Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “purpose,” once again deals with the holy books, but this time Mo’s Qur’an. The Bible doesn’t have anything like the first verse; Jesus may have died a virgin, like his mother.
Here is one translation of the surah and verse at hand (33:40); note that Mo gets special connubial privileges:
O Prophet! We have made lawful for you your wives to whom you have paid their ˹full˺ dowries as well as those ˹bondwomen˺ in your possession, whom Allah has granted you. And ˹you are allowed to marry˺ the daughters of your paternal uncles and aunts, and the daughters of your maternal uncles and aunts, who have emigrated like you. Also ˹allowed for marriage is˺ a believing woman who offers herself to the Prophet ˹without dowry˺ if he is interested in marrying her—˹this is˺ exclusively for you, not for the rest of the believers. We know well what ˹rulings˺ We have ordained for the believers in relation to their wives and those ˹bondwomen˺ in their possession. As such, there would be no blame on you. And Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
And the second (33:36):
It is not for a believing man or woman—when Allah and His Messenger decree a matter—to have any other choice in that matter. Indeed, whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger has clearly gone ˹far˺ astray.
“This is exclusively for you”. You can see Mohammed’s origins as a merchant shining through here (Special offer! Get it while you can!) — and why Islam ended up with so much more effective a marketing plan for recruiting believers than Christianity did (tax rebates for believers, extra wives, guaranteed non-enslavement by fellow believers etc., things its less-worldly predecessor in the monotheistic franchise had not thought to offer).
Yes, but the Xtians also had an effective marketing plan: the Roman army.
🤣
This is a very good one. I have recently had one of “those moments” with a friend of mine — long time friend — who, unfortunately, became a “born again” after many years of what I refer to as “quiet Catholicism”. I’ve always been a live and let live person. Vote for, pray to, have sex with whomever you please (provided the sex wasn’t with a child or without consent). It’s when people start forcing their choices down my throat that I go nuts. As a ” born again”, my friend took on a compulsion to “save” her loved ones. I pushed back harder and harder to no avail. I guess all I’m trying to say here is, after laying down my line in the sand just recently (I thought I’d done so earlier, but certain types require a less delicately stated line), I appreciate the nonsense Jesus n Mo sheds light on.
Didn’t Joseph smith use a similar tactic?
The Bible explicitly tells us that Joseph and Mary assumed normal marital relations after Jesus was born.
Matthew 1:24-25 (NRSV)
Mary was not a virgin when she died, at least not according to Matthew.
The idea that Mary remained a virgin appeared in a non-canonical book, the Gospel of James. While this book was not accepted into the New Testament, Catholics decided that the reference to Mary’s virginity was, well, gospel, even if the rest of the book wasn’t.
Catholics explain the verse in Matthew by saying “Joseph and Mary did not consummate the marriage until Jesus was born, and did not consummate it after He was born either!” Yes, I know that’s silly.