Comparing Jesus And Muhammad: Transfiguration,sin, And Much More Series

16. Opposition

Both Muhammad and Jesus were at first tolerated then opposed severely by those who desired the status quo. Such will it ever be when new ideas come to a community. In both cases, it was a religious community that was being invaded with these ideas.

With Muhammad, a military invasion followed the original introduction of his religion. Jesus continued to go about doing good for those in need, but the more good He did, the more that evil men hated Him.

Both were accused of being demon-possessed. In Muhammad's case, that accusation came from himself at first. Jesus never had such doubts about His identity. Before He was thrust into the wilderness to be savagely tempted of the Devil, He had heard the Voice of the Father claiming that He, Jesus, was the Son in whom He, the Father, delighted.

Families were divided over both men. Their pull was real but not all-inclusive enough to make everyone feel comfortable in leaving all for them. There were those who loved them passionately and others who hated them with the same zeal. The lovers and haters of Muhammad eventually took up arms.

So with the haters of Jesus. But His lovers laid them down. True followers of Jesus through the centuries have been in their Christian experience promoters of the peace the Gospel gives through its own power, not the power of clubs and swords and guns.

Muhammad's idea of "Prophet" was not the Biblical model. He seemed to think that military might made his revelations right. Lings quotes him as giving this pre-war encouragement at one of his many battles:

"It is not for a Prophet, when he hath put on his armor, to take it off until God hath judged between him and his enemies. So look to what I bade you do, and do it, and go forward in the Name of Allah. The victory is yours, if ye be steadfast."

This is the language of the military rulers of men, not the armies of Heaven and God's people, who have a totally different sort of prophet, different armor, different God, and different victory.

Muhammad's greatest men were military heroes. Jesus taught His men that the greatest were to be servants of all, a life which He modeled.

Interestingly enough, poets were among Muhammad's verbal attackers. Muhammad made it clear that such men must die. The contrast of this thinking with that of Jesus is clear. Consider all those who lifted their hands against God the Son in the final days of His life here. And consider His response.

17. Heaven and Hell

Muhammad's heaven is based on man's fleshly desires. Lots of good food. Shade for sleep. Here men will have non-ending sexual encounters with virgins who will ever remain virgins. It's not at first clear how the women, the non-virgins, will be occupying their time.

Besides men and women, "jinns" have a possibility of reaching the Promised Land, too. Jinns in Islam are troublesome spirits, something like demons.

The hell of Muhammad is a constant theme of the Koran. All but Muslims will be there. However, the Koran adds that if God can find the goodness of "weight of a grain of mustard seed" in any man in hell, that man will be lifted out and placed at the entrance to Paradise.

Another serious difference between the afterlife of Jesus and Muhammad: the presence of the Divine. Muhammad's future land seems to be a place where Allah places people, as he himself goes on with whatever he was doing.

In the Christian "by and by", Jesus promises that he Himself will be present, and will in fact be the center of things. Astoundingly enough we see the entire headquarters of the Heavenly realm, Father and Son and all the angels, moving to this planet and actually fellowshipping eternally with men.

With that sort of fellowship, we will not be in need of the virgins, thank you. And our food will be, to be in His Presence. As to people being taken out of hell, Jesus taught no such thing. Hell is as eternal as Heaven. And evil spirits in Heaven? No, not in God's Heaven. Nothing that defiles will ever enter there.

Muhammad promised heaven, or paradise, to all who would go to battle with him, and especially to his "10 companions", the group created and named in his effort perhaps to duplicate the "12 disciples" of Jesus, to whom Heaven was also promised.

But Heaven is promised to any faithful follower of Jesus today. Those who suffer with Him are in fact told they will reign with him.

Now, humans reigning in the future is not something I ran across as I traveled through the Koran. Pleasure unimaginable, of a fleshly sort, but no responsibility. The concept of Allah's aloofness from His creation would allow none of this sort of thing.