On the other hand, since the part cannot contain the whole, it is illogical that the creature with his limited reason can fully understand his Creator. Faith cannot be completely rational, and is therefore a gift of ourselves to God: it is to trust and surrender oneself unconditionally to the Other.
Western culture sits on a tripod formed by Greece, Rome and Jerusalem. Ever since it came into existence, Christianity has been the mentor, the “Mater and Magister”, the mother and teacher, of western civilization. Precisely because of this, in the process of emancipation it was and continues to be attacked by all instances of culture and social life.
If there is one religion that is always under the severe scrutiny of reason and social criticism, it is Christianity. In my opinion, Islam has never been confronted by reason so has yet to pass through this purifying process, and for this reason, it contains many inconsistencies and deficiencies from the point of view of reason.
Historical and literary genesis of the Quran
The Quran was written in an ancient Arabic dialect, and the Muslims believe it to be the compilation of revelations made by Allah to the Prophet Muhammad (Mohammad) over a period of twenty-three years. The revelations were made in Arabic and, according to Muslim beliefs, through the Archangel Gabriel (Yibrail).
The Bible is a collection of books, each with its author inspired by God. However, it is the author who writes, so we must remove from these writings his individual character and personality, usages, customs and beliefs of the time if we are to arrive at the "ipsissima Dei verbum", that is, the real Word of God. Therefore, the idea that the Archangel Gabriel dictated the Quran to the prophet sounds like a fairy tale that is neither plausible nor humanly credible.
"Libris ex libris fiunt", books come from books, only God creates out of nothing. It is to be assumed that Muhammad would have extracted his ideas after a direct reading of previous revelations, Jewish, Christian and others. In his travels, the prophet met Jews and Christians and was familiar with the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments.
From the Quran, it can be deduced that Muhammad was a Nestorian (Eastern) Christian who lived together in a Christian marriage with his only wife Khadija. Muhammad was one of the leaders in a power struggle in Mecca between Christians who wanted to eradicate polytheism and introduce Christianity and the rulers of the city who worshipped the traditional gods of Kaaba.
Muhammad’s strategy was to unite all the peoples of the Christian Bible, that is, both Jewish Christians and Eastern Christians, against the idolatrous polytheists. In 615, when the religious war in Mecca between Christians and polytheists became more intense, parts of Muhammad's group fled to their brothers in faith to the Christian city of Axum in northern Ethiopia.
In 622, Muhammad’s group of monotheists moved to Yathrib (Medina). Here the group began to unite Jewish Christians and Eastern Christians, like the Monophysite Nestorians, against the polytheists in Mecca. In 630, Muhammad’s troops finally conquered Mecca and took the Kaaba temple, converting it into a monotheistic shrine.
What the prophet intended was therefore a synthesis of Judaism and Christianity adapted to the Arab reality. He probably never thought of a new religion, so that if he were to return to earth today, he would not recognize himself in today's Islam. The same would be true of Luther and his Reformation, who never intended to create a schism in the Church – if he returned to earth today, he would probably not recognize himself as a Protestant; as a matter of fact, He died a Catholic.
Jesus and Mary in the Quran
With an entire chapter (sutra) dedicated to her alone, the Virgin Mary is the only woman referred to by her own name in the book of Quran. All other women are mentioned in relation to a male; for example, there are no references to Sarah, but to Abraham's wife. About Mary's virginity, the Quran clearly states that the one who does not believe in it or calls it into question is in sin.
According to both the Christian and the Muslim traditions, both Mary and the Prophet Muhammad receive a visit from the Archangel Gabriel who blows the Word into both of them. This Word in Mohammed became a book – the Quran – and in Mary, it became a man – Jesus of Nazareth. So that, some scholars of Islam say, Jesus or the Prophet Isa, as he is called in Islam, is the Quran in the form of a man and the Quran is Jesus in the form of a book.
Many Muslims may conveniently want to forget that when Muhammad returned to Mecca, he gave orders that all statues of idols be destroyed, but he himself ran to embrace and protect with his own body the statue of the Virgin Mary with her son Jesus on her lap.
Current Islam, to mark its differences from Christianity, ignores these facts, but what is certain is that even in the Muslim faith it is the Prophet Isa, or Jesus, the son of the Virgin Mary, who will return on the last day to judge the living and the dead.
Christianity and Islam are not irreconcilable and Mary could be the common ground on which peace and understanding would be established, not only between Christianity and Islam, but also with Judaism.
Mary's virginity in the Quran
Given these facts, let us look at the first contradiction and inconsistency in the Muslim religion – if for the Muslim faith, as it is for us, Mary the mother of Jesus is a Virgin, then who is the father of Jesus? It is obvious that it cannot be Joseph the carpenter, for if it was him then Mary could not have remained a virgin.
And if Joseph is not the father of Jesus, and Mary remains a virgin after conceiving, then the conception cannot have been natural and the father cannot have been human. If it is not the work of a human, then it must be the work of God, and if it is God's work then God has a son and it is not as Judaism and Islam conceives him, a lonely God, but how Christianity conceives him and how he was revealed to us by Jesus Christ, a God of love, expressed and lived in a family or community, the Holy Trinity.
Conclusion: Mary, the most well-known Jewish woman of all time, respected and loved by Muslims as the mother of the Prophet Isa, venerated and loved by Christians as the mother of the Son of God, can one day bring peace, harmony and understanding among the three Abrahamic religions. Being Fatima, the name of the Prophet Muhammad's favourite daughter, this could well be the fourth secret, hidden in the very name of the place where Mary appeared.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC