Translation Chapter 11
‘Īsā al-Masīh (hpbuu)teaches about du’ā
11At one place ‘Īsā was praying, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Master, teach us to pray just as Yahyā taught his disciples.’
2 ‘Īsā said to them, ‘When you pray, say:
may your name be revered as holy,
3 Give to us each day our daily bread.
4 Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into the time of testing.”’
5 Then he said to them, ‘Which of you has a friend like this? Someone comes to him at midnight and asks him, “Friend, please lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a guest who is on a journey has arrived, and I’ve got nothing to give him.”
7 ‘The friend answers from inside his house, “Don’t cause me trouble. My door is already locked and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you bread.”
8 ‘I tell you, even if he won’t get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet to preserve his honour he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
9 ‘I tell you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened for you. 10 For all who ask receive, and all who seek find, and to all who knock, it will be opened.
11 ‘Which father among you, if your son asks you for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will you give him a scorpion? 13 So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’
‘Īsā al-Masīh (hpbuu)and the jinn
14 ‘Īsā was driving out a jinn[3]that was mute. When the jinn came out, the person who was mute began to speak,[4]and the crowd were astonished.[5]15 But some of them said, ‘He is driving out jinn by Beelzeboul,[6]the ruler of the jinn.’
16 Others were testing him by demanding a sign from heaven. 17 But ‘Īsā knew what they were thinking and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself will be devastated, and every house divided against itself will fall. 18 And if the Shaytān is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? I’m saying this because you are accusing me of driving out jinn[7]by Beelzeboul. 19 But if I drive out jinn by Beelzeboul, by whom do your people drive them out? So, they will be your judges. 20 But if by the finger[8]of Allah I drive out jinn, then the kingdom of Allah has come to you.
21 ‘Imagine a strong man who is fully armed, guarding his own house. His possessions are safe. 22 But when a stronger man attacks and defeats him, he takes away the weapons and armour the strong man was relying on, and he divides up his plunder.
23 ‘Anyone who is not with me is against me, and anyone who does not gather with me scatters.
24 ‘When an evil jinn[9]has come out of a person, it passes through desert places looking for a resting place, but it does not find one. Then it says, “I’ll go back to my house which I left.” 25 So it returns and finds the house clean and in order. 26Then it goes and takes along another seven jinn[10]more evil than itself, and they all go in and live there. So the last state of that person is worse than the first.’
True blessedness
27 While ‘Īsā was saying these things, a woman in the crowd said to him in a loud voice, ‘Blessed is the womb that gave you birth and the breasts that nursed you.’
28 ‘Īsā replied, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of Allah and obey it.’
The sign of Prophet Yūnus (pbuh)
29 As the crowd grew, ‘Īsā said, ‘This is an evil generation. It looks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Yūnus.[11]30 For just as Yūnus was a sign to the people of Nineveh, so also will the Son of Man be a sign to this generation. 31 The queen of the south will be raised up at the judgement with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Sulaymān;[12]and now something greater than Sulaymān is here! 32 The people of Nineveh will rise at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented when Yūnus preached; and now something greater than Yūnus is here!
Parables about light
33 ‘Nobody lights a lamp and puts it where it can’t be seen. Instead they put it on a lamp-stand, so that those who go inside can see the light.
34 ‘The lamp of the body is your eye. When your eye is generous,[13]your whole body too is full of light. But when your eye is evil,[14]your body too is full of darkness. 35 Make sure, then, that the light in you is not darkness. 36 So then, if your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be completely full of light, as when a lamp shines its light on you.’
Woes on the Pharisees and experts in the Taurāt
37 While ‘Īsā was speaking, a Pharisee[15]invited him for dinner, so he went in and took his place at the meal. 38 The Pharisee was surprised to notice that ‘Īsā did not first have a ritual wash before the meal.[16]39 The Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees purify the outside of the cup and plate, but inside you are full of greed and evil! 40 How foolish! Did not he who made the outside also make the inside? 41 However, give what is inside to the poor, then everything will be pure for you.
42 ‘But woe to you Pharisees! You donate a tenth of your mint, rue and all your vegetables,[17]but neglect justice and the love of Allah. These are what you must do, without neglecting the former things.
43 ‘Woe to you Pharisees! You love the place of honour in the synagogues and to be greeted respectfully in the market places.
44 ‘Woe to you! You are like unmarked graves, and people walk on them without realising.’
45 ‘Teacher,’ one of the experts in the Taurāt replied, ‘when you say these things, you insult us too.’
46 ‘Īsā said, ‘And woe to you experts in the Taurāt! You load people down with burdens that are hard to bear, and you yourselves won’t lift a finger to help them.
47 ‘Woe to you! You build mazārsfor the prophets, and it was your ancestors who killed them. 48 So then, you are witnesses that you approve of your ancestors’ actions - they killed them, and you build their mazārs. 49 Because of this, Allah’s wisdom said, “I will send prophets and apostles to them. They will kill some of them and persecute others.” 50 So this generation may be charged for the blood of all the prophets shed since the creation of the world, 51 from the blood of Hābīl[18]to the blood of Zakarīyā[19]who was martyred between the place for offering qurbānī and the house of Allah. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation.
