Who
is the Holy Spirit in Islam?
by
Abd al-Masih
We will
start this topic about the Holy Spirit in the Qur’an with a Bible verse. “The
law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ has made me free from the law of sin
and death.” (Romans 8:2)
Paul speaks
about two different laws. One law is the law of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of
life, the spirit from within Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit. He then speaks
about the law of sin and death which means the Ten Commandments which judge us
and the sin that is in us. This includes the shari’a (law of Islam) also. So,
the Holy Spirit overcomes Islam in the believers. The law of the Spirit of life
in Jesus Christ has already made me free from the law of sin and death. Keep
these two laws in mind. A law which is life, a law which is Spirit, a law which
is in Jesus Christ. And the law of sin, the law which will guide to death. Now
we are mixing the two laws as we proceed in this document. I hope that you
always understand which one is meant.
You find in
the Qur’an the expression spirit, Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit or the two
Spirits, 24 times.
·
In connection with Adam three times
(Sura 15:29; Sura 32:9, Sura 38:72).
·
The Spirit of God three times in
connection with Mary, the mother of Jesus (Sura 19:17; Sura 21:91 and Sura
66:12).
·
The Spirit of God or the Holy Spirit
four times in connection with Jesus (Sura 2:87, Sura 2:253, Sura 4:171, Sura
5:110).
·
The Holy Spirit in connection with
Muhammad three times (Sura 12:87, Sura 26:193, Sura 42:52).
·
The Spirit of God in connection with
the Jews, the Jews had been dealing with Muhammad two times clearly and two
times indirectly (Sura 17:85, Sura 12:87, Sura 16:12, Sura 16:102).
·
The Spirit of God with the chosen
one, with the selected ones, with those who had been brought near, four times
clearly and two times indirectly. I give only the four times clearly (Sura
40:15, Sura 58:22, Sura 56:89, Sura 97:4).
·
Verses about the Spirit only two
times as it is written in Sura 74 and 78:38. Some of these verses overlap and
are dealing with Muhammad and the Jews, with those brought near and with believers
in general.
We will now go through the Qur’an, starting with Sura
2.
Let's
consider Sura 2:87. This is one of the three verses, saying that the Allah of
Islam gave Jesus proofs that he is a prophet. This can be seen by his miracles
and by the fact that Allah strengthened him with the spirit of the Holy.
In translations of the Qur'an, this word is usually translated into the Holy
Spirit. However, the word Holy Spirit is never written in Qur’an, not even
once. Although it may be translated to English or to other languages as Holy
Spirit, the Arabic text does not contain the expression Holy Spirit at all. It
is always a genitive connection: spirit of the Holy. This means, in Islam, when
the Holy Spirit is written, it is never a spirit who is holy in himself. The
word holy is not an attribute or an adjective, it is a genitive which
means the spirit is not holy in itself but the spirit is property of the holy
one. Here you have to distinguish the grammar in Arabic. This means holy is
Allah and the spirit is his slave. The spirit is never of divine origin in
Islam, even if it is wrongly translated in the different Qur'anic translations
to blind the Christians. When we speak about the Holy Spirit in Islam, keep in
mind, it is never the Holy Spirit, it is the spirit of the Holy, which means a
slave of Allah. Just as Jesus is a slave of Allah in Islam, never Holy or
divine in himself, so the spirit is not Holy or divine but he is a property of
Allah, the Holy.
Sura 2:87,
and similarly Sura 2:253, have the same expression. Allah had been merciful to
the weak Jesus who had been unable to perform any miracles. He strengthened him
and sent to him the spirit of the Holy, meaning a slave of God. Muslims claim
this was the angel Gabriel sent to strengthen him, to give him super power so
that he was able to do miracles, and this had been the proof that Christ was an
outstanding prophet. Keep in mind, this always means not that the Holy Spirit
came into Jesus but that the angel Gabriel was sent to him in order to give him
help or an inspiration to do a certain miracle. This is written in Sura 2:87
and in Sura 2:253 and also in Sura 5:110.
The Muslim
commentators write about this verse: “He received the Spirit as a helper so
that he could raise the dead from the grave.” They confess that only with the
help of the Spirit of God was Jesus able to raise the dead. Now, I already told
you, here is an opportunity for you to tell the Muslims that the Qur’an
believes in a trinity: God, the Spirit, and Jesus. They will deny it but you
can say, yes, not in substance but in action because Allah and the Spirit and
Jesus worked together to do miracles. So you can bring here an idea of three
persons working together into the minds of the Muslims, because it is said,
Allah strengthened Christ with the Spirit of the Holy.
Next we come
to Sura 4:171. This is the unique verse where Jesus is called a spirit of God.
Please notice, he is not called the spirit of Allah but a spirit
of Allah – one of the many spirits of Allah. Muhammad was clever enough not to
confess that Christ is the incarnation of the Holy Spirit but that a spirit of
Allah’s many spirits had become a person’s flesh in him. Muslims have a real
problem with this verse because Muhammad was born by a normal father and a
normal mother and not by the Spirit of Allah. But Jesus is not a normal person.
Jesus is the only one in this world and the next according to Qur’an, who was
born by the Spirit, who was the Spirit incarnated – not only a created spirit
but the Spirit who came into Jesus – not an evil spirit but the Spirit of God.
You must make clear to the Muslims that they speak about the Spirit of God. You
tell them, Jesus is the Spirit of God incarnated. If a Muslim is clever, he
will say, he is only one of the spirits of God. But then you say, so you
believe really that Jesus is a spirit of God incarnated? When he confesses
this, he confesses that Jesus is an extraordinary person and no one is equal to
him, not even Muhammad, because Muhammad had not been born by the spirit of God,
not even by a spirit of God. His father was known and his mother was known.
Only Jesus, according to Islam, has been born by the spirit of Allah.
At a synod in
Casablanca, King Hassan II made a strong statement about Ayatollah Khomeini in
Khomeini's last year of power: “If Khomeini will not stop his people from
saying that he is the spirit of God or the spirit of the Holy he must be
excluded from Islam and considered to be no longer a Muslim but a blasphemer,
because there is only one in this world and the next who has the right to call
himself the spirit of Allah. This is the son of Mary because he was born by the
spirit of Allah.”
This means
they know, or they can know if they want to, from this verse that Jesus is the
only person in this world and the next who can call himself the spirit of God
incarnated. Take this verse and use it wisely – it is a very strong tool.
In Sura
5:110 you have another verse that indicates that the spirit of the Holy
strengthened Christ to do the miracles and to speak immediately after birth.
These are the four verses speaking about Jesus and the spirit of the Holy.
Muhammad had heard that Jesus had something special. He had heard that Jesus
had confessed “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to
preach the Gospel to the poor” (Luke 4:18). Muhammad heard about it but he did
not know what to say. There is no Holy Spirit in Islam and no Holy Spirit in
Muhammad. Therefore he analyzed it in his way and he presented it as I have
told you in these four different ways. He could not explain it precisely, so he
did his best by explaining it using his logic.
Now we come
to a verse that deals with Muhammad. This is a very strange verse. I should
explain it before I share it with you. Muhammad was probably an epileptic and
he thought when he was in an epileptic seizure that the spirit was speaking to
him, the angel Gabriel. In the beginning, the seizures came infrequently. One
time he did not have a seizure for maybe a year or a year-and-a-half. So
Muhammad was unsure – asking himself "am I still a prophet or am I not a
prophet?" He was in deep despair and one of the traditions says he nearly
killed himself, throwing himself from a mountain because the spirit no longer
spoke to him. Here you have a verse where he found in the Old Testament stories
a comfort – an example of when the Spirit did not immediately come and help in
the life of Joseph when he was in the prison. So he said: “Learn from Joseph.
