Jesus, Prophet of Islam - The Islamic Bulletin

An Hisiorical Account ofJesus 27

first to unfurl the banner of revolt. Their aim was to destroy the
eagle. To the Romans, this was not only an ad of sedition, but also
an insuIt to their religion. 50, after much bloodshed, the revoIt was
crushed. The two leaders were caught and bumt alive. Shortly af­
terwards, the Romans had to face another rebellion. The fight went
against the [ews and two thousand rebels were crucified. Thus the
resentment of the defeated [ews was still running very high when
in 6 AD the Emperor Augustus ordered a eensus of the Jews in
order to facilitate the levying of the taxes.
To pay taxes to the deified emperor was against the teaching of
the Torah. The [ews recognised only one king: [ehovah. A distur­
bance followed. The more moderate elements realised that if the
situation escalated, the conflid would resuIt in a complete massa­
cre of the Jews and so they counselled compromise and agreed to
pay the taxes, in order to save the people from committing sense­
less suicide. The leaders who purchased peace at this priee were
not popular, and were regarded as traitors to the Jewish nation.
It is against this historical backdrop and into this tense situa­
tion that the birth of Jesus took place.

e e e e e

It is, within this historical context, easy to understand the opposi­
tion of the Roman rulers to Jesus -but in order to understand why
it was that sorne of the leaders of the Jews were also equally op­
posed to Jesus, it is necessary to briefly examine what had hap­
pened to the Torah during the 13 centuries that had elapsed sinee it
was first revealed.
As we have already seen, the original Torah was probably de­
stroyed during the invasions of Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th cen­
tury Be. Ezra attempted to write down the Torah from memory
during the exile of sorne of the Jews in Babylon -but it is generally
accepted that this compilation was in tum destroyed during the
sack of [erusalem by Antiochus Epeplianus in 161 Be. Thus
MaulanaM.. Rahmatullahi Kairanvi, in his book lzhar-ul-Haq, quotes
the nineteenth century Catholic scholar, John Mill, as stating:

AlI the scholars unanimously agree that the original

Torah (Pentateuch) and other original books of the Olâ

Testament were destroyed by the forces of Nebuchad­

nezzar. When the books were recompiled through Ezra,

these too were later on destroyed during the invasion

of Antiochus.