Christianity and Islam

Divine Messenger) who came to Moses. I wish I were a young man and could live till the time when your people will expel you.” The Prophet asked, “Will my people expel me?” Waraqa replied: “Yes, no one has been before, who brought the same thing that you have brought, without the people turning hostile to him.” The third encounter took place a few years after Muhammad’s attainment of prophethood. During this period Makkah was dominated by idolaters who, rejecting monotheism, set about persecuting the Prophet and his companions. The Prophet therefore advised his followers to leave for Abyssinia (now known as Ethiopia), a justly ruled Christian kingdom, “until God leads us to a way out of our difficulty.” About eighty Muslims then emigrated to Abyssinia, where they lived under the protection of the Negus, until after the Prophet’s emigration to Madinah. The Makkans, upset at this Muslim exodus, immediately sent a delegation to the Negus to ask for the emigrants’ extradition to Makkah. But the Negus refused to yield to their appeal until he had heard the refugees plead their own case. This was ably done by Jafar ibn Abi Talib, who briefly described the teachings of Islam. At the request of the Negus, he recited certain divine revelations. When the patriarchs heard the first part of the chapter entitled ‘Mary,’ confirming the Message of the Evangel, they were pleasantly surprised and said: “These words must have sprung from the same fountainhead from which the words of our Lord Jesus Christ have sprung.” The Negus then said, “What you have just recited and that which was revealed to Moses must have both issued from the same source. Go forth into my kingdom; I shall not extradite you at all.” In the classical literature of Islam, there are many appreciative references to Christ and Christianity. The Quran calls Christ the ‘Spirit of God’ (4:171) and of Mary says: ‘We