Have a feeling for the matter if you look at Joseph and his brothers. And do
not be in despair of the spirit of Allah. Really only those who are unbelievers
will be in despair of the spirit of Allah.” This is a verse in which the Holy
Spirit is called as a mercy from God and as a way that you can find a kind of
peace with the Muslim commentators. This verse says: "Go and
inquire about Joseph and his brother, and never give up hope of Allah's Spirit:
truly no one despairs of Allah's Spirit, except those who have no faith"
(Sura 12:87). This goes back to Muhammad who was in despair but he tried to overcome
this despair by looking at Joseph who had been so many days and months in
prison and God did not rescue him. But Joseph did not fall into disbelief but
remained a believer.
Now we come
to Sura 15:29. This is a verse concerning Adam. It says: “After we have found
him, we blew in him from our spirit. So they started to prostrate to him.” This
is one of the verses that Muslims do not like because it says that Allah blew
into him from his own spirit. They say, it was not the spirit from within
Allah. It was one of the many spirits of Allah that had been blown into the
nose of Adam. Always when it is written that it is my spirit or our spirit,
Muslims are confused, because they say it is impossible that Allah would come
personally and blow his spirit into him. So they claim, an angel was sent to
blow into him. But Muhammad was maybe more faithful to what he had heard from
the Jews and he had spoken, "I blew in him from my spirit." So Allah
in the Qur’an speaks clearly but the commentators try to overcome it by saying,
"yes, I blew in him from my spirit by sending an angel who blew in him in
the name of Allah."
The next
verse is a strange verse that is also twisted by the commentators. This is a
verse that could be used by Christians to explain that the Holy Spirit was
given to all man. It is Sura 16:2. This Sura states that he sent down the
angels with the spirit from his authority on everyone he determined from his
prostrators and believers.
Commentators
explain it: The angels did not bring the Spirit himself but the angels brought
the revelation. The angels brought the prophecy. The angels brought a mercy
from God. But in the Arabic it is written: Allah sent the angels down with the
Spirit from his authority and the spirits had been put on the prostrating
believers according to the determined will of Allah.
You can say
to Muslims, "Here it is written that God sent the Spirit through the
angels to anyone who is faithful in seeking God and anyone who is really
seeking God has an opportunity to receive the Holy Spirit." The mistake
here is that the Spirit did not come directly from God but by the angels. The
positive thing in this is that the Spirit was not only given to prophets, to
Jesus, to Mary, to Adam or Muhammad but to all his believers if they were
prostrating. This is a verse that you can discuss and stretch a bit.
A similar
verse is in Sura 16:102. Here , the Arabic says: “Allah has sent the Spirit of
the Holy from the Lord truly to strengthen those who believe.” Again, it simply
says: “Allah sent the Spirit of the Holy from your Lord (he said it to
Muhammad) truly that he will strengthen all those who believe.”
The
commentators explain that Allah sent the angel Gabriel to strengthen the
believer with the help of the Qur’an. This is the Muslim exposition, but it has
a different meaning for the Jews, for the Christians, and for the Muslims,
because there is no word of angel Gabriel. Gabriel is only brought up by the commentators,
not by Muhammad. The verse states that Allah sent the spirit of the Holy to
strengthen the believers. It does not speak of the Holy Spirit but of the
spirit of the Holy, which means not the Spirit who is holy in himself
but the spirit who is a slave of the Holy. Muslims understand it as the Spirit
who is holy, meaning they should interpret him as the Holy Spirit, as
should commentators and translators. And they do, except they call him the
angel Gabriel.
So you have
verses in the Qur’an, if you read them superficially without knowing Arabic,
that say: “Allah sent the Holy Spirit to strengthen all who believe,” which
does not means to create belief through the Holy Spirit but that
everyone who already believes will be strengthened by the spirit. It is one of
the oddest verses where Muhammad tried to grasp the secret of the Holy Spirit
but he could not manage it because there was no Holy Spirit in him, so he
explained it with his expressions and with his logic. This is one of the verses
that comes closest to the reality that God sent the Holy Spirit to create life
and faith and love in the believers.
