"Jesus was Muslim" could some one explain this to me?

[Toddlerteaplease]

Not trying to be goady, I'm genuinely puzzled by this statement. I saw it on one of the stalls giving out Information and literature about Islam, In my city centre. I am aware that Jesus is regarded as a prophet In Islam. But since he was Jewish, his entire life, I'm not sure how anyone can claim he was Muslim.

If you listen to all the new agers up and down the road, he was gay with John, he was illegal child of his mother who was raped by a Roman soldier, he was married and had kids with Mary Magdalene, he is a god of love and of the universe and so on

or, if you really are interested who He was, join an Alpha course

It's just untrue.

Is that helpful or necessary?

The existence of any particular god may or may not be true. But how religions have developed and what people believe to be accurate is true. How people believe is right to live whether that is because of a God or just because they think that is how to treat people is true. Comments like this don't help us live together.

Jesus was born 500 years before Islam was started. Both Christianity and Islam are "Abrahamic" religions.

Is that helpful or necessary?

Eh?

OP asked a question about why X was being asserted.

X is just plain untrue and it's impossible to truly unpick the motivation of the person saying that it is true.

So it's just untrue. That's a complete answer.

What is unhelpful about it?

The existence of any particular god may or may not be true. But how religions have developed and what people believe to be accurate is true. How people believe is right to live whether that is because of a God or just because they think that is how to treat people is true. Comments like this don't help us live together.

What? Are people overlaying some kind of tone into my neutral statement.

Islam - by definition- didn't exist until after Mohammed (pbuh). So nobody who lived centuries before him can be said to be a Muslim. That includes Jesus.

Jesus is a prophet in Islam and Islamic theology evidently thinks highly of him, but he cannot possibly be a member of a religion that didn't start until centuries after his death.
He was Jewish.

None of that stops is all living together just fine,

My apologies, I read it that you were saying the faith/belief wasn’t true

No, but this only proves that poor old Ed Milliband is not the second coming.

Jesus was a Muslim? New one on me. This kind of revisionism happens though. It’s a power play. Cleopatra was black as well apparently, despite there being absolutely no evidence to support that.

This is actually fascinating (apart from some of the pedantic arguing 🙄)

I’ve believed for a long time that all the versions of God in the major religions were the same thing. The same God, just different messengers if you like. Maybe it’s the people I’m surrounded with but most people don’t really care to discuss this with me. But what most of you are saying seems to be that this is correct? Is that right?

Sorry I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine, bear with me.

certainly the god in Jewish, christian and muslim religions is the same one - all are Abrahamic religions - all devolve from Abraham. Karen Armstrong is a good, easy read on how religions form and how the big stories such as noah's ark appear in almost all of them

The flood story is very old. It appears in Greek mythology too.

I've heard in a sermon that Hagar who Abraham slept with gave birth to Ishmael who supposedly founded the Arabic nation which led to Islam

What do you mean slept with ? She was his legal wife .She was not one night stand adventure.She was given to him in marriage by Pharaoh of Egypt and moved with Abraham to Canaan ( modern day Palestine ) and lived there with Him and gave birth to son.

There are scholars that think Islam grew out of the belief system of the original Jewish followers of Jesus and captures more of the spirit of his teachings than the Christianity of St Paul, which has more of a gentile flavour.

A bit off topic, but I’m Muslim and whenever I see anything in forums/social media around Islam I immediately dread and quickly scroll away (I’m so used to Islamophobic comments in this day and age) but something made me read through this thread and it’s so heart warming to see a genuine conversation where most of us are so respectful towards the faiths in discussion. Thanks mumsnet, tonight you restored my faith in humanity slightly :).

regardless of what who believes, there’s something so magical in the fact that we can celebrate out diversities and not let them divide us!

This verse from Quran will explain everything:

"Say [Muhammad], 'We [Muslims] believe in God and in what has been sent down to us and to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes. We believe in what has been given to Moses, Jesus, and the prophets from their Lord. We do not make a distinction between any of the prophets".

So in Islam all Prophets came from same message- believe in One God and do good deeds.So yes all Prophets submitted to God.One God, One Message, different times.

That is really interesting and also rather lovely

I totally get what you are saying

I had thought that the "Jesus was Muslim" crowd were motivated by the antisemitism that has become trendy in recent months, ie they don't like "good" figures being Jewish and also as a way of suggesting that in fact Jews do not have ancient ties to Israel. It's a view I have only seen expressed recently.

The comments on here are really interesting, though, so thank you.

Sarah was his legal wife, Hagar was one of her servants

That's my understanding from Genesis

Abraham was encouraged by Sarah to go to Hagar as she was too old to bear a child but this was when he didn't trust God and did his own thing

He was already married to Sarah and lied to Pharoh and said Sarah was his sister to protect her

Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet.