GOSPEL
INJIL
Ar: Injil / Injeel
Gk: Evangelion, meaning the Good News.
Mark 1:1 begins with :
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
(Mark 1:1,
see also Luke 4:18-19)
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their
synagogues,
preaching
the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness
among the people.
(Matthew 4:23,
also
Matthew 9:35, 24:14, 26:13, Mark 1:14-15, 8:35, 10:29, 13:10, 14:9,
16:15)
And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the
everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth,
and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him;
for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made
heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
(Revelation 14:6-7)
In English, it went from "Godspel" to "Gospel".
Arabic injil
is said to have come from Greek to Syriac to Arabic
(Arthur Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of
the Quran, pp. 71-72, quoted by Abdul Haqq, p. 60).
Muslims take the Injil to mean
the scripture believed to be sent down to Jesus.
This word occurs 12 (or 16?) times in the Qur'an,
and occurs only in the later surahs
(Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, p. 211).
According to
Baidawi and
Zamakshari,
Injil is not Arabic, but Syriac,
(Arthur Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Quran,
pp. 71-72, quoted by Abdul Haqq, pp. 60),
used by Syriac Christians themselves.
Many modern Muslims believed that the Injil has been lost or
corrupted (see TAHRIF).
The Shiite Encyclopaedia states that the
Injil is the New Testament.
Muhammad
was much more indebted to Judaism than Christianity for the
teaching he received, which enabled him to overthrow Arabian idolatry
and to establish the worship of the One True God, and consequently we
find more frequent allusions to the Law of Moses than to the Gospel of
Christ; and as it has been already stated, the references to the
Gospel as a revelation are in the later surahs. But in all references
to the Gospel as an inspired record, there is not one single statement
to the effect that the Christians of Muhammad's day did not possess
the genuine Scriptures. In Surah iv.169 (which is an
al-Madinah Surah), the Christians are charged with
extravagance or error in doctrine, but not with possessing
the true Gospels.
(Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, p. 211)
Hughes quoted extensively from Hajji Khalifah's kashfu'z
Zunun, a bibliographical dictionary published about 200 years ago:
The Injil is a book which God revealed to
`Isa ibn Maryam. In
the work entitled al-Muwahib (by Shihabu 'd-Din Ahmad
al-Qas-alaui, A.H. 923), it is recorded that the Injil was
first revealed in the Syriac tongue, and has since been translated
into seventeen languages. But in the Sahihu `l-Bukhari (A.H.
256), in the story of Waraqah ibn Naufal, it is related that the
Injil was revealed in Hebrew .... At the commencement of the
Injil is inscribed `In the name of the Father and of the Son,'
&c. And the Injil, which is now in the hands of the
Christians, is merely a history of the Christ (Siratu 'l-Masih),
collected by his four companions Matta, Luqa, Marqus and Yuhanna.
...
In the work entitled al-Insanu 'l-Kamil (written by the
Shaikh `Abdul 'l-Karim ibn Ibrahim al-Jili, lived A.H. 767-811) it is
said that when the Christians found that there was at the commencement
of the Injil the superscription i.e. (in the name of the
Father and Son,' they took the words in their natural meaning and
[thinking it ought to be Ab, father, Umm, mother,
and Ibn, Son] understood by Ab, the spirit, by
Umm, Mary, and by Ibn, Jesus; and on this account
they said Salisu Salasatin, i.e. `(God is) the third of three.''
(Surah v.77). But they did not undersand that by Ab is meant
God most high, by Umm the Mahiyatu 'l-Haqa'iq or `Essence
of Truth' (Quidditas veritatum), and by Ibn, the
Book of God, which is called Wujudu 'l-Mutlaq, or `Absolute
Existence,' being an emanation of the Essence of Truth, as it is
implied in the words of the Qur'an, Surah xiii.9; `And with him is the
Umm 'l-Kitab, or the Mother of the Book.'
(Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, pp. 212-213)
See