The Need for the Imam — Page 22
22 But the righteous are immediately informed about any satanic suggestion. Unfortunately, Christian clerics, while commenting on the incident whereby Jesus was tempted by the devil, 22 have dared to suggest that it was not something which actually happened, and which the world could see and the Jews could witness, but was rather a satanic inspiration which he received and rejected three times. One shivers to hear such an interpretation of the New Testament. Messiah as and satanic inspiration, indeed! Even if we don’t believe this conversation to be a satanic inspiration, and imagine that Satan did really assume bodily form and met Jesus as , the following objection would arise: If it were indeed true that Satan—the old serpent—really revealed himself in a corporeal form and took his stand near the sacred synagogue of the Jews, around which hundreds of people lived, then thousands of people must have gathered to see him. In fact Jesus as himself ought to have summoned the Jews and shown them the Satan whose very existence was denied by a number of their sects. And this in itself would be con- sidered a sign for the Messiah as , and many a people would have been rightly guided. Even the high- ranking officials of the Roman Empire would have 22 Matthew, 4:8-9 [Publishers]