Now we come
to another verse, Sura 17:85. This is the most critical verse in the life of
Muhammad concerning the Holy Spirit. The background is, the Jews came to
Muhammad and asked him about the Spirit of God, about the Holy Spirit and he
could not answer. After a while he brought this revelation and said, “Allah
told me that you will ask me about the Spirit. I have to say to you, the Spirit
belongs to God, not to men, and you have only received a little knowledge about
the Spirit.” Let's be honest, this is the Arabic way to say, I don’t know, I
will not confess. He says, you don’t know any more than just a little bit; the
Spirit is something that belongs to the Lord alone; no one can know the Spirit.
Here is the point. This contradicts what Paul said and what Jesus said. “No one
knows the Father except the son and no one knows the son except the Father.”
And Paul said, “We have received the Spirit of God that we may understand what
God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught to us by
human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in
spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:12-13). Christians know what is in God.
"God is love and he who abides in love, abides in God and God in
him." This is a sentence that only can be spoken out of the Spirit of God
by he who examines the depth of God. There are many, many verses like this. You
know God because the Spirit tells you, Abba, dear Father. The Spirit gives
testimony to your Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives you revelation – direct
revelation. Muslims do not have it because their spirit is only a slave of
Allah, an angel, a spirit of Allah.
But Muhammad
had problems with the Jews. The Jews were a problem because there was no Holy
Spirit within the Jews. So they asked him and he answered them in an indirect
way confessing that he cannot know the Spirit of God because this is a matter
of God and not a matter of man. He said immediately that you too, do not know
much about God. You have not received much. You received a little bit of
knowledge about the Spirit, and about prophecies, and about the Spirit, but the
Spirit is not poured out on the unbelieving Jews. So this verse, Sura 17:85, is
a confession by Muhammad that he does not know the Spirit of God. But he did
not confess it openly, only indirectly. He would not blame himself, so he
blamed others and covered himself with it. Study this verse. This is one of the
strongest verses which shows there is no Holy Spirit in Islam.
Now we come
to two verses concerning Mary, the mother of Jesus. Sura 19:17 says: “She went
out from her home and took a veil and then when she left her family, we sent to
her our Spirit who appeared to her as a beautiful young man.”
The Muslim
commentators write fantastic stories about the meeting of this young man with
Mary. This is a verse where you can put in all kinds of dirty thoughts and holy
thoughts. But here it is stated that the angel Gabriel was sent to Mary, and he
is called our Spirit. We sent her our Spirit, who appeared to her as beautiful
young man or an angel. Look, the idea that angels have wings is a very recent
idea. Angels have no wings. Supposedly this angel appears as a beautiful young
man. So, Muhammad is more precise than many religious artists are. Only the
Cherubim and Seraphim need wings to cover themselves from the Holiness of God.
Angels do not need wings to fly; they are spirits; they have no weight. Neither
do they fall down. Therefore they do not need wings. This is a
misunderstanding. Muhammad was more exact here about angels by saying, “We sent
to her our Spirit and he appeared as a beautiful young man to her.”
From here
you understand why Muslims claim that the spirit of Allah is the angel Gabriel.
Therefore you can judge Islam immediately, not proudly but spiritually. If the
spirit of Allah is an angel then the spirit of Allah is a created spirit and
not an everlasting Spirit form within God. This shows you that in Islam there
is no everlasting Spirit, no Holy Spirit. They speak about the spirit of the
Holy and the spirit of Allah and many kinds of spirits, but the true Spirit who
is holy in himself as God is holy, one person in the trinity, is unknown and
never confessed. Muhammad tries to grasp the secret of the Spirit and speaks
about Him in connection with Adam and Jesus and Mary and himself, but he never
comes to the real point that the Spirit is God Himself. Therefore there is no
Holy Spirit in Islam. Therefore there is no knowledge of the Father and the Son
and the Spirit because the Spirit testifies that God is our Father and no one
can call Jesus Christ Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. Muhammad cannot call
Jesus Christ Lord because there is no Holy Spirit. Jesus said: “If you are not
born from above, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Therefore be merciful with
Muslims. They cannot understand what you say unless the Holy Spirit enlightens
them.
