The Prophet of Islam brought the life and the afterlife together and according to God’s order, he said: “Our Lord! Give us good in this life and good in the afterlife, and defend us from the torment of the fire”.  My deduction from the surah of Tin’s first verses which say: (I swear) to the fig, to the olive, to the Mount Sinai and to this secure land,  is that the fig and the olive symbolize Jesus (AS), then He (Allah) swears to the Mount Sinai which represents Moses’s place and then He swears to this clean and safe land, the land where there is our Prophet. In this order, the Quran brings together these three standings.

Anyhow, Jesus (AS) had played a fundamental role in adjusting this balance that later on appeared in Islam. Jesus’s faithful followers’ dedications, too, finally caused Constantine; the great Roman emperor who deliberately harassed and tormented the Christians, converted to Christianity in the 4th century AD, and after that the Christianity flourished and found worldly power. Here, God Almighty displayed His power that a sworn enemy of Christianity became a supporter of it. But instead, the Christians’ faith started to dwindle. Christianity might have suffered losses to some extent but Christians benefited from it because they achieved security. The basis of Christianity was the very teachings of Jesus (AS), which of course became permanent. All of Jesus’s teachings elaborated this sentence by Imam Sadiq (AS): Is religion anything but love?  The whole basis of religion is affection (love). This is the truth that was brought more precisely in this saying that Islam has been founded on five bases: prayers, zakat (that which purifies), fasting, hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) and wilayat (guardianship) and the first four are of lesser importance to wilayat.  God grants tolerance and indulgence for the first four but for wilayat He does not. In case of wilayat, God’s verdict is definitely clear. Wilayat is love, the love of God. Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq has generally spoken in the above saying in order to make us understand that wilayat is of higher position. Jesus’s words are mostly around the love of God, affection and passion for all the creatures of God. As Jesus (AS), in response to a Jewish jurisprudent who asked him which command in religion is of the greatest importance, said: that is showing love to your Lord, to your God, with all your heart, soul and thought, and secondly, which is the same, that is to treat your neighbor kindly as if you are treating yourself.20  

Moses’s place and then He swears to this clean and safe land, the land where there is our Prophet. In this order, the Quran brings together these three standings. Anyhow, Jesus (AS) had played a fundamental role in adjusting this balance that later on appeared in Islam. Jesus’s faithful followers’ dedications, too, finally caused Constantine; the great Roman emperor who deliberately harassed and tormented the Christians, converted to Christianity in the 4th century AD, and after that the Christianity flourished and found worldly power. Here, God Almighty displayed His power that a sworn enemy of Christianity became a supporter of it. But instead, the Christians’ faith started to dwindle. Christianity might have suffered losses to some extent but Christians benefited from it because they achieved security. The basis of Christianity was the very teachings of Jesus (AS), which of course became permanent. All of Jesus’s teachings elaborated this sentence by Imam Sadiq (AS): Is religion anything but love?  The whole basis of religion is affection (love). This is the truth that was brought more precisely in this saying that Islam has been founded on five bases: prayers, zakat (that which purifies), fasting, hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) and wilayat (guardianship) and the first four are of lesser importance to wilayat.  God grants tolerance and indulgence for the first four but for wilayat He does not. In case of wilayat, God’s verdict is definitely clear. Wilayat is love, the love of God. Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq has generally spoken in the above saying in order to make us understand that wilayat is of higher position. Jesus’s words are mostly around the love of God, affection and passion for all the creatures of God. As Jesus (AS), in response to a Jewish jurisprudent who asked him which command in religion is of the greatest importance, said: that is showing love to your Lord, to your God, with all your heart, soul and thought, and secondly, which is the same, that is to treat your neighbor kindly as if you are treating yourself.

20  : monotheism, prophecy and the afterlife. All of them say there is only one God to whom we will return: “Surely we are Allah’s and to him we shall surely return”.  And all the religions are believed to have sent prophets by God to guide the mankind. Based on these three bases, addressing the People of the Book, the Quran says: “Say: O’ People of the Book! Let us come to a word in common between us and you, that we shall worship none except Allah, that we shall associate none with Him”.  It is because of maintaining principles of monotheism and prophecy that the Shi’ism believes in the two principles of justice and imamate, but the common ground of all religions are these three (monotheism, prophecy and the afterlife). Later on, when the Prophet was ordered to announce wilayat, God said: “This day I have perfected your religion for you, have completed my favor on you and have chosen Islam for you as a religion”.  Had their religion been imperfect beforehand? In fact, “I have perfected” means that it is improved more as wilayat had never been talked about clearly and that is to start showing attention and consideration towards it.

Jesus Christ (AS) was the prophet of mercy, in other words, he resolved all issues by his mercy. Our Prophet, too, was the manifestation of mercy and also the divine retribution, at the same time he was both. In the Quran, God says: “Allah is mighty; the lord of retribution”.  But in another part He says: “Surely Allah forgives the sins altogether”.  Or: “My kindness exceeds my anger” . Our Prophet had both aspects; hence, he was perfect.

This speech made on January 5, 2006 to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ (AS). Translated from Irfan Iran, Collection of papers, No. 25 & 26. Collected by Dr. Seyed Mostafa Azmayesh, Haqiqat Publishing, PP. 5-20,Tehran, Iran (2006).