Mary and Jesus in Islam

The Almighty Admonishes Jesus

Abu Busayr quotes Abu Abdullah, Imam Ja`fer al-Sadiq, saying that the Almighty, Glory and Exaltation are His, admonished Jesus son of Mary thus:

O Jesus! You are the Messiah by My command; you bring the dead back to life by My Word, so let your desire be My Pleasure, and be fearful of Me, for you shall find no refuge from Me except with Me. O Jesus! I admonish you as one Who is Compassionate to you: Seek My mercy though I granted you authority, and seek whatever pleases Me, for blessed you are as a grown-up, and blessed you are as a child, wherever you may be. I testify that you are My servant and the son of My bondmaid. O Jesus! Let My status with you be your ultimate concern, and remember Me so that such remembrance will be treasured when you return to Me. Seek nearness to Me through optional (nafl) acts of worship; rely upon Me so that I may make you independent of others; do not rely on others else My Wrath should overtake you.

O Jesus! Be patient when tried, and be contented with your lot. Be as I would like you to be, and I would like to be pleased with you, for My pleasure is that I am obeyed and never disobeyed. O Jesus! Let your tongue ever mention My Name, and let your heart ever be filled with love for Me. O Jesus! Be aware in the times of heedlessness, and judge with beautiful wisdom seeking My Pleasure. O Jesus! Desire My Pleasure, fear My wrath, and kill your heart with fear of Me. O Jesus!

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Observe the night as means to seeking My Pleasure, and deprive yourself of water during your day seeking to treasure it for the Day when you will very much be in need of Me. O Jesus! Compete with others in the paths of goodness as much as you can so that you will be identified with goodness wherever you go. O Jesus! Judge among My servants as I have advised you, and effect My justice among them, for I have revealed to you that which heals the hearts from Satan's ailments.

O Jesus! Do not sit with one who is tried with tribulations. O Jesus! What I say is the truth: No creature truly believes in Me except that he humbles himself to Me, and no creature feels awe of Me except that he is hopeful of My rewards. I, therefore, testify to you that such a person is secure against My punishment so long as you do not alter My way. O Jesus son of the righteous Virgin! Weep over your soul like one who bids his family farewell, who has no desire for this life, who leaves life for those who seek it, desiring only what is with Allah.

O Jesus! Be, moreover, kind in speech, disseminating the greeting, awake when the eyes of the doers of good are asleep, being apprehensive of the Hereafter, of the tremendous quakes, of the horrors of the Day of Judgment when no family nor offspring nor wealth will be of any avail. O Jesus! Decorate your eyes with grief when the idle ones laugh.

O Jesus! Be submissive and persevering, for congratulations to you when you obtain what those who persevere shall receive. O Jesus! Live your life day by day, and taste what lost its taste, for the truth is what I say: You have only your hour and your moment, so derive lessons from the passage of time, and let what is coarse (of clothes) and what is most simple (of food) suffice you, for you have seen what your final destiny shall be, and that whatever you take and whatever you consume is already preordained. O Jesus! You shall be questioned, so have mercy on the weak just as I have been Merciful unto you, and do not cause any grief to the orphan.

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O Jesus! Mourn your own soul when you perform your prayers, and let your feet take you to the places where prayers are held, and let Me hear the sweetness of your mentioning My Name, for I have treated you beautifully. O Jesus! How many nation have I caused to perish on account of a sin from which I protected you? O Jesus! Be kind to the weak, and raise your exhausted eyes to the sky and supplicate to Me, for I am near to you, and do not supplicate to Me except when you are pleading to Me, having one and only concern, for whenever you thus call upon Me, so shall I answer your call. O Jesus! I never wanted the life in this world to be the reward of those who preceded you nor a penalty to those against whom I sought revenge.

O Jesus! You shall perish, whereas I shall always remain; from Me comes your sustenance, and with Me is the time of your death, and to Me is your return, and upon Me is your judgment; so, plead to Me and to none else so that your plea may be good, and so that I will be the One to answer it.

O Jesus! How numerous are people, yet how few are those who persevere! Trees are many, yet those that bear tasty fruit from among them are few; so do not let the beauty of a tree allure you till you taste of its fruit. O Jesus! Do not be allured by one who is rebellious against My wish; he eats My sustenance while worshipping someone else other than Me, then he calls upon Me at the moment of affliction, and I still respond to his call, then he goes back to what he used to do!

Is it against Me that he rebels, or is he challenging My wrath? By My own Self do I swear that I shall take him in a way from which he shall have no recourse, nor shall he have any refuge. Where shall he flee? From My sky, or from My earth?! O Jesus! Tell the unjust ones from among the Children of Israel: Do not supplicate to Me as long as you harbour usury and the idols are at your homes, for I have sworn never to answer the prayer of anyone who thus prays to Me, and that I shall make My answer to their prayers a curse upon them till they disperse. O Jesus! How beautiful is My patience and how

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beautiful is what I seek, yet people are heedless, returning not to Me! Words come out of their mouths without their hearts comprehending them till they become the object of My contempt, and till they try to please the believers seeking My pleasure.

