Mandelbrot set image very small MohammedAmin.com
Serious writing for
serious readers
Follow @Mohammed_Amin
Join my
email list

Search this site

Custom Search
Mohammed Amin's website
Serious writing
for serious readers
Tap here for MENU

Review of "Jesus, Prophet of Islam" by

30 May 2009

Unless they study comparative religion, most Christians are unaware that Jesus and Mary feature in Islam. They may also assume that Christians have always believed in the theology of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism: belief in the Trinity and salvation by the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. All of these assumptions are incorrect.

The book starts with a historical account of Jesus and the early Christians. It discusses the relationship of St Paul with the disciples and the radical changes that St Paul made to the practices taught by Jesus. It then covers the theological disagreements between early Christians and how belief developed that a place in heaven came from redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus and not from living a good life in accordance with the laws of God as taught by Moses, the other prophets and Jesus. The book explains how the arguments between the early Christians were resolved through the exercise of state power by the Roman Empire at the Council of Nicaea. It also covers how the text of the New Testament was decided and two books excluded from it, The Gospel of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas.

Although well worth reading, the book could be improved. In this 1996 edition, Ahmad Thomson adds to the original written 1977 text of Muhammad ‘Ata’ur-Rahim. However the early part of the book contains some imperfect English, presumably because ‘Ata’ur-Rahim was not a native English speaker. There is extensive coverage of the history of Unitarianism in the middle of the second millennium which is interesting to read but not relevant to the title of the book. There is also no need to reprint verbatim all of the verses in the Quran which mention Jesus since they are readily available elsewhere. Instead the book should concentrate on the key Islamic messages and provide the Quranic authority for them; the same applies to the chapter on Hadith which mention Jesus. Overall, it would be a much better book if the length was reduced to about 50%-75% of the current version by rigorous editing.

Advertisement

 

The Disqus comments facility below allows you to comment on this page. Please respect others when commenting.
You can login using any of your Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Disqus identities.
Even if you are not registered on any of these, you can still post a comment.

comments powered by Disqus

 

Follow @Mohammed_Amin

Tap for top of page