Before explaining the matter of trinity, it is necessary to make some observations and explicatory remarks on Ishâ-i-Rabbânî. As we have already mentioned earlier, Ishâ-i-Rabbânî (the Eucharist) is one of the tenets of the Christian belief. Accordingly, since it is believed by Christians that Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ is one of the three persons each of which is a true god, Christians, so to say, unite with him by eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Thus the sins they have committed are pardoned, they believe, at the cost of sacrificing the Son of God [May Allâhu ta’âlâ protect us from saying or believing so]. And they believe that when a priest breathes (a certain prayer) on a piece of leavened or unleavened bread and on some wine, the bread becomes the flesh of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ and the wine becomes his blood.
They say that this fact is written in the twenty-sixth and later verses of the twenty-sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, in the twenty-second and later verses of the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, in the nineteenth and later verses of the twenty-second chapter of the Gospel of Luke. In fact, an event that was carried out when Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ was alive is narrated in these Gospels. Yet none of the Gospels contains any written account of a commandment such as, “After me, always do the same and have your sins pardoned by sacrificing me.” It is written in the nineteenth verse of the twenty-second chapter of the Gospel of Luke: “this do in remembrance of me.” But this does not mean to say, “Practice this as (an event of) deliverance from sins” or “Make this a principle of belief.” Christians share and consume bread and wine in churches. Thus, they believe, Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ is sacrificed, eaten, and drunk. In the matter of bread and wine’s changing into flesh and blood, which means the sacrifice of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’, there are various interpretations among Christian churches. According to the creed held by some of them, “Only bread and wine change into the body and blood of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ and eventually become Îsâ himself.”
When several thousand priests breathe on the pieces of bread in their hands and consecrate them, at the same time, the Christs thus made by all these priests are either different from one another or the same as one another. Their being different runs counter to the Christian cult. [For it means that many Christs, or gods (May Allâhu ta’âlâ protect us from saying so), come into being.] Their being the same, on the other hand, is contrary to the nature of matter. For the substance of each of them is different from that of another. It is an apparent fact that one thing cannot be at different places at the same moment. For this reason, the pieces of bread breathed on and made sacred cannot be one Christ. This, in its turn, is rejected by Christianity. For Christians believe in the existence of only one Jesus.
When a priest divides a loaf of bread into three pieces and gives each piece to a different person, either the Christs that came into being by the changing of the bread is broken into pieces, or each piece is an entire Christ. According to the first proposition, God is broken into pieces. Believing in God’s being broken into pieces is not compatible with any religion.
As for the second proposition; the bread has already been changed to one Christ. Whence do the various Christs come when the bread is broken into pieces? According to Christians’ belief, Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ came to earth as the propitiation of people’s sins and sacrificed himself. If the sacrifice of Ishâ-i-Rabbânî which priests are practicing in churches today is the same as the sacrifice which was once being performed on the cross by Jewry, then the first Ishâ-i-Rabbânî which was performed when Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ was alive by making the Apostles eat bread and drink wine would have been enough for the expiation of peoples’ sins. So the sacrificial crucifixion of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ on a wooden cross by Jewry — as it is believed so by Christians — would have been unnecessary. Nor would there be any reason for priests to carry out [sacramental] ceremonies all over the world. It is written at the end of the ninth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews that the self-sacrifice of Hadrat Îsâ for the expiation of peoples sins is an event that happened only once.
[Ulfat ’Azîz as-Samed, one of the teaching staff of Peshaver University, states as follows in the section (The Sources of the Christian Doctrine) of his book titled A Comparative Study of Christianity and Islam, the third edition of which was published in 1399 [A.D. 1976] in Pakistan:
“In the foregoing pages it has been shown that the religion of Jesus had very little in common with Christianity as it developed sometime after his passing away and as it is believed by the various Christian churches. Jesus was a prophet, a man who conveyed and preached to his people the truth which had been revealed to him through inspiration by God. He exhorted them to repent and give up their evil ways. Jesus was a reformer and reviver of the true religion of Moses and other Prophets, and not the founder of a new faith. His was the religion of Sermon, and not of Sacrament. He had come to show men the way to the Kingdom of Heaven, which they could attain through the love of God and good deeds, and not to redeem them by deliberately dying on the cross as vicarious sacrifice for their sins. After his departure from this world, his immediate followers formed themselves into a community called the Nazarenes. They lived in Jerusalem and chose James, the brother of Jesus, as their head. The Nazarenes were undoubtedly faithful followers of the religion of Jesus and believed in the single personality of God and in Jesus as the Messenger of God. They strictly observed the Law of Moses in all matters, as Jesus himself had instructed them to do.
