43 Zukhruf(Gold), Mecca 63

The Quranic text & Ali’s version

وَلَمَّا ضُرِبَ ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ مَثَلًا إِذَا قَوْمُكَ مِنْهُ يَصِدُّونَ ﴿٥٧﴾

43;57. When (Jesus) the son of Mary is held up as an example, behold, thy people raise a clamor thereat (in ridicule)!

C4659. Jesus was a man, and a prophet to the Children of Israel, "though his own received him not."

Some of the churches that were founded after him worshipped him as "God" and as "the son of God", as do the Trinitarian churches to the present day. The orthodox churches did so in the time of the holy Prophet.

When the doctrine of Unity was renewed, and the false worship of others besides Allah was strictly prohibited, all false gods were condemned, e.g., at 21:98.

The pagan Arabs looked upon Jesus as being in the same category as their false gods, and could not see why a foreign cult, or a foreign god, as they viewed him, should be considered better than their own gods or idols.

There was no substance in this, but mere mockery, and verbal quibbling. Jesus was one of the greater prophets: he was not a god, nor was he responsible for the quibbling subtleties of the Athanasian Creed.

وَقَالُوا أَآلِهَتُنَا خَيْرٌ أَمْ هُوَ مَا ضَرَبُوهُ لَكَ إِلَّا جَدَلًا...

43;58. And they say, "Are Our gods best, or He?"

This they set forth to thee, only by way of disputation:

...بَلْ هُمْ قَوْمٌ خَصِمُونَ ﴿٥٨﴾

yea, they are a contentious people.

إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا عَبْدٌ أَنْعَمْنَا عَلَيْهِ وَجَعَلْنَاهُ مَثَلًا لِّبَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ ﴿٥٩﴾

43;59. He was no more than a servant:

We granted Our favor to him, and We made him an example to the Children of Israel.

C4660. A reference to the limited mission of the prophet Jesus, whose Gospel to the Jews only survives in uncertain fragmentary forms.

وَلَوْ نَشَاء لَجَعَلْنَا مِنكُم مَّلَائِكَةً فِي الْأَرْضِ يَخْلُفُونَ ﴿٦٠﴾

43;60. And if it were Our Will, We could make angels from amongst you, succeeding each other on the earth.

C4661. If it were said that the birth of Jesus without a father sets him above other prophets, the creation of angels without either father or mother would set them still higher, especially as angels do not eat and drink and are not subject to physical laws. But angels are not higher.

Asad’s version

43:57 NOW WHENEVER [the nature of] the son of Mary is set forth as an example, [O

Muhammad,] lo! thy people raise an outcry on this score,

(43:58) and say, "Which is better - our deities or he?" 45 [But] it is only in the spirit of dispute that they put this comparison before thee: yea, they are contentious folk! 45

43:59 [As for Jesus,] he was nothing but [a human being -] a servant [of Ours] whom We had graced [with prophethood], and whom We made an example for the children of Israel. (43:60) And had We so willed, [O you who worship angels,] We could indeed have made you into angels succeeding one another on earth! 47

[[Asad’s notes - 45 Objecting to the Qur'anic condemnation of their idolatrous worship of angels - whom they describe here as "our deities" - the pagan Quraysh pointed to the parallel Christian worship of Jesus as "the son of God", and even as "God incarnate", and argued more or less thus: "The Qur'an states that Jesus was purely human - and yet the Christians, whom the same Qur'an describes as 'followers of earlier revelation' (ahl al-kitab), consider him divine. Hence; are we not rather justified in our worshipping

angels, who are certainly superior to a mere human being?" The fallacy inherent in this

"argument" is disposed of in the sequence.

46 Since the Qur'an condemns explicitly, and in many places, the deification of Jesus by the Christians, this unwarranted deification cannot be used as an argument in favour of the pagan worship of angels and, thus, against the Qur'an: in the words of Zamakhshari, such an argument amounts to "applying a false analogy to a false proposition" (qiyas batil bi-batil).

47 Implying not only that Jesus was not a supernatural being, but that the angels, too, are mere created beings finite in their existence - as indicated by the phrase "succeeding one another" - and, therefore, utterly removed from the status of divinity (Baydawi). ]]