"Jesus like Adam"

First Published in Bangsamoro.com

All praise is due to Allah and may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon His Messenger, Muhammad."Verily the likeness of Jesus before Allah is the likeness of Adam. He created him from dust, then (He) said to him: "Be!" – and He was " (Suurah Al-'Imraan (3): 59)Al-Haafidh ibn Katheer says about this ayah:"Allah said, [Verily the likeness of Jesus before Allah] regarding Allah's ability, since He created him without a father, [is the likeness of Adam], for Allah created Adam without a father or a mother. Rather, [He created him from dust, then (He) said to him: "Be!" – and He was.]Therefore, He who created Adam without a father or a mother is able to create Jesus as well, without a father. If the claim is made that Jesus is Allah's son because he was created without a father, then the same claim befits Adam even more. However, since such a claim regarding Adam is obviously false, then making the same claim about Jesus is even more false."[1]Gary Miller, a theologian and mathematician, was active in Christian missionary work at a particular point of his life but he soon began to discover many inconsistencies in the Bible.

In 1978, he happened to read the Qur'an expecting that it, too, would contain a mixture of truth and falsehood. But instead his study of the Qur'an led him to embraced Islam.One of his studies is regarding the above verse [Jesus likened unto Adam]. He and his colleagues actually counted the number of times the word Jesus and Adam occurred in the Qur'an using the index. Much to their surprise, according to their findings the word Jesus as well as the word Adam has been mentioned twenty-five times in the Qur'an, each of them. Thus they allure to the verse mentioned above about the "likeness" of Jesus to Adam. Although the tafseer of the scholars are sufficient for us to know the meaning of the verses, I was enticed to verify their claim. The method I used was a search software called "The Noble Qur'an" by Islamasoft Solutions version 2.0.I typed the word "Jesus" on the search dialog box and I got sixty search reports. But because the Qur'anic translation contained in this software was taken from the translation of Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan et. al., I knew that the reason why the search report exceeded twenty five as mentioned by Gary Miller.

This is because the pronouns referring to Jesus such as the pronoun "he" mentioned in the Qur'an has been provided additional explanation such as inserting the word "Jesus" in brackets. The search software does not distinguish between them. I then took a copy of my translation of the meanings of the Qur'an and verify the verses that mentioned the word "Jesus" from the search report. I counted twenty-five.I told my self, ok! The first part is solved. I then went on to search the word "Adam" using the same methodology. I got forty-seven search reports. After verifying verse by verse, excluding those that has been written in between brackets, much to my astonishment, I also found twenty-five verses. Subhanallah! Here is the result of my search for your scrutiny. I arranged it as it occurs in sequence in the Qur'an. Mr. Miller has given other verses that have similar connotations and I am yet to verify them. The Suurah (Chapter) were given in numbers instead of their names for brevity's sake followed by a colon and the number of verses.Lastly it should be emphasized that the Qur'an was never meant to be a book of hidden secrets. It is a book of guidance to all mankind. I did this only to prove to the non-Muslims that the claims of Mr. Gary Miller.

Jesus2: 87 2: 136 2: 253 3: 45 3: 52 3: 55 3: 59 3: 84 4: 157 4: 163 4: 171 5: 46 5: 78 5: 110 5: 112 5: 114 5: 116 6: 85 19: 34 33: 7 42: 13 43: 63 57: 27 61: 6 61: 14Adam2: 31 2: 33 2: 34 2: 35 2: 37 3: 33 3: 59 5: 27 7: 11 7: 19 7: 26 7: 27 7: 31 7: 35 7: 172 17: 61 17: 70 18: 50 19: 58 20: 115 20: 116 20: 117 20: 120 20: 121 36: 60--------------------------------------------------------------------------------[1] Tafsir Ibn Kathir English Trans, Abridged Volume 2 page 175, Darussalam Publishing and Distribution Riyadh.