“Jesus had come, as he had said, for the ‘lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ The Jews who lived in Jerusalem were only a small fraction of the total Israelite population of the world. There were large Jewish colonies in lands surrounding Palestine. At the time of Jesus’ birth Alexandria was a great centre of learning and culture. A large number of religions and schools of philosophy flourished there. The Jews of the dispersion had come under the influence of Greek philosophy and of Mystery Cults, each with its own saviour-god. [After the short-lived Prophetic mission of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’, which had lasted only three years, the Jews who believed in him increased in number.] When the religion of Jesus spread to these Jews and many of them accepted him as the promised Messiah, they interpreted him and his message in the light of Greek philosophy and pagan cults. Thus, quite early in its history the religion of Jesus began to undergo a transformation and several different versions of it emerged. The first sign of change was a shift in emphasis from the teaching of Jesus to an interest in his person, and the consequent attempt to glorify him. Dr. Morton Scott Enslin, who is one of the greatest Christian scholars of our time, writes in this connection:
‘An interest in the person of Jesus, a desire to explain who he was and to interpret everything in terms of him, came gradually to obscure the fact that he had never made such claims for himself, but had been content to proclaim God’s purpose for the nation and to call it to repentance. Thus Jesus became more and more one whose person was to be understood and explained rather than one whose teaching was to be believed and obeyed.’
“This tendency ultimately led to the identification of Jesus with the Greek Logos, as this concept had been expounded by the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo, and so the consequent deification of Jesus. [We shall tell about Philo in the section “Proving the falsity of trinity by means of the statements of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ ” of our book.] The writings of the Church Fathers of this period are full of unedifying and, to the modern mind, senseless controversies about the nature of Christ, his relation to God the Father, and attempts to reconcile the Godhood of Jesus with the doctrine of monotheism, on which Jesus had laid so much stress. The religion of Jesus and of the Jerusalem community of his followers was nothing more than a reformed sect of Judaism, but among the Jews of the dispersion and their Gentile neighbours, who had neither seen Jesus nor had firsthand acquaintance with his teaching, and who moreover lived in a totally different social and intellectual environment, a new religion, absolutely different from the original faith of Jesus, began to emerge. It is significant that those who claimed to believe in Jesus were called Christians and their religion Christianity first of all at Antioch towards the end of the first century. In the words of Dr. Morton Scott Enslin:[41]
‘But the transfer from Jewish to Gentile soil brought even more radical changes. Not only did the movement speedily become a separate religion, distinct from Judaism, but, as its message was translated into terms intelligible and appropriate to Gentile bearers it became gradually more and more like the other cults with which it found itself in conflict. By the middle of the second century — and probably much earlier — it had become one of the Graeco Oriental cults, and like the others offered salvation to its converts through its divine Lord.’[42]
“Perhaps the first and most important person to cut off the religion of Jesus from Judaism and make it into ‘one of the Graeco-Oriental cults’ was St Paul. This is what H.G. Wells writes about him:
‘Chief among the makers of Christian doctrine was St Paul. He had never seen Jesus nor heard him preach. Paul’s name was originally Saul, and he was conspicuous at first as an active persecutor of the little band of disciples after the crucifixion. Then he was suddenly converted to Christianity, and he changed his name to Paul. He was a man of great intellectual vigour and deeply and passionately interested in the religious movements of the time. He was well versed in Judaism and in the Mithraism and Alexandrian religions of the day. He carried over many of their ideas and terms of expression into Christianity. He did very little to enlarge or develop the original teaching of Jesus, the teaching of the Kingdom of Heaven. But he taught that Jesus was not only the promised Christ, the promised leader of the Jews, but also that his death was a sacrifice, like the deaths of the ancient sacrificial victims of the primordial civilizations for the redemption of mankind.’[43]
“That the religion of St Paul was absolutely different from the simple faith of Jesus is admitted by Dr Morton Scott Enslin:
‘It is today perfectly obvious that there is a vast difference between the nature of the messages of Jesus and Paul. At times this has led to unsparing condemnation of Paul and his associates who perverted the simple gospel stream. The slogan, “Back to Jesus,” has simply meant “Away from Paul.” But although many of the early Judaizers may well have shared this feeling, their opposition was as futile as Canute’s[44] attempt to hold back the waves. To make it concrete: Had Jesus been able to attend a Church service in Corinth in the year 54 A.D., he would have been astounded, and might well have asked himself in amazement: Is this the result of my work in Galilee? But it is none the less certain had there been no changes, there would have been no Christianity.’[45]
