said : ' After my death trays full of light will come, and by the blessing of that light you will know the languages of all tribes. '
Some say that the Jews, by the advice of that bad king, and by means of an old Apostle, seized Jesus and imprisoned him all night, and in the morning prepaied a cross on which to crucify him. Then great darkness fell, and angels released Jesus from prison and carried him up on high, and took the old man prisoner. The Jews, thinking he was Jesus, quickly killed him, and he was cruci- fied, though he protested that he was not Jesus, but the man who had betrayed him. The Jews did not believe it. All historians say Mary was then alive. Others say the Jews watched and guarded the cave where Jesus was, but Jesus at night was taken up under cover of darkness. In the morning the Jews sent a man to find Jesus, but he returned and said that no one was there. Then the Jews said : ' Thou art Jesus,' and crucified him.
Others say the Jews imprisoned him with eighteen men in a house. Jesus said : ' If one of you will assume my appearance, God will reward you in Paradise.' One agreed. Jesus ascended on high. In the morning the Jews said, ' There were eighteen men with Jesus ; one is short.' The l^risoners said Jesus had gone on high ; but the Jews saw one like Jesus and crucified him. After a few days Jesus returned to the Apostles ; then he died, but God restored him to life and made him like an angel.
It is said that at the last day, when Dajjal the Qursed, Avith Imam Mahdi, collects the people at morning prayers, Jesus will appear on the Mosque at Jerusalem, and will descend to join Imam Mahdi, and kill Dajjal. He will engage in Jihad, or wars of religion, and bring people to Islam. Such will be his justice that the lion and the sheep will dwell together, and children will play with serpents. When Jesus dies again, the burial prayers (na)naz-i-Janazah) will be said over him, and he will be buried in the tomb of Mohammed at Medina.
Literature. — The Christology of the Koran is the subject of a considerable literature, which is best represented in recent times by Ed. Sa.yons, Jesus-Christ d'aprhs Mahomet, Paris, 1880. Somewhat earlier are Gerock, Versuch einer Darstelhuu) der Christologie des Korans, Hamburg and Gotha, 1839 ; and Man- neval, La Christologie du Koran, Toulouse, 1867. See also H. Preserved Smith, The Bible and Islam, New York, 1897 ; and the missionary tract ' Islam and Christianity,' American Tract Society, 1891.
In the post-Koranic literature of Islam three classes of writers are occupied with the Person of Christ, for different purposes.
1. The theologians. — These persons, so far as they argue with Christians, are compelled to discredit the Christian Gospels, against which they urge objections often identical with those popularized in recent times by Strauss. The remarkable treatise by Ibn IJazm (d. 1063 A.D.), published in Cairo, 1903-4, repre- sents the extreme of negative criticism. The author refuses to trust the Gospels even for the names of the Apostles ; nothing whatever, he holds, is known about 'Isa beyond the statements of the Koran. For the mode in which his arguments can be met we may refer to St. Clair Tisdall, Muhammadan Objections to Christianity, 1904. Ibn pazm's view is not generally popular among Moslems ; and some, suchasFakhral-din al-Razi(d. 1209), a commentator of high repute, even use the Gospels to illus- trate the Koran. This practice is imitated by the Egyptian mufti, Mohammed Abdo, from whom Islam expected so nuich, in the commentaries which are published in the Cairene bi-monthly Mandr. It is not unusual to find illustrations of the Koran from the Gospels in commentaries by authors who would not consult them ; in such cases they are given after a chain of authorities going back to one of the companions of the Prophet.
2. The preachers. — The Moslem sermon ordinarily consists largely of anecdotes or maxims connected with persons of eminence. These include prophets ; Greek, Roman, and Persian sagos ; companions of the Prophet ; and Moslem saints. In the works of these writers the name of 'Isa figures very fre- (|uently, the sayings and doings assigned to Him being some- times traceable to the Gospels, but often assigned in different works to a variety of persons. A great quantity bearing the name 'Is.a are to be found in the great homiletic encyclojjiedia called ' Revival of the Religious Sciences,' by al-(ihazzali (nb. 1126 A.D.), whence they were collected and translated in the
Expository Times (Nov. and Dec. 1903, and Jan. 1904) by D. S. Margoliouth.
3. The story-tellers. — The profession of these persons does not differ technically from that of the preachers ; but, as their pur- pose is only to entertain, they may be distinguished from those who aim at reforming. The work by Tha'libi (d. 1036) cited above, called ' Tales of the Prophets,' emanates from this class, whom the more serious preachers reproach for their mendacity {LuziDniyyat of Abu 'l-'Ala of Ma'arrah, ii. 77, Cairo, 1895). The stories told by them are often purely the product of their fancy, though at times they go back to some apocryphal Gospel, or some passage of the Old Testament. The character of Christ, as it appears in Moslem fabrications, is modelled on that of the S^lJi saint, who is a benevolent ascetic. Ibn 'Arabi (d. 1240 a. d.), the chief mystical writer of Islam, accounts for the mild, philanthropic, and non-resistent character of Christianity by the fact that its founder was fatherless. That Christ will return to judge the world according to the law of S: ohammed is a text on which his ' Meccan Revelations ' contain niany a homily. Tbe Christian doctrine of the 'Son of God' was attributed by Mgsnious Moslems to a misreading of Ps 27 ' Thou art my Son,' in Arabic bunayya, which should have been read nabiyyun, ' a prophet,' two words which, in the ordinary Arabic writing, are barely distinguishable {al-Bhaith al-Musajjam) In the anecdotes told by the preachers, the Apostles are ordinarily made to address him as ' O Spirit of God ' or ' O Word of God,' for both of which there is authority in the Koran. As has been pointed out above, the third Person of the Trinity was sup- posed by the Moslems to be the Virgin.