The Quran teaches that someone who cannot create is not the same
as, or equal to, the one who can and does create:
Is then He Who creates like one that creates not? Will ye not
receive admonition? S. 16:17 A. Y. Ali
Is, then, he who creates comparable to any [being] that cannot
create? Will you not, then, bethink yourselves? Muhammad Asad
What makes this assertion rather intriguing is that the Muslim
scripture is quite emphatic in depicting Muhammad as a messenger who was unable
to perform a single miracle, let alone create anything:
And they say, "Why has no miraculous sign been bestowed on
him from on high by his Sustainer?" Say: "Behold, God has
the power to bestow any sign from on high." Yet most human
beings are unaware of this S. 6:37 Asad
Now they swear by God with their most solemn oaths that if a
miracle were shown to them, they would indeed believe in this [divine
writ]. Say: "Miracles are in the power of God alone." And
for all you know, even if one should be shown to them, they would not believe
S. 6:109 Asad
And nothing has prevented Us from sending [this message, like the
earlier ones,] with miraculous signs [in its wake], save [Our knowledge] that
the people of olden times [only too often] gave the lie to them: thus, We
provided for [the tribe of] Thamud the she-camel as a light-giving portent, and
they sinned against it. And never did We send those signs for any other purpose
than to convey a warning. S. 17:59 Asad
and so they say: "[O Muhammad,] we shall not believe thee
till thou cause a spring to gush forth for us from the earth, or thou have a
garden of date-palms and vines and cause rivers to gush forth in their midst in
a sudden rush, or thou cause the skies to fall down upon us in smithereens, as
thou hast threatened, or [till] thou bring God and the angels face to face
before us, or thou have a house [made] of gold, or thou ascend to heaven
- but nay, we would not [even] believe in thy ascension unless thou bring down
to us [from heaven] a writing which we [ourselves] could read!" Say thou,
[O Prophet:] "Limitless in His glory is my Sustainer! Am I,
then, aught but a mortal man, an apostle?" S. 17:90-93 Asad
And yet they say, "Why have no miraculous signs ever been
bestowed upon him from on high by his Sustainer?" Say: "Miracles are
in the power of God alone; and as for me - I am but a plain warner. S. 29:50
Asad
The late Muslim scholar and translator Muhammad Asad, in a
footnote to Q. 17:59, attempted to explain the reason why Muhammad wasn’t able
to perform a single miracle:
71 This highly elliptic sentence has a fundamental bearing on the
purport of the Qur'an as a whole. In many places the Qur'an stresses
the fact that the Prophet Muhammad, despite his being the last and
greatest of God's apostles, was not empowered to perform miracles
similar to those with which the earlier prophets are said to have reinforced
their verbal messages. His only miracle was and is the Qur'an itself -
a message perfect in its lucidity and ethical comprehensiveness, destined for
all times and all stages of human development, addressed not merely to the
feelings but also to the minds of men, open to everyone, whatever his race or
social environment, and bound to remain unchanged forever. Since the earlier
prophets invariably appealed to their own community and their own time alone, their
teachings were, of necessity, circumscribed by the social and intellectual
conditions of that particular community and time; and since the people to whom
they addressed themselves had not yet reached the stage of independent
thinking, those prophets stood in need of symbolic portents or miracles (see
surah 6, note 94) in order to make the people concerned realize the inner truth
of their mission. The message of the Qur'an, on the other hand, was revealed at
a time when mankind (and, in particular, that part of it which inhabited the
regions marked by the earlier, Judaeo-Christian religious development) had
reached a degree of maturity which henceforth enabled it to grasp an ideology
as such without the aid of those persuasive portents and miraculous demonstrations
which in the past, as the above verse points out, only too often gave rise to
new, grave misconceptions. (Bold and underline emphasis ours)
To show just how weak and desperate Asad’s explanation is, the
Quran itself testifies that it was Muhammad’s own contemporaries who asked for,
in fact demanded, a miracle in order to confirm that his message was from God.