“Paul not only brought about a final cleavage between Jews and Christians by making Christianity into a mystery cult and Jesus into a savior-god, but he also declared the Law of Moses to be a ‘curse,’ although Jesus had said:
‘Whosoever... shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach man so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven’ [Matthew, 5-19]. There were bitter controversies and charges and counter-charges between Paul and his associates on the one hand and the Jerusalem community of the followers of Jesus on the other. Faint echoes of these controversies can still be heard in the New Testament. It was naturally the Pauline version of Christianity which proved more popular among the Jews of the dispersion and the Gentiles, and spread rapidly over large parts of the Roman Empire. Then with the destruction of the Temple and the expulsion of the Jerusalem community of the followers of Jesus, together with the Jews, from Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the original faith of Jesus received a stunning blow from which it could not fully recover. It, however, continued to flourish for some time as a small sect in Syria. Recently a document has been discovered in the archives of Istanbul, which expounds the religious views of this sect of Nazarenes. This tenth-century manuscript is an Arabic translation of much older Syriac work, probably dating from the fifth century and written by a member of the Nazarene community. Dr. Shlomo Pines and Professor David Flusser (both of the Hebrew University), who have examined the manuscript, are of the view that the text accurately reflects the faith of the first disciples of Jesus. This document refers to Jesus simply as a great Prophet and righteous man. Much of the text consists of polemics against St Paul, charging him with heretically substituting Roman doctrines and customs for the authentic teaching of Jesus and falsely proclaiming him to be God.
“The influence of the Greek philosophical schools of Platonism, Stoicism and Gnosticism was an important factor in the formulation of the Christian doctrine as Dr. Edwin Hathc has shown in his admirable work The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity. But the decisive influence was that of the Mystery Cults. There were several mystery cults in the Roman world of those days, having many differences among them, but they appear to have had at least four characteristics in common: (1) Every one of them believed in a saviour-god, whose death was an atonement for the sins of men and a means of salvation for those who believed in him, (2) All had some purifactory rite of initiation through which the initiate had to pass. (3) All were essentially mysteries of communion with the deity who, through a rite involving a symbolic eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood, came into union with his votaries. (4) All looked forward to the future life and secured for the initiate a happy reception in the world beyond the grave.
[Encyclopedia Americana gives the following information about the word (Sacrifice):
‘The ancient Greeks performed sacramental rites called (thusiai) and (sphagia) in the name of the god of heaven, Olympus. Thusiai was performed always during the day, preferably in the morning. Certain parts of the animals sacrificed were burned on stakes on a rock called (Bomos). The remaining parts were eaten by people that gathered around a tall rock. The rite ended in music and dancing.
‘The sacrificial rite called Sphagia was performed at night. The rock used for the burning of the meat in this rite was called (eschara).
‘These Greek names of rites were expressed only with the word (sacrifice) in Latin. And the word (Altars) was used for the words (Bomos), the rock whereon the sacrifices were burned, and (eschara), the rock around which people gathered and ate the sacrifices.’
On the other hand, in the sacrament called the Eucharist, which is performed in the Christian religion, the rock used for putting the bread and wine on and gathering around is called (Altar), too. And this sacrament, too, is accompanied by music. When the consecrated bread is broken, (Christians believe), the sacrifice will have been performed, and when it is dunked into the wine and eaten, one will have, so to speak, united with God spiritually. Similarity between the Greek rites (thusiai) and (sphagia) and the sacrament called the Eucharist is quite obvious. We shall continue with this subject.] There can be no doubt about the fact that it was as a result of the influence of the mystery cults that Jesus was made into a saviour-god and his supposed death on the cross to be regarded as propitiatory sacrifice which had given satisfaction to the outraged justice of God, reconciled the angry God to sinful humanity and obtained salvation for those who believe in him. The two most important Christian rites or sacraments are Baptism and the Eucharist. The former is an initiatory rite by which a man is purified of the orginal sin, transformed from the child of wrath into the child of grace and initiated into the Christian fold. In the second of these rites (the Eucharist or the Mass or the Holy Communion) the participant supposedly eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Jesus Christ. The Roman Catholic Church and also a few orthodox Protestant churches believe that the elements (i.e. the consecrated bread and wine) are literally converted into the flesh and blood of Christ (the doctrine of the tran-substantiation). The less orthodox Protestant church consider this rite to be a symbolical eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of Jesus Christ, which brings the participant into union with God. That Christianity had become and continues to be essentialy a mystery cult, like so many others of that age, is frankly admitted by Dr Morton Scott Enslin.
