Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

MUHAMMAD AND JESUS t 97
for us a rich tapestry of context; Muhammad, against an almost
blank screen.
In his ministry Jesus was speaking and acting before an audience
of fellow Jews whom he was trying to convince that a new era,
“the Kingdom,” had dawned—or was about to explode in their
day, an apocalyptic or eschatological notion with which they were
all to some extent acquainted. Muhammad had more radically to
convince polytheists to monotheism, and without benefit of sign or
miracle, which Jesus had in abundance. Their lifestyles differed.
Jesus was an itinerant preacher, a celibate, from all the evidence.
Muhammad had a home, whether in Mecca or Medina, a wife—
indeed many wives—and a large family that grew even more extended
through marriage. Jesus had a specially selected and carefully
trained inner circle, the Twelve. Muhammad had followers,
some of them close, but he did not select apostles, nor did he even
have disciples in the ordinary sense of the word. Jesus’ active career
lasted one year at the minimum, three at the maximum;
Muhammad’s, for twenty-two, during which he had the opportunity,
which he manifestly took, to edit and emend the body of
revelations he received. The suras of the Quran show many signs
of having been rearranged and added to, and by the Prophet himself.
Although he was the subject of the Gospels, Jesus obviously
had no say as to what went into them, which of his sayings were
reported and which not, or how accurately.
At the end of his brief career Jesus was publicly executed as a
criminal, deserted by most of his followers. Muhammad was close
to suffering the same fate. After twelve years of preaching at
Mecca he had made relatively few converts and was himself in
danger of being assassinated by enemies from among his own people.
The apparent failure of Jesus’ mission at Passover in 30 c.e.
was “redeemed” by his resurrection, which gave his followers a
new vision and a new hope. Muhammad was saved from a similar
failure by his migration to Medina, where, in a new setting and
under new circumstances, he began to make converts in such increasing
numbers that by his death in 632 there were Muslims
throughout western Arabia and the prospect of others beyond.
At Medina Muhammad became the head of a functioning com-