The Light of the Holy Qur'an — Page 70
T HE L IGHT OF T HE HOLY Q U R’AN—NUM BE R T WO T HE L IGHT OF T HE HOLY Q U R’AN—NUM BE R T WO 70 salvation, he had believed with all his heart and soul in our lord and master, Muhammad, the Chosen One, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him; and that he too was a sincere servant out of the hundreds of servants of the shariah [religious law] of Moses, peace be upon him. We, therefore, accord him all due respect according to his status. The Christians, however, have presented such a Yas u ‘ who claimed Divinity and deemed everyone—outside of his own self—to be accursed from the first to the last; that is, he consid- ered them guilty of the evil deeds whose punishment is l a‘ nat [curse]. I, likewise, consider such a [fabricated] character [Yas u ‘] to be deprived of Divine mercy. The Holy Qur’an has nowhere informed us of this insolent and foul-mouthed Yas u ‘ [Christ]. I am astounded at the character of this individual who considered dying appropriate with respect to God while himself claiming to be God, and vilified such godly people as were thousands of times better than he. So, I am referring to this fictitious Yas u ‘ of the Christians in my writing in every instance. In my harsh rebukes, I am not at all referring to ‘ I s a ibn Maryam [Jesus son of Mary], a humble servant of God and Prophet who is mentioned in the Holy Qur’an. I have adopted this course after constantly listening to the invectives of the Christian clergymen for forty years. Some igno- rant maulaw i s, who ought to be called blind and sightless, con- sider the Christians to be innocent, saying that these poor souls never utter a disparaging word and are never guilty of any disre- spect towards the Holy Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. It has to be remembered, however, that the Christian