Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

24 t CHAPTER ONE
has made from clay—a vivid story that also occurs in the Infancy
Gospel of Thomas. When again a sign was demanded of him, God
sent down from heaven a table spread with food (5:112–115), an
event some Muslims (and non-Muslims) have seen as a reference
to the eucharistic Last Supper and others to the miraculous feeding
of the multitudes. Jesus will confirm the truth of the Torah and
make lawful some of the things forbidden to the Jews (3:50–51;
5:46; 61:6). His message was chiefly that of monotheism, a double
of Muhammad’s own: worship the One True God and eschew
polytheism. Indeed, he predicted the coming of Muhammad: “I am
God’s messenger to you, . . . announcing the good news of the
messenger who will come after me, bearing the name Ahmad”
(61:6).
Note: Once Muslims came in contact with Christians, they had to
meet the challenge of finding Jesus’ prediction of the coming of
“Ahmad” (i.e., Muhammad) in the Christians’ own Scripture, and in
the Jewish as well since Jesus’ messianic case was made by reading
him out of the Bible. The challenge was sometimes met by finding
texts that might serve. Muhammad’s first preserved biographer Ibn
Ishaq (2. 767) thought that John 15:23 ff., with its promise of a Paraclete—with
some vowel changes parakletos can become periklytos,
close enough to the Arabic “Ahmad” to be plausible—filled the bill.
Isaiah 21:6–9, the call of the watchman announcing the fall of Babylon
to newcomers on “a column of camels,” was also occasionally
cited from the Bible. The other method was to finesse the entire question
by pointing out that the Peoples of the Book had tampered with
their Scriptures, including, of course, removing all references to the
coming of the prophet Muhammad.
Where the Quran departs most markedly from the canonical
Gospel accounts is in its version of Jesus’ last days. In 3:54–55 it is
said that the unbelievers schemed against Jesus but that God had a
better scheme: “I am gathering you up [or causing you to die?],”
God says, “and causing you to ascend to Me.” Elsewhere the
Quran declares that God has set a seal on the Jews’ disbelief, “so