Hisham Mahmoud is a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA, and has studied in
Egypt, Mauritania, Spain, and speaks more than four languages. He
came to UCLA Tuesday evening not as a student, but as a lecturer of
the program called Jesus: The Prophet of Islam, From the Miraculous
Birth to His Final Return.
His lecture occurred in conjunction with Islamic Awareness Week,
which is organized by the Muslim Student Association.
“This is definitely one of our most interesting topics,
because we live in a society that is a majority Christian and
Jewish,” said Adam Elsayed, a third-year political science
transfer student and member of MSA who helped organize the
week’s events.
“Islam is not the foreign religion people think it
is,” he said.
The week has already sparked interest in religious groups, and
Tuesday’s event has been welcomed by members of the UCLA
religious community.
“I think it’s good that Muslim students are looking
at these things and examining their faith; it would be good for the
Christians to examine their own faith. I think anything about
deepening religious awareness is good,” said Ted Vierra, the
interim director of the University Catholic Center.
“Superficial understandings of religion by Muslims or
Christians can lead to extremism.”
Mahmoud brought textual evidence from both Christian and Islamic
documents together to provide background information for his
ideas.
He began by showing how connected these two religions are,
though most people might not realize it.
“Two-fifths of the world population, two billion people,
share much more than what we had in mind. Two-fifths of the world
accept Jesus’ virgin birth and his miracles,” Mahmoud
said.
“With so much in common, one would wonder why there is
such a divide between us,” he said.
Mahmoud explained that the Muslim tradition even borrows some
narrative from the Christian Gospel.
“Jesus of Nazareth plays a very important role in Islamic
tradition and the Koran, and people may not think that’s the
case,” said Scott Bartchy, a professor in the history
department and director of the Center for the Study of
Religion.
“By the fourth century it was conventional for Christians
to refer to Jesus as God’s son, and they began to think about
Jesus as a God rather than the God who is simply mentioned in the
Hebrew scriptures,” Bartchy said.
Though Muslims do not believe Jesus to be God, they do believe
in the miracles Jesus performed, and he is termed a messiah in the
Koran, Bartchy explained.
Mahmoud pointed out that within the Koran there is much writing
on the Virgin Mary, and that Muslims believe in her immaculate
conception, which is a continuity between the two religions.
But discontinuity still exists in how each religion reveres
Jesus.
Muslims refer to textual evidence in the New Testament, which
states that Jesus is a prophet, Bartchy explained.
In the book of Mark, Jesus is said to have turned to his
disciples and asked who people think he is. They responded that
people think he is a prophet, Bartchy said.
He noted that this may cause Christians to feel that Jesus is
being demoted, but that Jesus’ first reputation as a prophet
did actually originate from the Christian texts.
Muslims still hold Jesus in great esteem, and uphold many of his
teachings.
Mahmoud explained that there are multiple themes embodied by
Jesus’ teachings.
“Jesus said, be kind to those who are unkind to you, visit
those who don’t visit you ““ that’s a high road of
morality,” Mahmoud said, asking the audience if they would
lend money to someone they knew wouldn’t repay them.
He posed further questions to the audience, showing that
Jesus’ teachings are the same in the Koran and the Bible.
“What are we all chasing after? The almighty dollar. What
is the general complaint among people? Bills to pay, loans to get
rid of. Everyone is trying to get rich. In a state of being
discontent we say, God I ask you for more. But you don’t give
me what I ask for,” Mahmoud said.
He explained that the answer is a lack of money, which Jesus saw
as the source of all ills.
Though many religions can find answers within their holy texts,
there is still no single answer to the conflicted views that
Christians and Muslims share about religion, and Jesus
specifically.
Tuesday’s event helped show that aside from their
differences, there are still similarities that unite the two
religions.
“As long as people find a greater understanding of Islam,
then our goal is met,” said Faryal Humkar, a third-year
communications student and MSA member who helped organize the
week’s events. “As long as one person’s views are
changed and they learn something they didn’t know before, it
is a success for us.”