Be merciful
like Jesus was merciful. He had disciples from Emmaus and they had been with
him for three years. They considered him a great man of God and a prophet but
never the Son of God. He scolded them and they could not understand it. You
see, our brain is dry and cannot grasp what is spiritual unless the Spirit comes
in. Then the Spirit will enlighten us. Pray that the Spirit of the Lord may
hover over the minds and hearts of the Muslims that they can grasp spiritual
things that can only be explained spiritually. Here Muhammad called the angel
Gabriel the spirit of Allah, referred to as our spirit. This is the explanation
of the Muslim commentators to the majority of the verses speaking about the
spirit.
You have
Sura 21:91, “She has kept her private part clean then we blew in her from our
Spirit and made her and her son ayatollah – for all the world.”
Now I will
explain it slowly. Because Mary was a virgin and remained a virgin, she had
kept herself clean, therefore Allah says, we blew from our Spirit in her. One
of the strongest verses, you have in the whole Qur’an. We blew from our Spirit
in her. All commentators do not explain this verse. They explain everything but
the verse – they do not touch anything positive or negative. They simply cannot
understand it. The commentators like Tabari, Baidawi, Samachshari, and whomever
you have do not speak to this verse. They leave it as is. It is too difficult
for them because it says: "we blew from our spirit into her." This
means, when God blows from his Spirit personally, it is not an angel. God
cannot blow an angel into Mary. It is the Spirit of God from within God whom
came into her, then Jesus was born in her.
I remember I
had a discussion with some Muslims near Bethlehem and we had a good talk. There
had been a journalist among them. The journalist came to me and took me aside
and said, “Well, let me confess, you look very normal. You do not speak such
that nobody can understand. But how can you say that God has a son. You must
say it yourself that this is nonsense.” I said, “You are Muslim. Tell me what
does it mean in the Qur’an, ‘Allah speaks, we blew from our Spirit in her.’” He
said, “That’s written in Qur’an?” He had not known this though he had learned
the Qur’an by heart. I said, “Well, let us take a look at it.” Then he said
immediately, “If this is true, than it is clear; it is a spiritual son of God,
not a biological son of God.” He said it himself. That’s all took, in just a
few seconds.
You must
take out of their mind the idea that God had a biological son from Mary. Tell
them, God blew his Spirit into her – period. That’s it; then Christ was born.
You must learn this verse by heart because it can help you. It is Sura 21:91
where it is said: “And we blew in her from our spirit, and we made her and her
son both ayatollahs for all the worlds.” “All the worlds” is a dramatic word in
Arabic. Not only for the Muslims, not only for the Christians, not only for the
Jews, not only for all people, not only for all spirits or for all angels, not
even only for this globe, for all the stars and for all the worlds (plural!).
In Arabic, it's a dramatic word. You can say, "here it is said, 'we made
him a miracle for all the worlds, because he is the only one born by the Spirit
of God.' " This is a verse you have to remember.
Now we come
back to Muhammad. Sura 26:193-194 is said to be a verse that is directly
addressed to Muhammad himself. It says: “We have sent down the faithful Spirit
on your heart that you will be one who warns.”
The faithful
Spirit is the terminology in Islam for the angel Gabriel, because Muhammad
claimed that the angel Gabriel came to him and wrote the Qur’an in his heart.
