"The Status of Jesus in Islam"

        All praise belongs to Allah. The one who has created the heavens, the earth, what is in and between it. He is the one who has turned the night into day and the day into night and has granted innumerable favors upon mankind.

        From amongst his many favors is that he has sent Prophets to every nation to guide those who have went astray from the path he has laid out for mankind. Whoever follows them he has truly been guided and whomsoever disobeys them they do not harm anyone except themselves. And their religion and call was one and one alone: to direct all worship to Allah alone without any partner and to stay away from worshipping others with him. This was the call of every single Prophet from the Prophet Noah (alaihi salaam) to the Prophet Muhammad (salallahu alaihi wa sallam)

        And from amongst the Prophets that called toward this religion of pure monotheism was Jesus (alaihi salaam) who has a very high and noble status amongst Muslims around the world. In fact it is part of the Muslim’s belief to believe that we was born of a virgin, that he spoke in this cradle, that he performed miracles as a sign for his people, that he was raised to heaven by Allah in order to avoid the plots and schemes of his enemies and that he would return coming close to the end of time. And if a Muslim claims disbelief of his existence, of his coming back or says one ill word about him he would no longer be a Muslim. This is because we honor and respect all the messengers that Allah has sent down and we recognize the fact that all of them underwent obstacles and hardship that none of us would ever know in order to propagate the message of Allah’s oneness to the people.

        Hence in recognizing that Jesus (alaihi salaam) called toward the same religion as the Prophets before him we do not call toward worshipping him as he was a slave and messenger of Allmighty Allah. He acknowledged many times that his Lord is in heaven and was not so haughty as to not put his face on the ground to worship Allmighty Allah. He also affirmed that goodness came from Allah and that he of himself can do nothing (John 5:30). He also denied knowledge of the hour and attributed only to his Lord in heaven (Matthew 24:36). Even to the point of saying that it is not that his will be done but the will of his Lord.

        With this it is known that Jesus recognized and affirmed the power, authority and completeness of Almighty Allah in everything and negated the notion that he was one with his Lord in power, authority, knowledge and perfection. Therefore when the unbiased person looks it the evidence that Jesus was a slave, messenger, worshipper of God and negated that he was anything like God in his attributes would conclude that Jesus would not be worthy of worship. And there is no verse in the Bible where Jesus said himself that he was God Almighty who is above the heavens.

        Also if one worships Jesus (alaihi salaam) he would be attributing to this great Prophet which he did not attribute to himself. As aforementioned Jesus neither told his disciples that he was God Almighty nor did he order them to worship Him. In doing this a wrong assumption is also made about Allah Almighty in that when one worships Jesus he would thereby be assuming that Allah who is the creator the heavens and the earth is deficient in terms of knowledge, loving and forgiving his slaves and that Jesus (alaihi salaam) who categorically negated himself from being like his Lord has the ability to understand a person’s condition better than Allah and would hence have the ability to forgive that person better that his Lord in the heavens.

        Also it is substantiated by the fact that none of the Prophets before Jesus ever called his name when worshipping or ever called the people to worship Jesus Christ. Also none of them ever said that God is three in one or one in three. And if it were that Allah was three in one or one in three it would have been the duty of the Prophets to call their people toward it and to practice this theory in their daily lives themselves in sacrificing and praying to Jesus but this was never done by any of them. As previously mentioned Allah Almighty has sent Prophets throughout the ages to guide the people to one calling which is the call to worship him (Allah) alone without any partners. And their religion was one at that time and will remain one till the end of time. Hence we as Muslims affirm the middle path between Judaism and Christianity. We do not say like the Jews that Jesus was the bastard son of Mary and a Roman soldier neither do we say that he is worthy of worship. We recognize that he is a Prophet of Allah who was sent upon earth to guide the lost sheep of the Children of Israel back to the worship of his Lord in heaven. And he was a slave to his Lord in that he prayed, fasted, remembered Allah, commanded the good and forbade the evil. And with this he negated himself from having any similarity between him and his Lord in heaven.

        Therefore we call all Christians and the people of other religions to worship Allah who has full dominion over the heavens and the earth as one and to follow the Prophet Muhammad (salallahu alaihi wa sallam) who was the last messenger from a long line of messengers sent to mankind to call people to this religion which is the religion of Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Moses , David, Jesus and the other Prophets (Alaihimus salaatu wa salaam)
 

He selects for His Mercy whom He wills and Allah is the Owner of Great Bounty

(Surah 3, Imran:74)