Originally Published in Beliefnet
by Adil Khan
I love Jesus. No you won’t see me at Sunday Worship, nor with a cross on my forehead during lent. I don’t believe Jesus is God, and I do not believe that the current state of Christianity is reflective of the beliefs of Jesus Christ. I, like the majority of Christian scholars, do not believe that—as the Biblical evidence suggests—Jesus was born on December 25th of the Gregorian Calendar, nor do I believe that Jesus celebrated birthdays. However I do believe that Christianity does have a most attractive and special allure, beauty and system of values. Who am I? I am a Muslim for Jesus.
I am admittedly a bit amused by this new term I have coined: “Muslim for Jesus”. For me it is something so obvious that I cannot help but let out a good-hearted laugh on the inside. If you want to follow Islam, then you must hold on to Jesus, and not let him go. In the same way you have to hold on to Krishna, Buddha, Confucius and so on, the reason being that the Qur’an states “We make no distinction between any of His (God’s) messengers” (2:286). Unfortunately, I am reminded of images and news of so-called “Muslims” attacking churches and killing innocent Christians. The truth is that these perpetrators, whoever they are, are not following Islam. It only reminds me of the falsehoods of the topsy-turvy world we are living in nowadays where our country’s president retweets fake propaganda videos from Britain First, a far right political group, and is roundly condemned by British leaders.
The fact is that Islam actually teaches the exact opposite of what these extremist who call themselves “Muslims” do.
The Qur’an and The Prophet Muhammad actually taught that Muslims were to defend Churches, even at the costs of their lives. Apart from the Qur’an this is evidenced by the Prophet Muhammad’s letter to the St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai which is still preserved there to this day. Further if Muslims were to die in the process of defending a church, then they would be considered martyrs. And martyr in the true sense of course not an extremist.. I only invite my Christian brothers and sisters to look back those great Christians who would not recant their faith, but instead preferred to be fed to the lions by Romans.
Further, though I do not agree—as most Christians also do not agree—that Christmas as such has any meaningful relationship with the faith of Jesus Christ but I welcome all my neighbors who celebrate it. This year Muslim youth from my community, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, will give out thousands of holiday gifts to Christian and non-Christian neighbors across the US just as we did last year.
People of Baltimore! You better watch out, you better not cry. You better not pout. I’m telling you why— An Ahmadi Muslim is coming to town. Admittedly, however, this individual does not see you when you are sleeping, and may not know when you’re awake, nor necessarily know when you’ve been bad or good. So don’t worry about that part. God knows about that. At any rate I, as an American, ask my fellow Americans to see what the teachings of Qur’an are all about, and judge for themselves. Maybe these Muslim Santa Clauses are not so bad.
Merry Christmas.