He did not teach him. He inscribed the Qur’an in him. He did not learn it by
heart. He recited what had been inscribed. He did not understand it always. He
had been asked to go to the Christians and to the Jews so that they would help
him understand what had been inscribed in him. This is the key verse on the
revelation of Muhammad. "We sent down the faithful Spirit on your heart
that you can be one who warns."
Sura 32:9
and Sura 38:72 both refer to Adam. The first verse says: “After he had been
formed, Allah blew in him from his Spirit.” And in the other verse Allah is
speaking, “After I formed him, I blew in him from my Spirit.”
Muslim
commentators do not explain the first verse. It is the same expression as with
Mary – "blew in him from his Spirit." The second verse is said to
mean that he received authority from Allah. Although that commentary is weak,
it is always the same.
Now comes
Sura 40:15, which is connected with Muhammad. This is an unclear verse that
translators usually do not express well. Following is my attempt to translate
it. “The one who sits on the throne threw his Spirit from his authority on
everyone he wanted from the believers so that they would warn their people of
the Great Day of Judgement.”
This verse
means several things. When Allah calls someone to become one who warns, that
person will receive the spirit. The spirit will come to him so that he will be
able to warn. The explanation that commentators give for this verse is that
Muhammad received revelation – he received the Qur’an. But what is actually
written means much more. It means something for every prophet and for every
Christian. It means, the One seated on the throne sends His Spirit from His
authority on every one of His worshipping believers that they may warn the
people of the Great Day of Judgement.
Another
verse concerning Muhammad is Sura 42:52. It says: “We have revealed to you a
spirit from our authority and you did not understand before this, receiving the
spirit, not the book nor the faith.”
The Islamic
commentators say the spirit means the Qur’an and in turn means that Muhammad
became an outstanding personality. Actually it says: “We have revealed to you a
Spirit.” Muhammad understood that he received a spirit. What a kind of spirit
did he receive? Who was the one who sent this spirit to him? We know that every
spirit who does not confess Jesus coming in the flesh is not from God, and
those who do not confess the Son, do not know the Father, and those who do not
know the Father, do not know the Son. So it was not God who sent His Holy
Spirit but it was another authority and another spirit because the spirit did
not confess Jesus as God's Son.
Please be
aware, Muslim commentators' do not say that a Spirit was in Muhammad. They say
he received the Qur’an and he received a mercy from God. He became an
outstanding personality but did not receive a Spirit.
We now come
to verses dealing with believers selected by Allah. There are four verses to explain.
We read about what they will receive and what will be the atmosphere in which
they live. In Sura 56:88-89 it says: “Those who have been brought near to
Allah, they will be swimming in Spirit and in joy and in pleasure.”
Muslim
believers that go to paradise will have two gardens and in every garden will be
girls waiting for them. They will have wine and every pleasure without end.
Also, they will be overwhelmed by the Spirit. Muslims explain it will be a
mercy from God, it will be a rest from God in the garden, and it will be an
everlasting joy. They explain the Spirit here as peace and joy, a sensual peace
and a sensual joy, with every man having 70 girls and boys and so on. It’s a
fleshly joy, but they call it Spirit.
This is a
stark contrast from the real Spirit who will be in the presence of the Father
and is of grace. Muhammad heard about him but he could not explain him. He did
not know him, so he tried to explain him as an it in his limited
understanding.
Now we come
to another verse about the selected ones. Sura 58:22 is a fantastic verse where
you can explain to a Muslim what has happened to born-again Christians. “These
are those, in their hearts had been written: Believe.”
Muhammad
understood there are people who can believe and who have an assurance of faith.
They are distinguished and set apart. The verse goes on to say, "We
strengthened them with a Spirit from us." He saw there are people that
have power. It continues, "And then we could guide them, bring them in to
the gardens, in which under their feet will be always cool water." I know
you would prefer to have hot water under your feet, but if you lived in the
desert as Muhammad did, you would prefer cool water. But the point is, Allah
strengthened the believers with proofs. He gave them something to show that
they have something. This is a fantastic verse that enables you to share the
real secret of the true believers.