52 ‘Woe to you experts in the Taurāt! You have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have held back those who are entering.’
53 When ‘Īsā left that place, the ulemā and the Pharisees became fiercely hostile towards him and began to question him about many things, 54 plotting to catch him off guard in something he might say.
[1]Addressing Allah as ‘Father’ in no way suggests that Allah Ta’ālā physically begets offspring. Obviously, each of ‘Īsā al-Masīh’s disciples had their own natural biological human father. To highlight this fact, we have translated into English as ‘HeavenlyFather’. Actually, in v13, Sayyidnā ‘Īsā (hpbuu)speaks of Allah SWT as ‘the heavenlyFather’ (the word translated ‘heavenly’ is there in the Greek of the original Injīl). This demonstrates clearly that Allah’s fatherhood is of a different kind from human fatherhood. For more detail, see Appendix B, The Translation: ‘spiritualSon of God‘.
[2]Or, ‘your reign’ (See also v20). See Appendix D, The Kingdom of Allah.
[4]The Prophet Isaiah (pbuh)had foretold:
‘Be strong, don’t be afraid,
Here is your God!
He will come with vengeance,
with the retribution of Allah.
He will come and save you.’
Then the eyes of the blind will be opened
and the ears of the deaf enabled to hear.
Then the lame will leap like a deer,
andthe tongue that is unable to speak will shout for joy.
(Book of the Prophet Isaiah 35:4-6)
[5]There seems to have been a belief current that an exorcist could only have power over a jinn if he knew its name. In this case, al-Masīh ‘Īsā (hpbuu)could not have gained knowledge of the jinn’s name from the jinn as it was mute. However, this does not prevent him from driving the jinn out.
[8]The Holy Books sometimes speak of Allah SWT having physical characteristics such as an arm (e.g. Taurāt, Exodus 6:6; 15:16), or hand (e.g. Qur’an, Āl-‘Imrān 3:73, al-Fatah 48:10), face (e.g. Taurāt, Numbers 6:25-26, Qur’an, al-Baqarah 2:115). Some Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars view such descriptions as purely metaphorical. Others suggest they depict realities that at present are beyond our understanding. For example, in Islam, theAsh‘arī tradition affirms what is revealed even though we do not know how it can be true. We accept it, bi lā kayf– ‘without asking how.’
The phrase ‘finger of God’ would likely call to mind three significant passages from the Taurāt and Zabūr:
At the time of Prophet Mūsā (pbuh), Allah SWT sent ten plaques on Pharoah and the Egyptians (see Taurāt, Exodus 7:14-12:30, Qur’an, al-A’raf 7:134-135). The third of these plaques was the plague of gnats, and this was the first of the plaques that Pharaoh’s magicians were unable to replicate. In Taurāt, Exodus 8:19 we read, The magicians said to Pharaoh, ‘This is the finger of Allah!’
A few months later, when the Banī Isrā’īl were camped in Sinai, we are told,
When the LORD finished speaking to Mūsā on Mount Sinai, he gave to him the two tablets of the testimony, the stone tablets written by the finger of Allah(Taurāt, Exodus 31:18).
Then in the Zabūr, we find this du’ā of Prophet Dāwūd (pbuh):
When I look at your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place…(Zabūr, Psalm 8:3).
[11]A full account of the Prophet Yūnus (pbuh)is given in the Book of the Prophet Jonah/Yūnus. Reference to the Prophet Yūnus (pbuh)is also made in the Qur’an in Yūnus 10:98,
Why has not a single town believed and benefitted from its belief, other than the people of Jonah? When they believed, We removed from them the punishment of disgrace in the life of this world, and We granted them enjoyment for a while.
See also, Qur’an, al-Anbiyā 21:87-88, as-Sāffāt 37:139-148, al-Qalam 68:48-50.
[12]The account of this can be found in 1stBook of Kings 10:1-13, 2ndBook of Chronicles 9:1-12.
[13]The word in the Greek language in which the Injīl was originally written also has the sense of, ‘simple’, ‘innocent’ or ‘healthy’. The Book of Proverbs 22:9 says: ‘Whoever has a generous eye is blessed, for they give their food to the poor.’
[14]An ‘evil eye’ had the meaning of envy and stinginess, as it does in many cultures today. However, unlike many cultures today, there does not seem to have been the idea that a person’s envy or evil eye somehow brings a curse on others whom they envy.
[15]For more information on the Pharisees, see the Glossary.
The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in the ritual manner, holding fast to the tradition of the elders.
This ‘tradition of the elders’ was separate and distinct from the Taurāt.
[17]Donating a tenth of mint, herbs and all vegetables was also from the tradition of the elders.
[18]The account of Hābīl’s (Abel’s) murder by his brother, Qābīl (Cain) is found in Taurāt, Genesis 4:1-16. See also Qur’an, al-Mā’idah 5:27-31.
[19] This may refer to the account of the martyrdom of a prophet named Zakarīyā (pbuh)(different from the Prophet Zakarīyā [pbuh]who was father of Prophet Yahyā [pbuh]) in 2ndBook of Chronicles 24:20-25.