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From: zama@midway.uchicago.edu (iftikhar uz zaman)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: Excerpt from USRA Family Magazine: (Forgiveness)
Message-ID: <1990Dec2.211944.6507@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 2 Dec 90 21:19:44 GMT
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In article <1990Nov29.175828.9529@nntp-server.caltech.edu> ta00est@unccvax.uncc.edu (elizabeth s tallant) writes:
>Hello Mark,

>I am an orthodox Christian who was once confused by Islam.  Perhaps I can
>answer some of your questions.

>First, in your posting, you quoted Jesus.  Well, the Koran has different
>stories of Jesus than the Bible does, and I have yet to find a single passage
>in the Koran which says "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and
>pray for them that despitefully use you."  I have yet to even find a single
>passage which resembles this.  The only thing that comes close are passages
>that deal with forgiving OTHER MOSLEMS.

For the record: There is a hadith (documenation provided through email
upon request) which states essentially what you are looking for:

sil man qata'aka wa 'fu 'an man zalamaka wa ahisn ila man asa' ilayk


"Bring toegther with your self those who cut their ties from you, and
forgive those who do injustice to you, and be good to those who 
do bad to you..."

(standard apology for the inadequate translation)

     Additionally, there is a hadith whose text slips my mind so I
will not attempt to quote.  But the essence of it is that the Prophet
defines being good as being good to those who are bad to you--for
if you are good only to those who are good to you you are just a
"businessman"!

     And actually, the outstanding characteristics of Jesus in the
Islamic hagiography of Prophets are his other-worldliness (voluntarily
giving up things of this world) and his being forgiving. [I am not
sure how I would document this; but I think I could...]

>Further, Moslems do not believe that Jesus was divine.  They will tell
>you "we believe in Jesus" but the truth of the matter is that they do
                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>not believe in Jesus and instead believe in someone different than
                ^^^^^
>Christians believe in.  Further, Moslems will tell you that they
>believe in the Torah and in the Bible, but the truth of the matter is
>that they believe only in the parts of the Bible which agree with the
>Koran, and they totally disregard all of the other parts as heresies.

i.e. they do not believe in *the Jesus we believe in*, right? Or,
their conception of Jesus is different from ours--that is what you
meant, I think...

>Elizabeth
>ta00est@unccvax.uncc.edu

Iftikhar