Читать книгу Towards Understanding the Qur'an - Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi - Страница 255

Al-Nisa’ 4: 171

(which led to Mary’s con- ception). So believe in Allah and in His Messengers and do not say: “(Allah is a) trinity.”101 Give up this assertion; it would be better for you. Allah is indeed just One God. Far be it from His glory that He should have a son.102 ▶

Jesus with a pure, impeccable soul. He was, therefore, an embodiment of truth, veracity, righteousness, and excellence. This is what the Christians had been told about Christ. But they exceeded the proper limits of veneration for Jesus, the “spirit from God” became the “spirit of God”, and the “spirit of holiness” was interpreted to mean God’s own Spirit which became incarnate in Jesus. Thus, along with God and Jesus, there also developed the third person of God – the Holy Ghost.

101 It is urged that the Trinitarian doctrine, whatever its forms, should be abandoned. The fact is that Christians subscribe simultaneously to the unity and the trinity of God. The statements of Jesus on this question in the Gospels, however, are so categorical that no Christian can easily justify anything but the clear, straightforward doctrine that God is One and that there is no god but He. The Christians, therefore, find it impossible to deny that monotheism is the very core of true religion. But the original confusion that in Jesus the Word of God became flesh, that the Spirit of God was incarnate in him, led them to believe in the Godhead of Jesus and of the Holy Ghost along with that of God (the Father). This gratuitous assumption gave rise to an insoluble riddle: how to combine monotheism with the notion of trinity.

102 This is the refutation of the fourth extravagance in which the Christians have indulged. Even if the reports embodied in the New Testament are considered authentic, the most that can be inferred from them, (particularly those embodied in the first three Gospels), is that Jesus likened the relationship between God and His servants to that between a father and his children, and that he used to employ the term “father” as a metaphor for God. But in this respect Jesus was not unique. From very ancient times the Israelites had employed the term “father” for God. The Old Testament is full of examples of this usage. Jesus obviously employed this expression in conformity with the literary usage of his people. Moreover, he characterized God not merely as his own father but as the father of all human beings. Nevertheless, the Christians exceeded all reasonable limits when they declared Jesus to be the only begotten son of God.

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