In my previous article I showed that "the Son of Man"
foretold in the Jewish Apocalypses was not Jesus Christ,
and that Jesus never assumed that appellation for himself,
for thus he would have made himself ridiculous in the eyes
of his audience.
There were only two courses open to him: either to
denounce the Messianic prophecies and the Apocalyptical
visions about the Barnasha as forgeries and legends, or to
confirm them and at the same time to fill, if he were that
lofty personage, the office of the "Son of Man." To say:
"The Son of Man came to serve and not to be served," (l) or
"The Son of Man shall be delivered unto the hands of the
Chief Priests and the Scribes" (2) or "The Son of Man came
eating and drinking [wine]" with the sinners and the publicans, (3) and at the same time to confess that he was a beggar
living on the charity and hospitality of others, was to insult
his nation and its nation and its holiest religious sentiments!
To boast that he was the Son of Man and had come to
save and recover the lost sheep of Israel, (4) but had to leave
this salvation to the Last Judgement, and even then to be
cast into the eternal flames, was to frustrate all the hopes
of that persecuted people, who alone in all mankind had
the honor of being the only nation that professed the faith
and religion of the true God; and it was to scorn their prophets and Apocalypses.
-------------
Footnotes:
(1). Matt. xx. 28.
(2). Ibid. xx 18.
(3). Ibid.xi 18.
(4). Ibid. vxiii. 11.
------------- end of footnotes
Could Jesus Christ assume that title? Are the authors
of the four Gospels Hebrews? Could Jesus conscientiously
believe himself to be what these spurious Gospels allege?
Could a Jew conscientiously write such stories which are
purposely written to disconcert and foil the expectation of
that people? Of course, other than a negative answer cannot be expected from me to these questions. Neither Prophet Jesus
nor his apostles would ever use such an extravagant title
among a people already familiar with the legitimate owner
of that surname It would be analogous to putting the
crown of the king upon the head of his ambassador, the
latter having no army to proclaim him king. It would be
simply an insane usurpation of the rights and privileges of
the legitimate Son of Man. Consequently, such an unjustifiable usurpation on the part of Jesus would be equivalent
to the assumption of the epithet of "the Pseudo Son of Man"
and of the Antichrist! The very imagination of a similar
act of audacity on the part of the Holy Christ Jesus makes
my whole nature revolt. The more I read these Gospels
the more I become convinced to believe that they are a
production - at least in their present shape and contents -
of authors other than the Jews. These Gospels are a
counterpoise to the Jewish Revelations - particularly as a
counter-project against the Sibyllian Books. This could
only be done by Greek Christians who had no interest in
the claims of the children of Abraham. The author of the
Sibyllian Books places side by side with the Jewish prophets Enoch, Solomon, Daniel, and Ezra, the names of the
Greek sages Hermes, Homer, Orpheus, Pythagoras, and
others, evidently with the object of making propaganda for
the Hebrew religion. These books were written when
Jerusalem and the Temple were in ruins, some time before
or after the publication of St. John's Apocalypse. The
purport of the Sibyllian Revelation is that the Hebrew (l) Son
of Man or the Messiah will come to destroy the power of
Rome and to establish the religion of the true God for all
men.
----------- Footnote:
(1) The name "Hebrew" in its wider sense is applied to all the descendants of
Abraham who afterwards assumed the names of their respective ancestors, such
as the Ishmaelites, Edomites Israelites, etc.
