Ear­ly Chris­t­ian per­spec­tives on sin, as exam­ined in this arti­cle, con­trast with Pauline and Augus­tin­ian views. The Apos­tolic Fathers believed sin was acquired through per­son­al choic­es rather than being an inher­ent con­di­tion. They empha­sized human rea­son and moral effort to over­come sin, dif­fer­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the idea of inher­ent sin­ful­ness and help­less­ness. This analy­sis high­lights the ear­ly Chris­t­ian focus on eth­i­cal human­ism and ratio­nal­ism in address­ing sin.

What pro­ceeds is an ana­lyt­i­cal view of Christ­mas and appro­pri­ate Mus­lim con­duct dur­ing the Christ­mas season.

Praise be to Allah who grant­ed us with the bless­ing of monothe­ism, I seek the refuge of Allah from dis­be­lief and those peo­ple who asso­ciate them­selves with dis­be­lief. The author of the Book of Rev­e­la­tions had described/​portrayed his god as a slain lamb with sev­en horns and sev­en eyes. Please notice the dis­tinc­tion in the last verse between God ​“which sit­teth upon the throne” and the Lamb indi­cat­ing that Chris­tians have anoth­er god — a lamb — to wor­ship in asso­ci­a­tion with Allah, the True God Who is upon the throne.

Ibn al-Qayy­im al-Jauziyyah was a promi­nent Mus­lim jurist dur­ing Islam’s Gold­en Age. Apart from his juris­dis­tic prowess, he was also com­pe­tent in com­pos­ing qasi­dah (Ara­bic poet­ry). Among his more famous works was the qasi­dah enti­tled A’ob­bad al-Maseeh Fi Naqd al-Nas­raniyyah (O Christ-Wor­ship­pers ! A Poem Refut­ing Chris­tian­i­ty). This qasi­dah is well-known in the Mus­lim world and has even been turned into a song. The fol­low­ing is the Eng­lish trans­la­tion of the poet­ry which is imme­di­ate­ly accom­pa­nied by the Ara­bic original.

It is unwar­rantably assumed by Chris­t­ian writ­ers that the incar­nat­ed Gods and cru­ci­fied Sav­iors of the pagan reli­gions were all either mere fab­u­lous char­ac­ters, or ordi­nary human beings invest­ed with divine titles, and divine attrib­ut­es ; while, on the oth­er hand, the assump­tion is put forth with equal bold­ness that Jesus Christ was a real divine per­son­age, ​“seen and believed on in the world, and final­ly cru­ci­fied on Mount Cal­vary.” But we do not find the facts in his­to­ry to war­rant any such assump­tions or any such dis­tinc­tions. They all stand in these respects upon the same ground and on equal footing.