Mahmoud connects Christ to Islam

“You guys are all under my enchanted spell,” Mahmoud, a lecturer in Near Eastern studies, then said to the audience in McCormick 101.

Rather than a spell, what he had said was a prayer for courage used by Moses. Mahmoud said he would need it to complete his talk, which focused on the importance of Jesus Christ to Muslims, who consider him to be a prophet.

The gospel of Jesus according to Muhammed is “everything that has been written about Jesus from a Muslim pen,” Mahmoud said, because there is actually no specific gospel text that the prophet himself wrote about Jesus.

Mahmoud discussed the significance of Jesus’ titles in Islam, which refers to him as the word of God and the messiah.

Jesus is called the word of God because “God said ‘be’ and Jesus came to be,” Mahmoud said.

He went on to explain that Jesus has the specific title of messiah because the word is associated with rubbing, anointing and wiping.

“God wiped out any sins he could have possibly done,” Mahmoud said. “He’s the one whose slate is wiped clean.”

Mahmoud shifted gears to describe the importance of Mary, mother of Jesus, to Islam.

“Mary is the perfect woman in Islam,” Mahmoud said. “The prophet Muhammed was very ardent about establishing the place of Mary in the Muslim context.”

Citing the Quran, Mahmoud said that Mary’s mother prayed for a boy but gave birth to a girl.

God purposely gave Mary’s mother a daughter because “the male can’t do what this female can do or achieve what this female can achieve,” Mahmoud said.

Mahmoud also discussed the statements attributed to Jesus in the Muslim faith. While some of the statements cannot be adequately authenticated, Mahmoud explained that “how Jesus is venerated and how he is celebrated in the heart of the average, of the everyday Muslim” is important.

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Additionally, Mahmoud enumerated various miracles Jesus performed that are not mentioned in the Christian gospels.

For instance, Mahmoud said that Jesus could tell people everything that they had in their house without ever entering their house.

“Of course, after being born of a virgin you can pretty much do anything,” Mahmoud said jokingly.

Discussing the beginnings of cross-faith discourse, Mahmoud told a story about a Christian ruler in what is now Ethiopia who protected Muslims fleeing from persecution in Mecca at the hands of non-Muslim tribesmen. The ruler granted the Muslims refuge after hearing their version of the nativity story.

Mahmoud said that after hearing the story, the ruler drew a line on the ground and said “the difference between us and you is no different [from] this line.”

“This was the very first interfaith dialogue between the Muslims and the Christians, historically speaking,” Mahmoud explained.

Mahmoud’s lecture was a part of Islam Awareness Week.

The week of activities is co-sponsored by the Muslim Students Association, the Projects Board, the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, the Department of Near Eastern Studies, the Office of Religious Life and SALAAM, the Arab society of Princeton.