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Those Who Follow Isa صلى الله عليه وسلم
Aal-e-Imran 3:55
إِذۡ قَالَ ٱللَّهُ يَٰعِيسَىٰٓ إِنِّى مُتَوَفِّيكَ وَرَافِعُكَ إِلَىَّ وَمُطَهِّرُكَ مِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ وَجَاعِلُ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱتَّبَعُوكَ فَوۡقَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوٓاْ إِلَىٰ يَوۡمِ ٱلۡقِيَٰمَةِۖ ثُمَّ إِلَىَّ مَرۡجِعُكُمۡ فَأَحۡكُمُ بَيۡنَكُمۡ فِيمَا كُنتُمۡ فِيهِ تَخۡتَلِفُونَ
A few questions arise with this ayah:
1. What terms of superiority is being granted? Couldn’t it simple be in terms of rank near God and piety?
2. Who follows isa صلى الله عليه وسلم ? If the Christians followed him then they’d be monotheists (true, pure monotheism).
3. If there’s no true followers then God doesn’t have to do anything right? Because there’s no one to make superior
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Those Who Follow Isa صلى الله عليه وسلم
updated 3 years, 6 months ago
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4. Could the verse just be referring to the disciples? Because it’s those who اتبعوك. So the disciples would have superiority in terms of rank near God until the day of judgement
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Also did the actual disciples ever get any worldly power?
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How is having superiority in piety a prophecy? doesn’t this go against the whole scheme of test and trial?
Being a pious person should not be considered a worldly superiority, had it only been piety, then Quran shouldn’t have limited this superiority to the end of the world only, this should’ve been extended to the hereafter as well. And having domination solely does not guarantee their piety in any way or their righteousness, neither does it prove that they are completely monotheists. It is a declaration of punishment for Bani-Israel, not a free pass for Christians w.r.t their piety. You can also see it in the context where at another place Quran calls the people destroying Bani-Israel as ‘Allah’s people’, despite the fact they were not.
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But we can see that the followers of isa صلى الله عليه وسلم were not given any domination but were rather persecuted until around 300-400 years after isa صلى الله عليه وسلم was taken up
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The Christianity started to spread a few decades after the death of Jesus (sws). Judaism had received the status of a legal religion in the Roman Empire with formal protections. It’s true were Christians were formally punished for their beliefs during the first two centuries AD. But the Roman state’s official position was generally to ignore Christians unless they clearly challenged imperial authority. But what does timeline have to do with this?
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If there is to be domination in all terms from the time that isa صلى الله عليه وسلم was raised to the day of judgement then this is not domination.
Also if we see Israel today- it is hardly under the domination of any state.
The verse says ‘those who followed you’ (past tense) and ‘those who disbelieved in you’ (past tense). So surely in the principle of the sunnah of Allah- the disbelievers of Noah صلى الله عليه وسلم were killed right then and there and the believers were given victory. The case is the same with salih صلى الله عليه وسلم and hud صلى الله عليه وسلم . So why were the believers of isa صلى الله عليه وسلم actually persecuted and humiliated rather than gaining dominance?
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Also we are the followers of isa صلى الله عليه وسلم also. We are hardly dominating the Jews.
And can the Christians that actually follow Paul even be termed as followers of isa صلى الله عليه وسلم? In what way would they be ‘following him’?
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So Christianity becoming a state religion of Romans in just 3 centuries doesn’t look to you as dominance? and till today, jews are subservient to Christianity. Domination means that fate of jews is in the hands of countries who are followers of Jesus (sws). Just like that Sunnat-ullah (which manifested itself in case of Prophets Noah, Salih and Hud), similarly, this sunnat ullah of ‘reward and punishment’ specific to Bani-Israel has also been described separately:
Discussion 37972 • Reply 37978
I don’t see this as a yardstick whether Christians of today are true followers of Jesus (sws) or not, whoever is claiming to be a follower of Jesus (sws), they will be used as a tool to dominate Bani-Israel. This is not a statement of Piety by Quran, it is a statement of eternal punishment on Bani-Israel instead.
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The domination is supposed to start right at the time of the bribers when a rasul is punished. That’s how it always happens. The rasul and the believers gain dominance. The believers of that time clearly did not gain domination.
It says that ‘those who followed you’ will be above those who disbelieved. In what way are the Christians of today followers of isa صلى الله عليه وسلم ? Just name one specific teaching of his which is from him that they follow and not from Paul.
We Muslims follow isa صلى الله عليه وسلم and as I said we are hardly dominating the Jews. It doesn’t say ‘I will make some of those who follow you’ but ‘those who follow you’- implying all of the followers to be dominators.
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I the context of punishment, there are two phases of punishments imposed on Bani-Israel. The first phase was destruction and humiliation of first generation of Bani-Israel, which was done within 70 years of demise of Prophet Isa (sws) and was done as a punishment for rejecting Rasul (but the severity of punishment was different because of their association with monotheism in principle), the second punishment has thus been imposed on Bani-Israel for their betrayal from their rank of Shahdah, which was imposed till the day of judgement. The rasul and believers don’t always gain dominance, the rule is that rejecters will be destroyed no matter what. It can be either in the form of a divine punishment or through the swords of followers of Prophet. Either way, they will be destroyed. Let’s not confuse these two phases of punishments.
I understand your point regarding how can Christians of today be considered as true followers of Jesus (sws), seeing from your perspective, it does raise this concern. But also try to see it from my perspective, where it was a mere statement of punishment and not an explanation of any criteria in this regard (as I presented above).
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Ghamidi Sahab has commented on this matter in the following video, please refer from 1:04:52 to 1:06:30
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