‘By the second century Christianity had become one of these cults. Jesus was the divine Lord. He too had found the road to heaven by his suffering and resurrection. He too had God for his father. He had left behind the secret whereby men could achieve the goal with him. The convert that was buried with Christ in baptism, was born again. That Christianity was so regarded is perfectly clear from the pains Justin Martyr takes to prove that these resemblances between Christianity and the other religions were all due to the malignity of the demons. These wretched demons had read the Scriptures and had realised, although imperfectly, what was destined to be. They trembled as they saw their coming overthrow and realised their helplessness to prevent it. To salvage as much as possible and to delude men they hastily concocted rites and ceremonies as near as possible to those they foresaw were to be instituted. Thus they hoped that when Christ appeared and instituted his worship men might be deluded into believing that the Christians were borrowing from older pagan ceremonies and beliefs. To the modern student this explanation of Justin may seem most naive; none the less, it is highly important as incontrovertible evidence of the growing likeness of Christianity to the other cults which made such an explanation essential.’[46]
“In his book The Origins of Religion, Lord Raglan traces the origin of the mystery cults to what he regards as one of the earliest rituals, a sort of restoration rite. In prehistoric times, he points out, it was the custom in several communities to choose a young man as the destined divine victim and to keep him with divine honours for a year. He was treated as the most privileged guest of the whole community and all his wishes were satisfied. At the end of the year, however, he was ritually slaughtered and his flesh was eaten and blood drunk by some representative men of the community to bring new life to all those on whose behalf this rite was performed. Portions of the flesh and blood of the sacrificed man were also scattered over the field to give it fertility and revive the world. In the course of time the chosen sacrificial victim conspired with the priests to have a substitute slaughtered in his place. He would abdicate for a short while, the substitute would be compelled to take his place and be sacrificed. He would then resume the place of honour, thus making himself a sort of permanent privileged guest or ruler. Lord Raglan traces the ideas of kingship as well as of godhood to this sacrificial victim. The divine sacrificial victim, who had thus managed to become a permanent privileged guest of the community while his substitutes were slaughtered year after year, was the first king as well as the first living god. When later on his divinity came to be regarded as separate from him, though residing in him, he began to be worshipped as the incarnation of the invisible god, or as his son.
[Traditional narratives pertaining to ancient heathen cultures and nations and fabling about their gods, semigods and heroes are called mythology.] Lord Raglan believes that a myth is a story linked with a religious rite. Rites come first and myths are invented later on to “explain” the rites. Thus, following, this restoration rite, several myths of saviour-gods were invented. By their deaths and resurrection these saviour-gods brought new life and salvation to those who believed in them. The most important ceremony connected with the cult of the saviour-god was the symbolical eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood, which was supposed to bring the partaker into union with the god. It enshrined the memory of the times when the sacrificial victim, the prototype of the saviour-god, was actually slaughtered and his flesh eaten and blood drunk.