----------- end of footnote
We can produce many sound arguments to prove the
identity of "the Son of Man" with Prophet Muhammad only, and shall
divide these arguments as follows:
ARGUMENTS FROM THE GOSPELS, AND FROM THE APOCALYPSES
In the most coherent and significant passages in the
discourses of Jesus where the appellation "Barnasha" -
or "the Son of Man" - appears, only Prophet Muhammad is intended, and in him alone the prediction contained therein
is literally fulfilled. In some passages wherein Jesus
is supposed to have assumed that title for himself, that
passage becomes incoherent, senseless, and extremely
obscure. Take for instance the following passages: "The
Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they said, Behold." (1) John-Baptist was a teetotaler, he fed himself
only on water, locusts, and wild honey; they said he was a
demoniac; but "the Son of Man," id est Jesus (?), who ate
and drank wine, was branded as "the friend of publicans
and sinners"! To blame a prophet for his fastings and
abstinence is a sin of infidelity or of gross ignorance. But
to reproach a person who claims to be a Messenger of God
of frequenting the banquets of publicans and sinners, and
for being fond of wine, is quite natural and a very serious
charge against the sincerity of that person who pretends to
be a spiritual guide of men. Can we Muslims believe in
the sincerity of a Khwaja or Mullah when we see him mixing with drunkards and prostitutes? Could the Christians
bear with a curate or parson of a similar conduct? Certainly not. A spiritual guide may have conversations with all
sorts of sinners in order to convert and reform them, providing that he is sober, abstemious, and sincere. According to the quotation just mentioned, Christ admits that his
behavior had scandalized the religious leaders of his
nation. True, the officers of the Custom-house, called
"publicans," were hated by the Jews simply because of their
office. We are told only two "publicans" (2) and one "harlot" (3)
and one "possessed" woman (4) were converted by Jesus;
but all the clergy and the lawyers were branded with curses
and anathemas (5). All this looks awkward and incredible
The idea or thought that a Holy Prophet, so chaste and
sinless like Jesus, was fond of wine, that he changed six
barrels of water into a most intoxicating wine in order to
render crazy a large company of guests already tipsy in the
wedding-hall at Cana, (6) is practically to depict him an impostor and sorcerer! Think of a miracle performed by a
thaumaturge before a rabble of drunkards! To describe
Jesus as a drunkard, and gluttonous, and a friend of the
ungodly, and then to give him the title of "the Son of Man"
is to deny all the Jewish Revelations and religion.
Again, Jesus is reported to have said that "The Son of Man came to seek and
recover that which was lost."(7)
------------- Footnotes:
(1). Matt. xi. 19.
(2). Matthew and Zacchaeus (Matt. ix. 9; Luke xix. 1 - 11).
(3). John iv.
(4). Mary Magdalene (Luke viii. 2).
(5). Matt. xiii., etc.
(6). John ii.
(7). Matt. xiii. 11, Luke ix. 56; xix. 10, etc.
------------- end of footnotes
The commentators of course interpret this passage in a
spiritual sense only. Well, it is the mission and the office
of every prophet and the preacher of the religion to call
the sinners to repent of their iniquity and wickedness. We
quite admit that Jesus was sent only to the "lost sheep of
Israel," to reform and convert them from their sins; and
especially to teach them more plainly concerning "the Son
of Man" who was to come with power and salvation to
restore what was lost and to reconstruct what was ruined;
no, to conquer and destroy the enemies of the true
believers. Jesus could not assume for himself that
Apocalyptic title "the Barnasha," and then not be able to
save his people except Zacchaeus, a Samaritan woman, and
a few other Jews, including the Apostles, who were mostly
slain afterwards on his account. Most probably what Prophet Jesus
said was: "The Son of Man will come to seek and recover
what is lost." For in Prophet Muhammad alone the believing Jews
as well as the Arabs and other believers found all that was
irremediably lost and destroyed - Jerusalem and Mecca,
all the promised territories; many truths concerning the true
religion; the power and kingdom of God; the peace and
blessing that Islam confers in this world and in the next.
We cannot afford space for further quotations of the
numerous passages in which "the Son of Man" occurs as
either the subject or the object or the predicate of the
sentence. But one more quotation will suffice, namely:
"The Son of Man shall be delivered unto the hands of
men," (Matt. xvi. 21; xvii. 12, etc.), and all the passages
where he is made the subject of passion and death. Such utterances
are put into the mouth of Jesus by some fraudulent non-Hebrew writer
with the object of perverting the truth concerning "the Son
of Man" as understood and believe by the Jews, and of
making them believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the
Apocalyptical triumphant Savior, but he would only appear
on the Day of the Last Judgement. It was a policy and a
cunning propaganda of dissuasion, and then of persuasion,
made purposely for the Jews. But the fraud was discovered, and the Jewish Christians belong to the Church
which held these Gospels to be divinely revealed. For
nothing could be more repugnant to Jewish national aspiration and relidous sentiment than to present to them the
expected Messiah, the great Barnasha, in the person of
Jesus whom the Chief Priests and the Elders condemned to
be crucified as a seducer! It is quite evident, therefore,
that Jesus never appropriated the title of "the Son of Man;"
but he reserved it only for Prophet Muhammad. Here are a few of
the arguments:
(a) The Jewish Apocalypses ascribe the titles "the
Messiah" and "the Son of Man" exclusively to the Last
Prophet, who will fight with the Powers of Darkness and
vanquish them, and then will establish the Kingdom of Peace
and of Light on earth. Thus the two titles are synonymous;
to disown either of them is to disown altogether the claim
to being the Last Prophet. Now we read in the Synoptics
that Jesus categorically denied his being the Christ and
forbade his disciples to declare him "the Messiah"! It is
reported that Simon Peter, in reply to the question put by
Jesus: "Whom say you that I am?" said: "Thou art the
Christ [Messiah] of God." (l) Then Christ commanded his
disciples not to say to anybody that he is the Christ. (2) St.
Mark and St. Luke know nothing about the "power of the
keys" given to Peter; they, not being there, had not heard
of it. John has not a word about this Messianic conversation; probably he had forgotten it! St. Matthew reports (3)
that when Jesus told them not to say that he was the Christ
he explained to them how he would be delivered and killed.
Thereupon Peter began to reprove and admonish him not
to repeat the same words about his passion and death.
According to this story of St. Matthew, Peter was perfectly
right when he said: "Master, be it far from thee!" If it
is true that his confession, "Thou art the Messiah," pleased
Jesus, who conferred the title of "Sapha" or "Cepha" on
Simon, then to declare that "the Son of Man" was to suffer
the ignominous death upon the Cross was neither more nor
less than a flat denial of his Messianic character. But Jesus
became more positive and indignantly scolded Peter, saying:
"Get thee behind me, satan!" What follows this sharp
rebuke are most explicit words of the Master, leaving not a
modicum of doubt that he was not "the Messiah" or "the
Son of Man." How to reconcile the "faith" of Peter,
recompensed with the glorious title of "Sapha" and the
power of the keys of Heaven and of Hell, with the
"infidelity" of Peter punished with the opprobrious epithet
of "satan," within half an hour's time or so? Several
reflections present themselves to my mind, and I feel it my
bounden duty to put them in black and white. If Jesus
were "the Son of Man" or "the Messiah" as seen and foretold by Daniel, Ezra, Enoch, and the other Jewish prophets
and divines, he would have authorized his disciples to proclaim and acclaim him as such; and he himself would have
supported them. The fact is that he acted the very reverse.
Again, if he were the Messiah, or the Barnasha, he would
have at once struck his enemies with terror, and by the aid
of his invisible angels destroyed the Roman and Persian
powers, then dominant over the civilized world. But he did
nothing of the sort; or, like Prophet Muhammad, he would have
recruited some valiant warriors like 'Ali, Omar, Khalid, etc.,
and not like Zebedees and Jonahs, who vanished, like a
frightened specter when the Roman police came to arrest
them.
------------- Footnotes:
1. Luke ix. 20.
2. Luke (ix. 21) says: "He rebuked them and commanded them not to say that he
was the Messiah." Cf. Matn xvi. 20; Mark viii. 30.
3. Lcc. cit., 21 - 28.
------------- end of footnotes
There are two irreconcilable statements made by
Matthew (or corrupted by his interpolator), which logically
destroy each other. Within an hour Peter is "the Rock of
Faith," as Catholicism will boast, and, 'the satan of
Infidelity," as Protestanism will scout him! Why so?
Because when he believed Jesus to be the Messiah he was
rewarded; but when he refused to admit that his master was
not the Messiah he was convicted! There are no two "Sons
of Man," the one to be the Commander of the Faithful,
fight sword in hand the wars of God, and uproot idolatry
and its empires and kingdoms; the other to be an Abbot of
the poor Anchorites on the summit of Calvary, fight the
wars of God cross in hand, and be martyred ignominously
by idolatrous Romans and unbelieving Jewish Pontiffs and
Rabbis! "The Son of Man," whose hands were seen under
the wings of the Cherubs by the Prophet Ezekiel (ii), and
before the throne of the Almighty by the Prophet Daniel
(vii), and described in the other Jewish Apocalypses was
not predestined to be hanged upon Golgotha, but to transform the thrones of the pagan kings into their own crosses;
to change their palaces into calvaries, and to make
sepulchers of their capital cities. Not Prophet Jesus, but
Prophet Muhammad, had the honor of this title, "the Son of Man"!