O Jesus! Be merciful seeking mercy for others, and treat the servants as you wish them to treat you, and quite often remember death and separation from the family. Do not be distracted, for distraction corrupts, and do not be heedless, for the heedless are distant from Me, and remember Me with good deeds so that I may likewise remember you.

O Jesus! Seek My forgiveness after you commit any sin, and remind those who often return to Me of Me. Believe in Me, and seek nearness to Me by being near to those who believe in Me. Enjoin them to join you in supplicating to Me, and beware of the supplication of the oppressed one, for I took upon Myself to open for it a gate in the heavens, and that I shall answer his call even if it may be after a while. O Jesus! Be informed that the wrongdoer entices others, and that befriending the evildoer hurls one into the pit; so, know who your friend is before you befriend him, and choose for your own company brethren from among the believers. O Jesus! Repent to Me, for there is no sin too great for My forgiveness, and I am the most Merciful of those who have mercy.

O Jesus! Perform acts of righteousness for your soul as long as you live and before time comes when none else can do so on your behalf, and worship Me for the sake of a Day as lengthy as a thousand years of your own reckoning, for I reward a good deed with ten-fold, and the sin stains the sinner. Compete with others in the doing of good deeds, for how many meeting adjourned with a safeguard from the fire!

O Jesus! Keep away from that which shall perish and cease to be, and visit the ruins of those who were before you: call upon them and ask them to respond to you; can you feel the presence of any of them at all? So seek wisdom from them,

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and be informed that you shall soon join their company together with those who soon will.

O Jesus! Tell whoever rebels and revolts and deceives to await My punishment and to expect My annihilation; he shall be burnt among those who shall perish. Congratulations to you, O son of Mary, and many congratulations if you emulate the manners of your Lord Who, out of His Mercy, is Compassionate unto you, Who starts the giving out of His generosity, Who is always there for you during your each and every calamity. Do not disobey Him, O Jesus, for it is not lawful for you to disobey Him. I have taken a covenant from you just as I had taken it from those before you, and I am for that a Witness.

O Jesus! I have never granted My creation anything better than My religion, nor have I blessed them with anything better than My Mercy! O Jesus! Wash with water that which appears of your parts, and heal with good deeds those that do not, for to Me you shall surely return. O Jesus! I have granted you of My blessings an abundance without dreariness, and I have sought of you a loan for the goodness of your own soul, but you were too miser to do so, hence you may be one of those who perish. O Jesus! Decorate yourself with the decoration of faith, with love for the needy, and walk on earth gently, and perform your prayers on all the tracts of the earth, for they are all clean.

O Jesus! Be prepared, for whatever comes is near, and recite My Book when you are pure, and let Me hear you reciting it in a somber voice. O Jesus! There is no good in a pleasure which does not last, nor in life that will depart. O son of Mary! Had your eyes only seen what I have prepared for My good friends, your heart would have dissolved and your soul would have come out of your body in anxiety for it, for there is no home like the Hereafter where the righteous are neighbours of one another; angels near to Me visit them, and they are secure from the horrors of the Day of Judgment, a home wherein happiness never changes, nor does it ever depart from its people. O son

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of Mary! Compete for its sake with those who compete, for it is the desire of those who have a desire; it pleases those who see it. Congratulation to you, O son of Mary, if you are among those who work for it from among those who do so in the company of your fathers: Adam and Abraham, in the Gardens and felicity with which you do not wish to trade anything else at all and from which you never desire to be diverted; thus do I deal with the pious. O Jesus! Flee to Me with those who flee from a fire with flames,

a fire with chains and torment; no rest shall there ever enter it, nor any of its torments shall be diminished; it is as though it were pieces of pitched darkness. Whoever is saved from it is a winner, and none will be spared from it if he is written down among those who shall perish; it is the abode of the tyrants and oppressors and everyone who is rude and haughty, conceited and arrogant. O Jesus! Evil is the abode of those who feel comfortable with it, and evil, indeed, is the abode of the wrongdoers. I warn you against your own soul; so, take admonishment from Me.

O Jesus! Wherever you may be, you should be on your guard concerning Me, and testify that I created you, and you are My servant; I shaped you and to the earth sent you. O Jesus! No mouth can have two tongues, nor one chest can have two hearts, and such are the minds, too. O Jesus! Do not wake up in disobedience, and do not come to your senses finding yourself heedless, and wean yourself from desires that cause you to sin. Any desire that distances you from Me you should abandon, and be informed that you are to Me as a trusted messenger; so, be forewarned of Me, and be informed that your life shall in the end bring you back to Me, and that I shall take you with My knowledge. Be humble whenever My Name is mentioned, submissive of heart whenever you yourself mention Me, awake when the heedless sleep. O Jesus! This is My advice to you and My admonishment; so, take it from Me, for I am the Lord of the Worlds.[^1]

[^1] al-Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, Vol. 14, pp. 289-293. There is a lot more text of

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If you discern these exhortations, and if you compare them with what the Almighty admonished His prophet and messenger Moses or His Prophet and Messenger Muhammed, or any of His prophets and messengers, you will find a great deal of similarity between them. The Almighty is One and the same, and so is His Wisdom and Creed. His speech, too, is one and the same, praise be to Him. Very few, however, realize this simple and pristine fact. the same, but the lack of space does not allow me to provide the reader with more.