلى الله but Allah does not need anything لا يحتاج إلى شيء this is the meaning of Samad so when we bring God down and incarnate him and put him into flesh this is called Tejseem right Tejesud when we do that what we're doing then is making God dependent on certain things and this is the breach of the Old Testament that says thou shalt not make unto thyself an image or the likeness of anything right this is God's commandment to humanity God would not breach his own commandment theological commandment and then become a human being so that's the end of our first session next time inshallah ta'ala we're going to continue talking about the concept of God very briefly again it's not a theology class the concept of God in the Christian tradition and then we're going to get right into the Gospel of Mark inshallah ta'ala wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam wa alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh