5. Setting.
Muhammad was born and raised in the land of Arabia. Seventh-century Arabia was a land of many gods, punctuated here and there with Jewish and Christian communities. The Christianity that came to represent Jesus in that area however was a far cry from the Jerusalem variety of the first century. In the first place, all of Christendom had entered a spiritual recession by this ime. Discipline was relaxed. Morality was decayed. The power of Roman politics had begun to snuff out the life of the once-vibrant fellowship of believers whose faith and example had toppled an Empire.
In its place was a power grab. All that the Roman Empire had been, the supposed church wanted to be. And powerful men determined church doctrine by their own standards, not those of God's Word. Monasticism had begun to rise as a response to this worldliness, but that in itself could not stem the tide of evil that appeared as unregenerate pagans had flooded the membership rolls in response to the church's own persecution of its neighbors.
In Arabia there were many variations of the theme Christian. None of them vibrant echoes of the life of Jesus Christ, the resurrected One. Miracles had all but ceased. Life transformation was all but forgotten. It would be very hard for a citizen of that land to get a good grasp of what being a Christian was all about.
One such manifestation of believers was the Ebionites, that I described earlier. Christian in name but very Jewish in practice. It was this Torah-following, Prophet-seeking, Paul-hating group that produced one Waraquah, relative and friend of the family of Muhammad. He is the one who was called alongside the family to encourage young Muhammad when he was suddenly the victim of a series of frightening revelations, that had him thinking he was demon-possessed.
Not to worry, said his Ebionite uncle, this is surely God. You are surely the Lord's prophet. Spoken by one who with his people had rejected the Lord's finest apostle, the endorsement was not worth a lot.
Jesus too was born and raised in a backslidden land. The Judaism of Jesus' day had fallen on hard times due to its stubborn rebellion against God and His ways. Jews had fallen so often into idolatry that it seemed they were abandoned. Babylonians, Assyrians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, and now Romans had moved into the Holy Land, a place made holy by the promises of God, not at present by His people.
But though it did appear bleak and forsaken, the Holy Land was once more to be visited. One Visit in particular, prophesied for this very time by the prophet Isaiah. See the unfolding of
circumstances through the prophet's eyes:
Isaiah 8:22-9:7. "Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness.
Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first he lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali... in Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined...
For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called...Mighty God..."
Someone, whose name is God, will be born and given to this northern extremity of Israel, the place closest to the conquering hordes, thus the place mixed with the most evil, the place most vulnerable. He will eventually rule and reign all. Jesus Christ was born to a resident of Galilee, and lived most of His life and ministry there.
Though His setting was a place of darkness, within 30 years of His birth, a great light had shined here. Multitudes healed, some raised from the dead, many others delivered from demons, sins forgiven, life eternal shared, a church formed.
Muhammad managed to change his setting from a relatively calm polytheism to a divided and chaotic series of battles over a new religion. Though we applaud the move to one god, we regret that that god is not the one described in our Bible, so that the strivings of those awful years come to naught but continued strife for the world.
Jesus too caused serious changes in His setting, and eventually in the entire Roman Empire. But on the way, countless people have found eternal life with Him, and countless others have felt the positive effects of the Spirit of God in man's individual and societal life.
6. The City and the House.
Muhammad grew up in a pagan setting, believing that the Kabah of holy Mecca was the house of God. Later people would come to believe that this Meccan shrine had originated with Adam, had been destroyed, and then been rebuilt by Abraham and Ishmael, founders of the true faith of God. Protected by a snake it was, says Lings.
The holy house of God was a place of prostration, where Abraham himself prostrated before God. A place of prostration is a masjid, or mosque. Muhammad is said to have been the first to enter the rebuilt Kabah, at which time he put a mysterious "stone" in place.
But growing up, it was simply the place where everyone went to honor whomever his god happened to be. One called "Allah" was the god of Muhammad's family. They faithfully honored him, and longed for the day when he would be exalted over the other gods.
This faith in a single god was inculcated into young Muhammad's thinking. It was eventually the driving force of his life, and is the driving force of Muslims around the world to this day.
As stated above, "Allah" is not the god of the Bible, though Muhammad attempted to bring this idea to his people. The Koran is filled with Bible-like stories, using Bible names, but most of them fall short of the Biblical account. Some of the stories are outright blasphemies, especially those dealing with the Son of God.
Over and over Muhammad denies that Allah is able to have a Son. Thus over and over he lets us know that Allah, with whatever "good" qualities he may possess, is not our god, but a creation of the new religion.
Jesus was raised in the already-established Judaism of Moses. Its people were oppressed by Rome in this day. Most of the fervor of the days of yore was vanished. Smart but often ungodly men ruled the religion from Jerusalem, the city conquered by David 1000 years earlier, and heaped upon with promises by God, promises that seemed far from fulfillment in Jesus' day.
Nevertheless, the House of God in the city of peace, Jerusalem, was standing. Muhammad surely must have known there was only one house that God called His own, if he knew the Scriptures at all. God had dwelt with His people in the Mosaic tabernacle, even in the tabernacle of David, but it was that David who wanted a beautiful building to house the glory of God. His son was instead appointed to carry out God's -and David's - plan.
The Solomonic Temple was a wonder of the age. But a few hundred years from its creation, it was destroyed by the Babylonians. The Persians allowed Israel to rebuild, but the resultant house of Zerubbabel lost much of the former glory. And when that building too was destroyed by Greeks, it was left to Rome, via the Edomite Herod, to raise it yet again.
It was Herod's Temple, well over 40 years in the building, that Jesus saw in His day. And though it was Roman, and though Herod was not Jewish, Jesus called it the House of God. Less than 40 ears after His death and resurrection, that Temple too was destroyed. No other has risen since, though Jesus has prophesied, through Daniel and John, that another will come. Ezekiel seems to have seen the very structure that will exist after Jesus returns.
Jesus, like Muhammad, entered the Temple, made it a holy place, then became the rejected stone. But Jesus knew that the true House of God is He Himself. Or in another picture, His Church is that House. Wherever God lives, that place is holy.
A clear distinction therefore exists between what Jesus knew and knows as the House of God, and Muhammad's idea. The Kabah was a place of polytheism, reduced through Muhammad's energetic campaigns in Arabia to a place for Allah, the god of Islam, but not Jehovah God, Father of the Lord Jesus. The Temple, and the Person of Jesus, and the Church of Jesus, these are the House of the true God of Israel, the place where His very presence lives and prospers forever.
7. Annunciation and Birth.
Recall that Martin Lings is using the best sources available to chronicle the life of Muhammad. But we have no extant copies of these sources until over 200 years after Muhammad's death. The biographies of Jesus began circulating within a couple of decades. Nevertheless we follow Lings, who writes his story as though it were all seriously true.
He claims that Muhammad's mother Aminah, widowed just before her son's birth, was "conscious of a light within her, and one day it shone forth from her so intensely that she could see the castles of Bostra in Syria." She also heard a voice declaring that her son was to be the "lord" of this people. She was also then given his name.
I need not comment much on the birth of Jesus, except to say how drastically different it was from Muhammad's, even yielding to the story of Lings as though it were true. With Jesus the entire night sky was lightened by angelic presence, a star appeared that guided inquiring astrologers from distant lands, and before it all, messengers from Heaven appeared to Joseph and Mary.
And as to the name given, He was to be called Jesus, Saviour, because He would save His people from their sins. We know now that it was not only Jews the angel had in mind here, but all who would call on the name that is above every name.
When the Baby was later presented in the Temple, the elders Anna and Simeon knew Who He was and spoke words of the Holy Spirit over Him.
No man ever entered this world with more pageantry, more preparation, more prophetic release.
Both Muhammad and Jesus were raised without their real fathers, in one sense. Muhammad's father was taken ill and died just before his birth. Grandpa took him under his wing from that time.
Jesus' true Father was in Heaven, where He had always been. And in His place as an earthly surrogate, Joseph the husband of Mary raised the Son of God.
Again the stories are not parallel, not to be compared. Jesus Christ was sent from and cared for by, Heaven itself. He was not allowed to be spoiled or privileged, as the unfolding story will prove, but neither was He ever a Fatherless wanderer, made to grope His way to an identity. All other men of all other times, however favored or not favored among men or even by God, are men at best, with the ups and downs that men must face. Muhammad included.
8. The Formative Years.
Muhammad was raised in the desert. It was the custom of his people to send children to barren places such as this to learn the "beauty of speech" of the desert people and a host of other lessons. For up to eight years a child would be trained by a Bedouin tribe. In Muhammad's case, the tribe was Bani Sad Bakr.
As Rome later added fables to the truth of Jesus, so it seems have the legends arisen regarding the Arabian. It is said that a desert woman who offered her near empty breasts to feed Muhammad, suddenly experienced the filling of same, along with the rejuvenating of all her impoverished and hungry animals!
After two years of weaning, it is said, per Lings, that two angels opened his chest and cleansed his heart with snow. We will find later that that heart still had Adam's touch on it as well.
Three years were then spent in Mecca, and at age 6 he visited Medina, that would have such an important part in his life in years to come. There his mother died.
His grandfather truly believed in little Muhammad's future greatness, and asked him tough questions, which Muhammad was always able to answer. Then grandfather died and his uncle Abu Talib took charge. A truly tragic childhood. His family was now very poor and he was forced to work as a shepherd.
Customs in Judea differed radically from those in Arabia. The Jewish child was trained in Hebrew and the Torah, God's language and God's law. Soon he was entered into a trade. Jesus became a carpenter. This also was a poor family. To work at a low-class job was not a thing of which to be ashamed. Never did Mary and Joseph counsel Jesus that he must seek his fortune in the world. And anyway, this Boy was set on more serious matters.
Working with His hands and dealing with people, that was His upbringing. All we know for certain is that Jesus "increased in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man." All else is fantasy and we will in no way countenance such on the Jesus side of this story.
We do know that at age 12 Jesus also was confronted with a series of hard questions, as we mentioned earlier. These questions were from the religious leaders of His day, and they were asked from inside the Temple, the House of God. We assume that all answers given were correct.
Mary nursed her own child. So it was said of her by envious mothers many years later. Certainly it would have been the blessing of blessings to give one's milk to the Son of God! Yes, but greater blessings are pronounced on those who receive the pure milk of the Word of God, and honor it, said Jesus.
Jesus also had dealings in the desert. He too was not "protected" from the evil. Though only there for 40 days, during that time Jesus did not eat or drink. Following this awful hunger the enemy came and tempted Him, to no avail. This would be only one of many victories over the Enemy that would serve to secure our salvation. The Lamb of God had to be a perfect one. Though tempted in every point as are we, never did Jesus sin.
This in contrast to Muhammad, though Lings' book does not offer much in the area of weakness in the Prophet. We'll deal with Muhammad's sinfulness at other times.