“In the course of years the myth of the saviour-god became fused with the myth of the sun-god, and thus every one of them was believed to have been born at the time of Winter Solstice, which, according to the old Julian calendar, was 25th of December (the Christmas of the Christians). Each one of the saviour-sungods met violent death and came back to life at the time of Vernal Equinox (the Easter of the Christians). Edward Carpenter has pointed out the similarities between the myths of the various saviour-gods — Dionysus of the Greeks, Hercules of the Romans, Mithras of the Persians. Osiris, Isis and Horus of Egypt, Baal of the northern Semites, Tammuz of the Babylonians and Assyrians, etc. — and the story of Jesus. About all or nearly all of them it was believed that —
(1) They were born on or very near the Christmas day,
(2) They were born of virgin mothers,
(3) And in a cave or underground chamber,
(4) They led a life of toil for mankind,
(5) They were called by the names of Light-Bringer, Healer, Mediator, Saviour and Deliverer,
(6) They were, however, vanquished by the Powers of Darkness,
(7) They descended into Hell or the underworld,
(8) They rose again from the dead, and became pioneers of mankind to the heavenly world,
(9) They founded communion of saints and churches to which the disciples were received by baptism,
(10) They were commemorated by Eucharistic meals.[47]
“When Jesus was deified and made into a saviour-god, all these features of these older saviour-gods were included in his story and in the religion which flourished under his name. So much so that even the birthday of Jesus was fixed on 25th of December, more than five centuries after he was born. According to Wallace K.Ferguson, Professor of History, New York University:
‘Christian celebrations were designed to replace pagan feasts and holidays. For example, the date of Christmas was set on the birthday of Mithras (the unconquered Sun), which had long been a day of joyous celebration in the pagan world. The assimilation by Christianity of so much of popular belief and practice was in no small degree responsible for its almost universal acceptance during this period, but it involved the sacrifice of its early purity and simplicity.’[48]
“Lord Raglan, who has made a detailed study of the stories of mythical heroes in another of his admirable books, The Hero, has tabulated the typical incidents, which occur in the majority of stories, into the following pattern:
(1) The hero’s mother is a royal virgin;
(2) His father is a king, and
(3) Often a near relative of his mother, but
(4) The circumstances of his conception are unusual, and
(5) He is also reputed to be the Son of God.
(6) At birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or his maternal grandfather, to kill him, but
(7) He is spirited away, and
(8) Reared by foster-parents in a far country.
(9) We are told nothing of his childhood, but
(10) On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom.
(11) After a victory over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast,
(12) He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor, and
(13) Becomes a king.
(14) For a time he reigns uneventfully, and
(15) Prescribes laws, but
(16) Later he loses favour with the gods and/or his subjects, and
(17) Is driven from the throne and city, after which
(18) He meets with a mysterious death,
(19) Often at the top of a hill.
(20) His children, if any, do not succeed him.
(21) His body is not buried, but nevertheless
(22) He has one or more holy sepulchres.[49]
“Out of these twenty-two points, Lord Raglan informs us that Oedipus scores full marks, Theseus twenty points, Romulus eighteen points, Heracles seventeen points, Prerseus eighteen points, Jason fifteen points, Pelops thirteen points, Dionysus nineteen points, Apollo eleven points, and Zeus fifteen points. The story of the Christian Jesus closely conforms to the pattern and he scores fifteen points. His mother, Mary, is (1) a virgin, and his father Joseph is (2) a descendant of the great king David, and is (3) closely related to her; but (4) he is conceived by the Holy Ghost, and so (5) he is regarded as the Son of God (6) Soon after his birth king Herod makes an attempt to kill him, but (7) he is spirited away, and (8) reared by Mary and foster father Joseph in the far-off country of Egypt. (9) We are told nothing of his childhood in the Gospels, but (10) on reaching manhood he comes out as a public preacher and finally enters Jerusalem riding on a colt and is greeted by the crowd with the shout ‘Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord’ (John, 12- 13). Earlier, before beginning his public ministry, he had (11) gained victory over Satan. (18) He is crucified together with two malefactors, and (19) on the top of a hill (called Calvary/Golgotha. (21) Though he came back to life and ascended in his physical body to heaven to sit at the right hand of God, yet (22) he has a holy sepulchre near Jerusalem.
“This leaves no doubt at all in our minds regarding the sources of the Christian doctrine. [We shall give further examples later on, i.e. in the section Proving the Falsity of Trinity by means of the Statements of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’.] In the words of the well-known philosopher and historian, Winwood Reade:
‘Christianity had conquered paganism, and paganism had corrupted Christianity. The legends which belonged to Osiris and Apollo had been applied to the life of Jesus. The single Deity of the Jews had been exchanged for the Trinity which the Egyptians had invented and which Plato had idealised into a philosophic system, [and which had existed in Brahminism, too]. The man who had said “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God” had now himself been made a god — or the third part of one.’[50]
“Gilbert Murray, the great Classical scholar, thus sums up the similarities between the pagan and Christian beliefs, showing Christianity’s indebtedness to the pagan religions and philosophies for the most vital and essential features of its doctrine:
“The transition consisted largely in giving a new name and history to some old objects of worship which already had had many names and legends attached to it. Nay, more, in the metaphysical and theological doctrines formulated in the Creeds, except where they were specially meant to controvert the old system, he (the Levantine pagan) would at least recognise for the most part ideas which he had heard discussed.
