Mohammed Yunus, 22 December 2009

on: A Christmas Meditation, by William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple’s essay comes at a moment when the worlds of Islam and Christianity seem to be on a collision course, and is therefore worthy of wide readership in the Islamic world. Muslims regard their Prophet (Muhammad) with inordinate love and devotion, as reflects in their vociferous and even violent reactions to attempts to lampooning him in the media or literary works. but there is hardly any visibility of their devotion to Jesus Christ. Islam not only venerates Jesus Christ and his Mother, Mary, as the essay amply demonstrates, it also asks Muslims to make no distinction between any of the Prophets (2:177, 2:285, 4:152, 57:19).

Historically Muslim scholarship has remained silent about these complementarities, and instead, focused on the differences between the two faiths. But today, when increasing gap, hatred and mistrust between Islam and Christianity is leading to terrorism and “Just wars” with terrible consequences, its time that Muslim scholarship takes notice of the common boundaries, and encourages the Muslims to visibly showing devotion to Jesus Christ by celebrating the Christmas, and praying for peace together with their Christian brothers.