Website: www.aaiil.uk

Prophets are mortal humans — Mary, mother of Jesus, was righteous and pure

Friday Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz, for Lahore Ahmadiyya UK, 20 December 2024

“Their messengers said to them: We are nothing but mortals like yourselves, but Allah bestows (His) favours on whom He pleases of His servants. And it is not for us to bring you an autho­rity, except by Allah’s permission. And on Allah let the believers rely.”  — ch. 14, Ibāhīm, v. 11

قَالَتۡ لَہُمۡ رُسُلُہُمۡ  اِنۡ نَّحۡنُ اِلَّا بَشَرٌ مِّثۡلُکُمۡ  وَ لٰکِنَّ اللّٰہَ یَمُنُّ عَلٰی مَنۡ یَّشَآءُ مِنۡ عِبَادِہٖ ؕ وَ مَا کَانَ لَنَاۤ  اَنۡ نَّاۡتِیَکُمۡ بِسُلۡطٰنٍ اِلَّا بِاِذۡنِ اللّٰہِ ؕ وَ عَلَی اللّٰہِ  فَلۡیَتَوَکَّلِ  الۡمُؤۡمِنُوۡنَ ﴿۱۱﴾٪

At this time of the year, the birth of Jesus Christ is commemorated throughout the world through a most major festival among the festivals celebrated by humans on earth. Those who celebrate it on a religious basis believe that this was the coming of the son of God into this world, a being who was above and beyond a mortal human. Islam’s great contribution to this state of affairs is to announce the principle that those who are sent by God for the reform of humans are themselves humans just like the people that they have been sent to. Jesus, too, was a mortal human being, who was sent as a prophet and messenger to his people, the Israelites.

The verse that I recited refers to all the messengers sent by Allah before the Holy Prophet Muhammad and it says that every one of them told his people that he was a mortal like them. In the two verses before this, it is stated that when the messengers started preaching their mission to people, they rejected the messengers and said to them: “You are nothing but mortals like us” (14:10). So in this verse 11 which I read out here, the messengers confirmed to their people that indeed: “We are nothing but mortals like yourselves”.

The Quran mentions in several places the objection raised by people to the fact that their messengers were mere mortals. For example, they said: “Shall a (mere) mortal guide us?” (64:6) or they said: “Has Allah raised up a mortal to be a messenger?” (17:94). About the Holy Prophet Muhammad, they said to one another: “He is nothing but a mortal like yourselves” (21:3). But the Holy Prophet Muhammad is commanded in the Quran to say to his people that, yes, this is true: “I am only a mortal like you” (18:110, 41:6).

All the requirements and limitations of human physical life applied to each and every messenger of God. It is stated about all messengers:

“Nor did We give them bodies not eating food, nor did they live forever” (21:8).

One objection raised against the Holy Prophet by his rejectors was:

“What a Messenger is this? He eats food and goes about in the markets” (25:7)

and the answer given a few verses later is as follows:

“And We did not send before you any messengers but they surely ate food and went about in the markets” (25:20).

Eating food stands for satisfying the needs of the body which keep it alive, and going about in markets stands for everyday human activities of all kinds. But the people among whom the messengers came wanted the messengers to possess superhuman powers, to work wonders which no human can, to have no bodily limitations of the kind which restrict all humans.

In the particular case of Jesus too, the Quran says:

“The Messiah, son of Mary, was only a messenger — messengers had indeed passed away before him. And his mother was a truthful woman. They both used to eat food” (5:75).

This verse was revealed to correct the wrong belief that Jesus, son of Mary, was God, which is referred to in the verses before this. Both Jesus and Mary had the physical needs which every human being has. And as it was the law of God that every messenger passed away after completing the span of his life on this earth, this verse says that the same had applied to Jesus and Mary.

The Christian belief is that Jesus was born of a virgin, and there was no human male who made Mary pregnant with Jesus. This belief is connected with their concept of the original sin and its inheritance by every human being. According to this concept, Adam and Eve committed a sin, by going against a command of God not to eat the fruit of a certain tree, and as a consequence all humanity inherited from them the tendency to commit sin. So in order for Jesus to be born free of this sinful nature, as they imagined it to be, they had to believe that he was conceived without a father. In this way, he would not be a descendant of Adam and thus not inherit the so-called sinful nature from Adam.