“He believed in God as a ‘Father’ and would have no quarrel with a Christian as to the exact meaning of that metaphysical term; the attribute ‘Almighty’ he accepted, though both Christian and pagan theologians had the same difficulty in dealing with the implications of that term and explaining how the All-Good and Almighty permitted evil. The average Greek did not think of God as the ‘maker of heaven and earth’; the thought was Hebrew or Babylonian, but was not strange to the Hellenistic world. The idea of an only begotten Son of God was regular in the Orphic system, and that of a Son of God by a mortal woman, conceived in some spiritual way, and born for the saving of mankind, was at least as old as the fifth century B.C. In a simpler and more natural form it was much earlier. That this Saviour ‘suffered and was buried’ is common to the vegetation or year religions, with their dying and suffering gods; and the idea had been sharpened and made more living both by the thought of Plato’s ‘righteous man’ and by the various ‘kings of the poor’ who had risen and suffered in the slave revolts. That after the descent to Hades he should arise to judge both the quick and the dead is a slight modification of the ordinary Greek notion, according to which the Judges were already seated at their work, but it may have come from the Saviour religions.
“The belief in God as a Trinity, or as One substance with three ‘personae’ — the word simply means ‘masks’ or ‘dramatic roles’[51] — is directly inherited from Greek speculation. The third person was more usually feminine, the divine wisdom, or Providence, or the Mother of the Son; the ‘Spirit’ or ‘Breath of God’ comes from the Hebrews. Belief in the Holy Catholic Church was again not the pagan’s own belief, but it was the sort of belief with which he was quite familiar. He accepted belief in some church or community, be it that of Mithras or Hermes-Thoth or some familiar Healer. If the ‘communion of the saints’ originally meant the sharing of all property among the faithful, that practice was familiar in certain congregations; if it meant, as is now generally understood, the existence of a certain fellowship or community between those who are ‘pure’, whether dead, living, or divine, it was an idea prevalent in Stoicism.”[52] Here we end our quotations from the book of the Professor of Peshaver University.]
[As all these show, Christianity is not the Nasranî (Nazarene) religion that was taught by Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ and which was the continuation of the sharî’at of Mûsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’. It is an unreasonable and illogical religion, a mixture of idolatry lurking behind the name of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’. Many Christian men of religion, professors, scholars and scientists frankly write that such Christian ceremonies as Baptism and the Eucharist did not exist in the Îsawî religion but were adopted later from idolatry and inserted into it, and that Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’, who was a human being and a Prophet, was divinized afterwards. Instead of answering these writings and the questions directed towards them by Islamic scholars, priests choose to seize and destroy these books (containing such writings and questions), and publish books and pamphlets, adding a number of new lies, errors and absurdities to the old lot. And this shows us that by the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Christianity had gone entirely bankrupt, and it has been understood clearly that it is empty, void.]