The facts are more eloquent than even the Apocalypses and the
visions. The material and moral conquests achieved by
Prophet Muhammad the Holy Messenger of Allah over the enemy are
unrivalled.
(b) "The Son of Man" is called by Jesus "the Lord
of the Sabbath day." (1) This is very remarkable indeed.
The sanctity of the seventh day is the theme of the Law of
Moses. God accomplished the work of creation in six days,
and on the seventh He rested from all work. Men and
women, children and slaves, even the domestic animals were
to repose from all labor under the pain of death. The
Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue orders the people
of Israel: "Thou shalt remember the Sabbath day to
sanctify it." (2) The students of the Bible know how jealous
God is reported to be concerning the strict observation of
the Day of Rest. Before Moses there was no special law
about this; and the nomad Patriarchs do not seem to have
observed it. It is very likely that the Jewish Sabbath had
its origin in the Babylonian Sabattu.
------------- Footnotes: (1). Matt. xii. 7. (2). Exod. xx. -------------
end of footnotes
The Qur'an repudiates the Jewish anthropomorphous
conception of the Deity, for it means to say, as if like man,
God labored six days, got fatigued, reposed and slumbered.
The sacred verse of the Qur'an thus runs: "And verily
We have created the heavens and the earth, and whatever is
between them in six days; and no weariness affected Us".
The Jewish idea about the Sabbath had become too
material and insidious. Instead of making it a day of comfortable rest and a pleasant holiday, it had been turned into
a day of abstinence and confinement. No cooking, no walk,
and no work of charity or beneficence were permitted. The
priests in the temple would bake bread and offer sacrifices
on the Sabbath-day, but reproached the Prophet of Nazareth
when he miraculously cured a man whose arm was withered. (1)
To this Christ said that it was the Sabbath which was instituted
for the benefit of man, and not man for the sake of the Sabbath.
Instead of making it a day of worship and then a day of recreation,
of innocent pleasure and real repose, they had made it a day of
imprisonment and weariness. The least breach of any precept
concerning the seventh day was punished with lapidation or some
other penalty. Moses himself sentences a poor man to
lapidation for having picked up a few sticks from the ground
on a Sabbath day; and the disciples of Jesus were reproached
for plucking some ears of corn on a Sabbath day, although
they were hungry. It is quite evident that Jesus Christ was
not a Sabbatarian and did not adhere to the literal interpretation of the draconic ordinances regarding the Sabbath.
He wanted mercy or acts of kindness and not sacrifices. Nevertheless, he never thought of abrogating the
Sabbath, nor could he have ventured to do so. Had he
ventured to declare the abolition of that day or to substitute
the Sunday for it, he would have been undoubtedly abandoned by his followers, and instantly mobbed and stoned.
But he observed, so to say, the Law of Moses to its title.
As we learn from the Jewish historian, Joseph Flavius, and
from Eusebius and others, James the "brother" of Jesus was
a strict Ibionite and the head of the Judaistic Christians who
observed the Law of Moses and the Sabbath with all its
rigors. The Hellenistic Christians gradually substituted
first the "Lord's Day," i.e. the Sunday; but the Eastern
Churches until the fourth century observed both days.
------------- Footnote: Matt. xii 10-13 ------------- end of footnote
Now if Jesus were the Lord of the Sabbath day he
would have certainly either modified its rigorous law or
entirely abolished it. He did neither the one nor the other.
