Question:

The Qur’an said that Jesus never called himself Ibn (son of) Allah, and that there were Christians that believed he was Abd Allah (servant of God), not Ibn Allah, like Ashab al Kahf, or Ashabal Ukhdud. Is there proof of these types of Christians?

And the Quran also says that Christians worshipped Mary, is there any proof of that?

Answer:

1) Unitarians: Unitarians are the most ancient Christian denomination and still some of its adherents exist in the UK and USA. They adhere to strict monotheism and maintain that Jesus was a great man and a prophet of God, but not God himself. The largest Unitarian denomination worldwide today is also the oldest surviving Unitarian denomination; the Unitarian Church of Transylvania (in Romania, which is in union with the Unitarian Church in Hungary).

2)  Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches pay a special homage and veneration to Mary. They refer to Mary as ‘the Mother of God’ (Theotokos). They not only believe that she is the mediatrix (a female mediator) of all graces, but they also believe in Mariolatry, a term used since the Reformation to mean the worship of Mary. Thus, recitation of the rosary has been among the most popular expressions of Marian devotion.

The internet encyclopaedia of Encarta explains the history of the divinity of Mary as follows:

“As early as the 2nd century, Christians venerated Mary by calling her Mother of God, a title that primarily stresses the divinity of Jesus. During the controversies of the 4th century concerning the divine and human natures of Jesus, the Greek title theotókos (Mother of God) came to be used for Mary in devotional and theological writing. Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople (present-day İstanbul), contested this usage, insisting that Mary was mother of Christ, not of God. In 431, the Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorianism and solemnly affirmed that Mary is to be called theotókos, a title that has been used since that time in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.”

It is nearly impossible to find a Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Church wherein it is not filled with carved or molten images and/or statues of Jesus and Mary. Most of these images and statues are placed in the prominent places of the Prayer Halls of the churches for veneration and worship. The majority of the congregation will kneel, worship, venerate and pray before these images as an inherited tradition. They refer to Jesus as their God and to the Virgin Mary asthe ‘Mother of God’! Many devoted Catholics also have statues of Mary in their homes for her veneration.

The Protestants, however, who separated from the Church of Rome in the 16th century, do not believe in the divinity of Mary.

Answered by: Sheikh Mansour Leghaei