Two Jesuit priests went to the city of Kanton for the first time in order to Christianize the Chinese people. [Jesuit is a missionary society founded by Ignatius Loyola in 918 (A.D. 1512).] They asked the governor of Kanton for permission to preach the Christian religion. The governor took no heed of them. But when the Jesuits annoyed him by coming to him every day (and soliciting for permission), he said at last, “I have to ask the Faghfûr [Emperor] of China for permission for this. I shall let him know.” So he reported the matter to the Emperor of China. The answer was: “Send them to me. I want to know what they want.” Upon this he sent the Jesuits to Peking, the capital of China. This news caused great alarm among the Buddhist priests. [They begged the Faghfûr to expel the Jesuits from the country on the grounds that “These men are trying to imbue our people with a new religion which emerged under the name Christianity. These men do not recognize the Holy Buddha. They are going to misguide our people.”] The Faghfûr said, “We must listen to them first. Then we will decide.” He made an assembly of the eminent statesmen and clergy of the country. Inviting the Jesuits, he told them to explain to the assembly what the principles of the religion they wanted to promulgate were. Upon this the Jesuits made the following discourse:
“God, the Creator of heaven and earth, is one. Yet at the same time, He is three. God’s only Son and the Holy Ghost, too, are a God each. This God created Adam and Eve and put them in Paradise. He gave them all kinds of blessings. Only, He commanded them not to eat from a certain tree. Somehow the Satan deceived Eve. And she, in her turn, deceiving Adam, they disobeyed God’s command by eating fruit from the tree. Therefore God deported them from Paradise and sent them to the world. Here they had children and grandchildren. They were all sinful because they had been depraved by the sin committed by their grandfather. This state lasted six thousand years. Eventually God pitied human beings, yet He found no other way than sending His own son for the expiation of their sin and immolating His only son as an atonement of the sin. The Prophet we believe in is Jesus the Son of God. There is a city called Jerusalem in a region called Palestine to the west of Arabia. In Jerusalem there is a place called Jelîla (Galilee), which has a village named Nâsira (Nazareth). One thousand years ago there lived a girl named Maryam (Mary) in this village. This girl was betrothed to her paternal first cousin, but she was a virgin yet. One day, as she was alone, the Holy Ghost appeared and put the Son of God into her. That is, the girl became pregnant, virgin as she was. [Then, as she and her fiance were on their way to Jerusalem, she had a child in a stable in Beyt-i-lahm (Bethlehem). They placed the Son of God into the manger in the stable. The monks in the east, who knew that he was born when they saw that a new star suddenly emerged in the sky, set out for him with presents in their hands, and at last they found him in this stable. They prostrated themselves in front of him. The Son of God, called Jesus, preached to God’s creatures until he was thirty-three years old. He said, ‘I am the Son of God. Believe in me. I came to save you.’ He displayed numerous miracles, such as resuscitating the dead, making the blind see again, making the lame walk, curing the leprous, stopping sea-storms, feeding ten-thousand people with two fish, changing water into wine, withering a fig tree with one (hand) signal because it did not yield any fruit in winter, and so forth. Yet very few people believed in him. Eventually, the treacherous Jews betrayed him to the Romans, thus causing him to be crucified. However, three days after dying on the cross, Christ resurrected and showed himself to those who believed in him. Then he ascended to heaven and sat on the right hand side of his Father. And his Father left all the matters of this world over to him. And He Himself withdrew. This is the basis of the religion we are going to preach. Those who believe in this shall go to Paradise in the hereafter, and those who do not shall go to Hell.”
Listening to these words, the Chinese Emperor said to the priests, “I shall ask you some questions. Answer these questions.” Then he began asking his questions, “My first question is this: You say on the one hand that God is one and on the other hand that He is three. This is as nonsensical as saying that two and two make five. Explain this theory to me.” The priests could not answer. They said, “This is a secret that belongs exclusively to God. It is beyond the human comprehension.” The Faghfûr (Emperor) said, “My second question is this: God is the almighty creator of the earth, heaven, and all the universe, and yet, on account of a sin committed by one person, He ascribes the blame on all his progeny, who are completely unaware of the (sinful) deed (committed by their forefather); is this possible? And why is it that He did not find any other way than sacrificing His own son as an atonement for them? Is it worthy of His Majesty? How will you answer this?” The priests, once again, could not answer. “This, too, is a secret peculiar to God,” they said. The Faghfûr said, “And my third question: Jesus asked the fig tree to give fruit prematurely, and then withered it because it would not give fruit. It is impossible for a tree to give fruit out of season. Despite this fact, would it not be cruelty for Jesus to get angry with the tree and wither it? Could a Prophet be cruel?” The priests could not answer this, either. Instead, they said, “These things are spiritual. They are God’s secrets. The human mind cannot comprehend them.” Upon this, the Chinese Emperor said, “I give you the permission (you want). Go and preach in any part of China.” When they withdrew from the Emperor’s presence, the Emperor turned to those who were present, and said, “I do not presume that anyone in China would be so stupid as to believe in such absurdities. I therefore find nothing wrong in allowing these men to preach these superstitions. I feel certain that, after listening to them, our compatriots will see that there are such idiotic tribes over the world and think even more favourably of their own faith.” In order to remind the fact that the priests could not answer any of the questions, we have titled our book Could Not Answer.