The Jews who heard him understood perfectly well that he
referred to the expected Messiah as the Lord of the Sabbath,
and that is why they kept their silence. The Redactor of
the Synoptics, here as everywhere, has suppressed some of
the words of Jesus whenever "the Son of Man" forms the
subject of his discourse, and this suppression is the cause
of all these ambiguities, contradictions, and misunderstandings. Unless we take the Holy Qur'an as our guide,
and the Prophet of Allah as the object of the Bible, all
attempts to find the truth and to arrive at a satisfactory
conclusion will end in failure. The Higher Biblical Criticism
will guide you as far as the gate of the sacred shrine of
truth, and there it stops, stricken with awe and incredulity.
It does not open the door to enter inside and search for
the eternal documents therein deposited. All research and
erudition shown by these "impartial" critics, whether Liberal
Thinkers, Rationalists, or indifferent writers, are, after all,
deplorably cold, skeptical, and disappointing.
Lately I was reading the works of the French savant Ernest Renan, La vie de
Jesus, Saint Paul, and L' Antichrist. I was astonished at the extent of works,
ancient and modern, which he has examined; he reminded me of Gibbon and others.
But, alas, what is the conclusion of their inexhaustible research and study?
Zero or negation! In the domain of science the marvels of Nature are discovered
by the Positivists; but in the domain of Religion these Positivists make hay
of it and poison the religious sentiments of their readers. If these learned
critics were to take the spirit of the Qur'an for their guidance and Prophet
Muhammad as the literal, moral, and practical fulfillment of Holy Writ, their
research could not be so desultory and destructive. Religious men want a real
and not an ideal religion; they want a "Son of Man" who will draw his sword
and march at the head of his valiant army to pulverize the enemies of God and
to prove by word and deed that he is the "Lord of the Sabbath day," and to abrogate
it altogether because it was abused by the Jews as the "Fatherhood" of God was
abused by the Christians. Prophet Muhammad did this! As I have often repeated
in these pages, we can only understand these corrupted scriptures when we penetrate,
with the help of the light of Al-Qur'an, into their enigmatic and contradictory
statements, and it is only then that we can sift them with the sieve of truthfulness
and separate the genuine from the spurious. When, for example, speaking about
the priests continually dissolving the Sabbath in the Temple, Jesus is reported
to have said: "Behold, here is one that is greater than the Temple." (1) I can
guess of no sense in the existence of the adverb "here" in this clause, unless
we supply and attach to it an additional "t," and make it read "there." For,
if Jesus or any other prophet before him should have had the audacity of declaring
himself "greater than the Temple," he would have been instantly lynched or stoned
by the Jews as a "blasphemer" unless he could prove himself to be the Son of
Man, invested with power and greatness, as the Prophet of Allah was.
------------- Footnote: (1). Matt. xii 6 -------------
The abrogation of Saturday by the Prince of the Prophets
- Prophet Muhammad - is hinted at in the LXII Sura of the Qur'an
entitled "Al-Jumu'a" or "The Assembly." Before Prophet
Muhammad the Arabs called Friday "al A'ruba," the
same as the Syriac Pshitta "A'rubta" from the Aramaic
"arabh" - " to set down (the sun)." It was so called
because after the setting of the sun on Friday the Sabbath
day commenced. The reason given for the sacred character
of Saturday is that on that day God "rested" from His
work of creation. But the reason for the choice of Friday,
as it can easily be understood, is of a double nature. First,
because on this day the great work of the creation, or of
the universal formation of all the innumerable worlds, beings
and things visible and invisible, planets, and microbes was
completed. This was the first event that interrupted eternity,
when time, space, and matter came into being. The commemoration, the anniversary, and the sanctity of such a
prodigious event on the day on which it was achieved is
just, reasonable, and even necessary. The second reason
is that on this day prayers and worship are conducted by
the faithful unanimously, and for this reason it is called the
"jumu'a," that is to say, the congregation or assembly; the
Divine verse on this subject characterizes the nature of our
obligation on Friday as: "O believers! When it is called
to the prayer on Friday, hasten to the remembrance of
God and leave merchandise," etc.
The faithful are called to join in the Divine service
together in a House dedicated to the worship of God, and
to leave off at that time any lucrative work; but after the
congregational prayers are over they are not forbidden to
resume their usual occupations. A true Muslim within
twenty-four hours worships his Creator five times
in prayer and devotion.
