Muhammad and Christ. Maulana Muhammad Ali
accept this evidence, the Gospel of St. Mark may be said to have been based on the oral tradition of Peter, but even this evidence does not make it certain that the Gospel in our hands was actually written by St. Mark and higher criticism favours the view that he was only the author of the nucleus of the present Gospel ascribed to him.
St. Luke too was not a disciple of Jesus but a disciple of the Apostles and he is said to have followed St. Paul. And as regards the fourth Gospel, there is no doubt that it is a much later composition. As regards the dates of the various Gospels, the most favourable view as regards the first three Gospels is that they were written about the year A.D. 70, but higher criticism favours a much later date, and internal evidence is regarded to point to this conclusion. In a discussion as to the date of canonical Matthew we are told that “many are disposed to bring down the date of the entire Gospel as late as to A.D. 130.” An earlier date can only be admitted if a great many passages are treated as later interpolations. As regards the date of St. Luke the conclusion arrived at is that “the year A.D. 100 will be the superior, and somewhere about A.D. 110 the inferior, limit of the date of its composition” [Encyclopaedia Biblica].
The considerations as to the authorship, the date and transmission of the Gospels, the very large variety of manuscripts and readings and the undeniable existence of interpolations in them reduce their credibility to the minimum; and hence a criticism of them in the Encyclopaedia Biblica leads the Rev. E.A. Abbot to raise a very important question:
The forgoing sections may have sometimes seemed to raise a doubt whether any credible elements were to be found in the Gospels at all.
The answer to this question is that in all the Gospels, the following five passages may be treated as surely credible:
1. The passage that shows that Jesus refused to be called sinless: “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God”. [Mark 10:18]
2. The passage that shows that he held that blasphemy against himself could be forgiven: “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men”. [Mark 12:31]
3. The passage that shows that his own mother and brethren had no faith in him and they sincerely thought that he was mad: And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him; for they said, He is beside himself’. [Mark3:21] From v. 31 it appears that these friends were his own mother and his brothers.
4. The passage that shows that Jesus Christ had no knowledge of the unseen: “Of that day and of that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the son but the Father.”
5. The passage that speaks of the cry of despair that he uttered on the cross: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me”. [Matt.27:44]
To these five are added four others dealing with his miracles which will be referred to in the discussion on his miracles later on, and these nine passages are said to be “the foundation-pillar for a truly scientific life of Jesus.”
It would thus be seen that the basis of the Christian religion is laid on the most unreliable record, and the stories of the miracles wrought and the wonderful deeds done, on which is based the doctrine of the Divinity of Jesus Christ and of his superiority to all mortals, can therefore be only received with the greatest caution. It must, however, be borne in mind that mere superiority of Jesus Christ as a mortal to another mortal, says the Holy Founder of Islam, does not bring us a whit nearer the truth of the Christian religion unless it is shown that he possessed a Divine nature or that he did deeds which no mortal has ever done. If the Christian religion had followed the principles laid down by the earlier prophets, the assertion that Jesus Christ was a greater man than any other human being that ever lived, would have done some good to the cause of Christianity, but so long as the atonement of the sins of men by a Divine person remains the central doctrine of that religion, nothing less than a clear proof that his superiority to other mortals lay in being Divine and above a mortal can be of any use to its cause. It is in this light that a discussion of the relative merits of Christianity and Islam, or of the relative greatness of their founders, can really help a seeker after truth. But as Christian controversy finds itself unable to cope with this question, I will take the various points as they are raised by Christian controversialists. I take the Christian case as presented in the latest of their pamphlets, a small tract issued by the Christian Missionary Society at Ludhiana, under the title of Haqa’iq-i Qur’an, or the “Quranic Truths” which claims to have been based only on “the Quranic statements,” and which has been circulated and broadcast in India and, through the pages of Muslim World, in all Christian and Muslim countries.
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