A BROTHER AND SISTER FROM BETHLEHEM

There is another contradiction in Islam’s unwillingness to acknowledge The Qur’an’s true teaching that the Messiah endured his own execution but triumphed over death when ALLAH raised him up. To gain insight into this contradiction, we will observe the Palestinian Community.

This suffering community has been a positive example to the entire world by the way they express appreciation and honor to the memory of young men. In many instances, they have been innocent victims of Israeli brutality, Multitudes march in the streets while the young martyr’s body is carried to his place of burial. Many marchers display the martyr’s pictures as vivid reminders that he should never be forgotten. What a shame to not pay this deserved tribute to victims of injustice and oppression!

Consider how unjust and tragic it would be those close to the martyr and to the memory of the person if a shameful and false story were circulated and believed about how the person died.

Imagine that there is a family of four who live in Bethlehem, who love each other deeply. After the mother gives birth to a son and later to a daughter, she is seriously injured in an unfortunate accident when an Israeli military truck crashes into her car. As a result of her injuries, she can never have another child.

One day the older brother, Muhammed, now a young man, and his beloved younger sister are leisurely walking together near the Jerusalem road when another terrible tragedy occurs. Two Israeli Defense Force soldiers are chasing some Palestinian boys. These boys had just struck one of the soldiers above his eye with a rock while he had his helmet off, adjusting it. The soldier’s head is bleeding heavily while he and his friend pursue the boys.

Shots are fired. There is much yelling, swearing and confusion. The younger sister becomes terrified, and puts her hands over her eyes. She begins to scream and shake. After hysterically screaming and sobbing for several minutes, in a voice not much louder than a whisper, she begins repeating over and over, “I hate them. I hate them all. I can’t take this any longer. Why can’t they all go away? Why do they keep persecuting us? Oh please, ALLAH, make them all go away…”

When she finally is able to stop crying and open her eyes, she suffers another shock. Her brother Muhammed is gone. It is another young man who is gently trying to comfort her. He is just a little older than her brother and is a close friend of their family. (No one but the Israelis knows that this pleasant young man is a secret collaborator with Israel).

He convincingly explains to the sister that Muhammed became frightened during the gunfire and ran away. Then he adds that her brother should be extremely ashamed for not protecting her from possibly getting hit by an Israeli bullet. Though she loves her brother deeply, she has no choice but to believe this man’s story of what happened. Because everyone had run for cover during the shooting, there are no witnesses except for this friend and the two soldiers.

So the collaborator’s description of what occurred is the only account that she hears of what happened to her brother. She also believes the collaborator when he explains that Muhammed will be so ashamed for leaving his younger sister in such danger that he will probably never return to their family.

Actually, the truth of what happened is totally different from the collaborator’s story. Muhammed was mortally wounded while he was bravely shielding his hysterical, beloved sister with his own body. The stray bullet that killed him most certainly would have wounded or killed her had he not courageously given his own life to protect her. He died a true martyr, but she has no way of knowing this.

Neither does anyone else know it because the collaborator and the two Israeli soldiers had been quick and thorough. They cleaned up the blood, hid the body and later returned to secretly bury it. They did all of this to keep the soldiers from getting into trouble for accidentally killing this innocent young man. The collaborator was forced to help them because if he did not, the soldiers told him that they would make certain that other Palestinians learned of his collaboration.

Everyone in and near Bethlehem has no choice but to believe the collaborator’s lie about how Muhammed ran away to protect himself, leaving his sister at the mercy of Israeli bullets. His parents’ hearts are crushed because they have lost their only son. But they are more deeply hurt because they think that they raised a coward who did not love his sister enough to risk his own life to protect her.

They also are lonely. Their former close friends no longer greet them and visit them as they did before the tragedy because they believe this mother and father raised a son who willingly deserted his younger sister and left her to possibly die. The mother and father, and especially the sister, secretly wish he would come home, even if he did run away from danger and desert his own sister. They can barely admit this to themselves and would not think of saying it aloud, to be heard by each other or anyone else.

Despite what everyone else believes, the mother and sister know something deep in their own hearts. They know that even though this friend of the family has told everyone that he saw Muhammed run away, that this older brother who had such a fine reputation for helping others never would have deserted his sister.

Would it not be tragic for everyone else to go on believing that the only son of this loving family was a coward who ran away? How wonderful it would be if the truth could finally be shown that this young man willingly gave his life in order to save the life of his sister. Then he would be remembered and honored as a true martyr. How shameful it is that such an injustice could exist, and that everyone could continue to believe such a lie.

Similarly, is it not a shame to distort the true teaching of The Holy Qur’an so that it now supposedly teaches that Jesus, with The MERCIFUL’S assistance, successfully escaped a suffering world? If ALLAH were to advance the Prophet Muhammed through the centuries the way that He advanced the Prophets Moses and Elijah, he would be a willing and faithful witness to how the true intention of one verse in The Qur’an is shamefully distorted.

This courageous Prophet must now be grieving over the disgrace that is being heaped on the Risen Messiah that the Qur’an so highly esteems. Tragically, it is now taught even in primary schools that ALLAH’S Own Beloved Messiah covertly escaped while the MERCIFUL secretly arranged foe another person, who had the appearance of Isa, to suffer horrible torment in his place. What a shame it is that from Islam, ALLAH’S Own Messiah receives absolutely no credit or honor for enduring ridicule, torture and a cruel crucifixion.