Next we have
a verse about Mary. It really belongs to the previous verses. Sura 66:12: “And
Mary, the daughter of Imran, who kept her private part clean and we blew in him
from our Spirit." It does not say in her as in Sura 21:91, but in
him.
It is very
difficult to explain this because it does not mean blew in Mary but in
him. Some say, in Christ, but that implies that Christ was conceived before
the Spirit came into Mary. That’s not the original meaning. Muslims say, the
angel Gabriel came to Mary and took her and blew in it and then the Spirit went
down and into her, and Jesus was conceived. It means, even when it is
spiritually written, they have to explain it biologically. They cannot
understand and grasp the Spirit. This verse does not say, we blew from our
Spirit into her but into him. So they marvel, who is he? We blew in him and
then Christ was conceived. Poor people; have mercy on them. Poor Muhammad; he
could not grasp it. He heard it, so he tried to figure it out, what does it
mean, in him? It means much more.
Now we have
two verses about the Spirit himself. Sura 70:4 says: “The angel and the Spirit
ascended to Allah in the day which is 50,000 years long.”
It means the
day of resurrection, or the day of judgement, or the last day, which will be
50,000 years long. The point is this – in this day all angels and the Spirit
must appear in front of Allah and give account of what they have done. The
spirit will not be in Allah or with Allah, but the spirit will be judged by
Allah. Here you see that Muhammad could not understand that the Spirit by himself
is faultless, holy and will never be judged. But who will judge? He will judge
in the Son and in the Father, but he has to appear in front of God with all
angels. The Muslim commentators are really puzzled. They say, the spirit is a
creation of the Creator and though he is not a man, he looks like a man, so the
Spirit himself with all angels have to appear before judgement.
The next
verse, Sura 78:38, says: “There will be a day in the last day where the Spirit
and all angels will appear and they will come to God and they will not speak a
single word until God gives them a sign. Then they can speak and testify.”
Some Muslims
say the Spirit is the Qur’an. Others say he is a great angel. Others say he is
Gabriel, he is created like man but greater than all angels, so great that he
can fill the universe. Others say, no, it is the brain of the people, the
spirit of man. They do not know. So they let the Holy Spirit appear in the
presence of God in the Day of Judgement.
The last
verse is Sura 97:4. Muslim commentators explain that in the day when the Qur’an
had been revealed, Allah allowed all the angels and the spirit to come down to
watch the great event of the will of Allah or the word of Allah being revealed.
So here you see again that all angels and the spirit are servants of Allah, and
in this verse they want to see the great secret of how the Qur’an was revealed.
You have 24
verses in the Qur’an speaking about the Spirit of God. They do not reveal one
message; the messages are very different. The Muslim commentators are puzzled.
Whenever they can, they call the spirit the angel Gabriel, but in some places
they call the spirit the Qur’an or a big creation or an angel or the spirit of
man and they really do not know what it means.
In general,
dogmatics in Islam say the spirit is the angel Gabriel because Muhammad said
this in some Traditions. This will not make it much easier because as I told
you the spirit of the Holy is never called the Holy Spirit in Islam. This is
the trick of the translators; they make the spirit of the Holy out to be the
Holy Spirit. In Islam the spirit of the Holy is not holy, but he is a property
of the Holy, a slave of Allah (Abd Allah), and at the disposal of Allah.
This shows
you that if you want to help Muslims grasp the Gospel, you must pray that the
Holy Spirit will open their eyes and their hearts or they can not understand
either you or the Gospel.
I like very
much the first verses in the Bible. There it is written: “In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth. The earth was void and terrible.” And then
comes the verse “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the darkness and then
God said, let there be light and there was light.” You have all three, God
created and the Spirit of God was hovering until God said, let there be light,
then it was light. Therefore let us pray that the Spirit of God will be
hovering over the world of Islam so that God can say, let it be light and there
will be light.
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