format_quote Originally Posted by
Follower
Gossamer skye- So correct me if I am wrong you are saying that Gabriel is the only one that is a holy spirit? Or do you mean this is just a title, name?
So Jesus only with the help of the holy spirit was able to raise the dead from the grave? Does this mean that it is Gabriel that has the power to raise the dead, or that GOD gave this power to Gabriel who passed it on to Jesus?
002.253
YUSUFALI: Those messengers We endowed with gifts, some above others: To one of them Allah spoke; others He raised to degrees (of honour); to Jesus the son of Mary We gave clear (Signs), and strengthened him with the holy spirit. If Allah had so willed, succeeding generations would not have fought among each other, after clear (Signs) had come to them, but they (chose) to wrangle, some believing and others rejecting. If Allah had so willed, they would not have fought each other; but Allah Fulfilleth His plan.
(2: 253) Some of these apostles have We endowed more highly than others: among them were such as.were spoken to by God [Himself], and some He has raised yet higher.'* And We vouchsafed unto Jesus, the son of Mary, all evidence of the truth, and strengthened him with holy inspiration.**
And if God had so willed, they who succeeded those [apostles] would not have contended with one another after all evidence of the truth had come to them; but [as it was,] they did take to divergent views, and some of them attained to faith, while some of them came to deny the truth. Yet if God had so willed, they would not have contended with one another: but God does whatever He wills.***
* This appears to be an allusion to Muhammad inasmuch as he was the Last Prophet and the bearer of a universal message applicable to all people and to all times. By "such as were spoken to by God" Moses is meant (see the last sentence of 4 : 164).
** The mention, in this context, of Jesus by name is intended to stress the fact of his having been a prophet, and to refute the claims of those who deify him. For an explanation of the term huh al -qudus (rendered by me as "holy inspiration"), see note 71 on verse 87 of this surah.
*I.e., their obstinate desire to obtain closer and closer definitions of the simple commandment revealed to them through Moses had made it almost impossible for them to fulfil it. In his commentary on this passage; Tabari quotes the following remark of Ibn 'Abbas: "If [in the first instance] they had sacrificed any cow chosen by themselves, they would have fulfilled their duty; but they made it complicated for themselves, and so God made it complicated for them." A similar view has been'expressed, in the same context, by Zamakhshari. It would appear that the moral of this story points to an important-problem of all (and, therefore, also of Islamic) religious jurisprudence: namely, the inadvisability of trying to elicit additional details in respect of any religious law that had originally been given in general terms-for, the more numerous and multiform such details become, the more complicated and rigid becomes the law. This point has been acutely grasped by Rashid Rida', who says in his commentary on the above Qur'anic passage (see Mandr I, 345 f.): "Its lesson is that one should not pursue one's [legal] inquiries in such a way as to make laws more complicated .... This was how the early generations [of Muslims] visualized the problem. They did not make things complicated for themselves-and so, for them, the religious law (drn) was natural, simple and liberal in its straightforwardness. But those who came later added to it [certain other] injunctions which they had deduced by means of their own reasoning (iftihdd); and they multiplied those [additional] injunctions to such an extent that the religious law became a heavy burden on the community." For the sociological reason why the genuine ordinances of Islamic Law - that is, those which have been prima facie laid down as such in the Qur'an and the teachings of the Prophet-are
almost always devoid of details, I would refer the reader to my book State and Government in Islam (pp. 11 ff. and passim). The importance of this problem, illustrated in the above story of the cow-and correctly grasped by the Prophet's Companions-explains why this sarah has been entitled "The Cow". (See also 5 : 101 and the corresponding notes 120-123.)
*Lit., "We caused him to be followed, after his time, by [all] the other apostles": a stress upon
the continuous succession of prophets among the Jews (see Tabari, Zamakhshari, Razi, Ibn Kathir), which fact deprives them of any excuse of ignorance.
**This rendering of rah al-qudus (lit., "the spirit of holiness") is based on the recurring use in the Qui'an of the term rah in the sense of "divine inspiration". It is also recorded that the Prophet invoked the blessing of the rah al-qudus on his Companion, the poet Hassan ibn Thabit (Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dd'ud and Tirmidhi): just as the Qur'an (58: 22) speaks of all believers as being "strengthened by inspiration (rah) from Him".
***Lit., "and some you are slaying". The change from the past tense observed throughout this sentence to the present tense in the verb taqtulan ("you are slaying") is meant to express a conscious intent in this respect and, thus, a persistent, ever-recurring trait in Jewish history (Manor I, 377), to which also the New Testament refers (Matthew xxiii, 34-35, 37), and I Thessalonians ii, 15).
Gabriel's job is the inspiration of revelations into the hearts of the messengers.. as simple as that .. Jesus couldn't raise the dead and Moses couldn't split seas were it not for God!
all the best