But this raises the point that since Mary had both a father and a mother, then if it is true that sin is inherited by all humans, she would have a sinful nature. Therefore, Jesus, being born of Mary, could inherit a sinful nature from her, even if he didn’t have a father! To cover this point, they devised the belief that Mary was miraculously kept free of sin by God. In 2005 Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians issued an agreed report stating:

“In view of her vocation to be the mother of the Holy One (Luke 1:35), we can affirm together that Christ’s redeeming work reached back in Mary to the depths of her being, and to her earliest beginnings. She was preserved from all stain of original sin and from the first moment of her conception.” (Link to BBC website)

It is a most strange statement that Jesus’ purification work “reached back” in time, to the time when his mother was conceived in her mother’s womb! They have only made Mary free from sin because she was going to give birth to Jesus, and not on account of herself. She becomes nothing more than a vehicle for the birth of Jesus.

The Quran does not teach that every human being is inclined by his or her very nature, from birth, to commit sin. It says:

“Certainly We created the human in the best make. Then We reduce him to the lowest of the low, except those who believe and do good; so theirs is a reward never to be cut off” (95:4–6).

Being created “in the best make” is quite the opposite of being born with sin as his inheritance. It means that at his creation he has the potentialities to rise and advance, not fall. If he misbehaves, he is reduced to the lowest of the low, lower than any animal. But those who believe and do good deeds are not lowered but they will advance and advance. Their reward is “never to be cut off” because they will never regress and go backwards.

Mary is mentioned several times in the Quran, but it presents her as a holy person in her own right. Chapter 19 is entitled Mary. It relates briefly the histories of several prophets. These histories in each case begin with words such as the following: “And mention Abraham in the Book” (19:41), “And mention Moses in the Book” (19:51), “And mention Ishmael in the Book” (19:54), “And mention Idrīs in the Book” (19:56). In addition to the mention of these prophets, it relates the story of Mary giving birth to Jesus and that section begins with the words: “And mention Mary in the Book” (19:16). She is thus accorded an equal mention in the Quran alongside the greatest of prophets.

In chapter 3 the Quran relates her birth and early life. We are told that at Mary’s birth her mother prayed to God in these words:

“I have named it Mary, and I commend her and her offspring into Your protection from the accursed devil” (3:36).

This prayer clearly shows that Mary’s mother did not believe in the doctrine that humans are born with a sinful nature. She believed that God’s protection can safe­guard people from being misled by the devil. Mary’s mother prayed for Mary as well as for Mary’s offspring. Her prayer shows that she was envisaging a time when Mary would marry and have children. She obviously did not have in mind that Mary would conceive a child by herself without a human husband.

The account in the Quran then tells us that Mary became an accepted one of God. She was given in the charge of a holy man Zacharias and dedicated to the service of the Jewish temple as a child. Zacharias became highly impressed by her devotion and as he was himself childless he prayed to be granted such a virtuous child as Mary was. Allah accepted his prayer and granted him Yahya, or John the Baptist as he is called in the Gospels. The Quran says that Zacharias was told that this son would be “honourable and chaste and a prophet from among the good ones” (3:39). So a righteous boy, moreover a prophet, was granted to Zacharias to be worthy of the spiritual rank of a girl, Mary. This clearly shows that a female can set an example and a goal which males should aspire to attain. All this happened before the birth of Jesus, that highly righteous persons, one woman and one man, Mary and John the Baptist, came into this world as a result of prayer to God — the prayer of Mary’s mother and the prayer of John’s father. This shows that people close to the time of Jesus, just before his time, could also be righteous through the mercy of God without receiving any grace from Jesus.

Yahya or John the Baptist was born after his father, seeing the righteousness of Mary, prayed for such a child for himself and his elderly wife. After Yahya or John, Jesus is the second man who owes his righteousness to Mary. According to the Quran, before Mary was given the news by God of the birth of Jesus, she received the revela­tion:

“O Mary, surely Allah has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of the world” (3:42).

So she held this high position in the eyes of God before she had conceived Jesus or even knew that she would conceive Jesus. It is reasonable to conclude that, although Jesus was a prophet of God and therefore he was purified by God Himself, yet his mother’s noble character and spiritual qualities must have played a vital role in the upbringing of Jesus. It was not that Jesus made Mary a righteous woman and she owed her goodness to him, as the agreed doctrine of the Catholics and Protestants states. It was Mary who set an example of righteousness to Jesus and he owed this to her.

So may Allah enable us to present the true status of Mary and Jesus to the world: Mary — a woman chosen by God in her own right, and Jesus — a mortal prophet, before whom there were similar prophets and righteous humans  — ameen.

Website: www.aaiil.uk