(c) We have already made a few remarks on the passage
in St. Matthew (xviii. 11) where the mission of the
"Son of Man" is "to seek and recover what was lost."
This is another important prediction - though undoubtedly
corrupted in form - about Prophet Muhammad, or the Apocalyptical
Barnasha. These "lost things" which the Barnasha would
seek and restore are of two categories, religious and
national. Let us examine them in detail:
(1) The mission of the Barnasha was to restore the purity and the universality
of the religion of Prophet Abraham which was lost. All the peoples and tribes
descended from that patriarch of the believers were to be brought into the fold
of the "Religion of Peace," which is no other than the "Dina da-Shlama," or
the Religion of Islam. The religion of Moses was national and particular, and
therefore its hereditary priesthood, its Levitical sacrifices and pompous rituals,
its Sabbaths, jubilees, and festivals, and all its laws and corrupted scriptures
would be abolished and substituted by new ones having a universal character,
force, and durability. Prophet Jesus was a Jew; he could not have accomplished
such a gigantic and stupendous undertaking because it was materially impossible
for him to do it. "I came not to change the law or the prophets," (l) said he.
On the other hand, the rank idolatry, with all its abominable pagan practices,
superstition, and sorcery, to which the Arab nationalities were addicted, had
entirely to be wiped out, and the Oneness of Allah and of religion to be restored
under the flag of the Messenger of Allah bearing the Holy Inscription: "I bear
witness that there is none worthy of worship except God; and I bear witness
that Muhammad is the Messenger of God."
------------ Footnote (1). Matt. v.17-19 ------------ end of footnote
2. The unification of the nations descended from Prophet
Abraham, and their dependencies were to be restored and
accomplished. Of the many corrupted, selfish, and unjustifiable silly notions the Hebrew Scriptures contain there is the
indiscriminate bias they entertain against the non-Israelite
nations. They never honor the other descendants of their
great progenitor Prophet Abraham; and this antipathy is shown
against the Ishmaelites, Edomites, and other Abrahamite
tribes even when Israel had become the worst idolator and
heathen. The fact that besides Prophets Abraham and Ishmael about
three hundred and eleven male slaves and warriors in
his service were circumcised (1) is an incalculably forcible
argument against the Jewish attitude towards their cousin
nationalities. The kingdom of David hardly extended its
frontiers beyond the territory which in the Ottoman Empire
formed only two adjacent "Vilayets," or Provinces. And
the "Son of David," whom the Jews anticipate to come with
the attribute of the "final Messiah," may or may not be able
to occupy even those two provinces; and besides, when will
he come? He was to have come to destroy the Roman
"Beast." That "Beast" was only mutilated and slaughtered
by Prophet Muhammad! What else is expected? When Prophet
Muhammad, the Apocalyptic Barnasha, founded the Kingdom of
Peace (Islam), the majority of the Jews in Arabia, Syria,
Mesopotamia, etc., voluntarily rushed to the greatest
shepherd of mankind when he appeared with the terrific
blows which he struck at the "Brute" of paganism.
Prophet Muhammad founded a universal Brotherhood, the nucleus
of which is certainly the family of Prophet Abraham, including
among its members the Persians, the Turks, the Chinese,
the Negroes, the Javanese, the Indians, the English,
etc., all forming one "ummat" (Arabic) or "Umtha
da-Shlama," i.e. the Islamic Nation!
------------- Footnote (1). Gen. ------------ end of footnote
3. Then the recovery of the promised lands, including
the land of Canaan and all the territories from the Nile to
the Euphrates, and gradually the extension of the Kingdom
of Allah from the Pacific Ocean to the eastern shores of
the Atlantic, is a marvelous fulfillment of all the prophecies
about the Holiest and the Greatest of the Sons of Man!
Considering the stupendous work accomplished by Prophet
Muhammad for the One True God, the brief time spent
by him and his brave and devoted companions in its
accomplishment, and the ineffaceable effects that the work
and the religion of Prophet Muhammad have left upon all the
kingdoms and the thinkers of mankind, one is at a loss to
know what tribute to pay to this Prophet of Arabia, except
the wish to behold him shining in redoubled glory before
the Throne of the Eternal as Daniel saw in his vision!
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