Now this stands in stark contrast to Jesus, whom the Quran says
possesses the divine power to create and give life to inanimate objects, as
well as to dead, lifeless bodies:
and he shall be a prophet to the people of Israel (saying), that I
have come to you, with a sign from God, namely, that I will CREATE for
you out of clay (annee AKHLUQU lakum mina ALTTEENI) as though it were
the form of a bird, and I will blow thereon and it shall become a bird by God's
permission; and I will heal the blind from birth, and lepers; and I
will bring the dead to life by God's permission; and I will tell you what
you eat and what ye store up in your houses. Verily, in that is a sign for you
if ye be believers. S. 3:49 Palmer
When God shall say, O Jesus son of Mary, remember my favour
towards thee, and towards thy mother; when I strengthened thee with the
holy spirit, that thou shouldest speak unto men in the cradle, and when
thou wast grown up; and when I taught thee the scripture, and wisdom, and the
law, and the gospel; and when thou didst CREATE of clay (wa-ith
TAKHLUQU mina ALTTEENI) as it were the figure of a bird, by my permission,
and didst breathe thereon, and it became a bird by my permission; and thou
didst heal one blind from his birth, and the leper, by my permission; and
when thou didst bring forth the dead [from their graves], by my permission;
and when I with-held the children of Israel from [killing] thee, when thou
hadst come unto them with evident [miracles], and such of them as believed not,
said, this is nothing but manifest sorcery. S. 5:110 Sale
What makes this even more remarkable is that these two passages
not only prove that Jesus is superior to Muhammad, they also illustrate that
Christ possesses the breath of life and the power to create and give exactly
like Allah!
Compare the following texts:
He it is Who created you from clay (Huwa allathee
KHALAQAKUM min TEENIN) and then HE decreed a term. And there is
another term fixed with HIM. Yet you doubt. S. 6:2 Y. Ali
Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: "I am about to create
man from clay (innee KHALIQUN basharan min TEENIN): When I have
fashioned him (in due proportion) and breathed into him of My spirit,
fall ye down in obeisance unto him." S. 38:71-72 Y. Ali
Note the connection between Allah blowing/breathing his Spirit
into man with Christ being strengthened with the Holy Spirit and breathing life
into clay birds and resurrecting the dead. Further notice how both Allah and
Christ are said to have created living beings from clay. This clearly shows
Christ possesses the same life-giving Spirit that Allah possess, which explains
why he can create and breathe life into inanimate objects in the exact same way
that Allah does!
To top it off, in the verses regarding Christ the Quran employs
the very same verb for create which always denotes the creative action of God:
“The verb khalaqa is found 180 times in the
Qur’an and it is always translated, in various languages, with ‘to create.’
With the exception of Q 20:17 (takhluquna ifkan= you invent a
lie), it always designates the creative action of God. In 177 cases,
the subject of the verb is God, while in the other two cases (3:49 and 5:110) it
is Christ. Evidently this could only come from Christians; Muslim
tradition, which could not uphold this meaning (the only one attested in the
Qur’an), interprets it with the meaning of ‘to fashion, mold.’ Meanwhile, the
action of ‘breathing into’ is, in the Bible as in the Qur’an, typical of the
creative action of God.
“Thus the two verbs used in this verse both reflect the
divine creative action, and not the human action of a potter, for example,
thereby confirming the Christian origin of this verse.” (Samir Khalil Samir,
“6. The Theological Christian Influence on the Qur'an – A Reflection,” The Qur'an in its Historical Context, edited by Gabriel Said Reynolds
[Routledge Studies in the Qur’an, 2008], p. 146; bold emphasis ours)
Muslims may object that it was Allah who granted Jesus the ability
to possess and impart life to others, which therefore disproves that Christ is
equal to him. However, this objection doesn’t help the Muslims but actually
makes matters worse, since this means that Allah has taken Jesus to be his
partner by conferring upon him specific divine characteristics and functions.
In other words, this argument essentially means that Allah is
guilty of committing shirk since he has granted Christ the right to share in
his divine nature and attributes. And since this is the one sin that Allah will
never forgive,
The One who made the land a habitat, and the sky a structure, and
He sent down from the sky water with which He brought out fruit as a provision
for you. So do not make any equals with God while
you now know. S. 2:22 Quran: A Reformist Translation (QRT)
Verily, God does not forgive the ascribing of divinity to aught
beside Him, although
He forgives any lesser sin unto whomever He wills: for he who ascribes divinity
to aught beside God has indeed contrived an awesome sin. S. 4:48 Asad – cf. Q.
4:116; 39:65
This means that the Islamic deity stands condemned forever as
a mushrik, e.g., one who ascribes divinity to someone other than
Allah, and must therefore punish himself in hell!
With that being said, the fact still remains that according to the
Islamic scripture, Jesus creates and gives life in the same exact way that
Allah does and even possesses the breath of life like Allah does.
Hence, the Quran bears witness that Muhammad doesn’t even come
close to being Christ’s equal, while plainly testifying that Jesus is equal to
Allah in terms of both divine power and majesty.
Continue with Part 2.
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