Prophet Isa (AS) – The Messiah, Son of Maryam حضرت عیسیٰ علیہ السلام – مسیح ابنِ مریم

The story of Isa (AS) begins a generation before his birth, with a woman and a vow. The Quran says: "Indeed, Allah chose Adam and Nuh and the family of Ibrahim and the family of Imran over the worlds – descendants, some of them from others" (Al-Imran 3:33–34). Imran was a righteous man of the Children of Israel, of the line of Dawud (AS), and his wife, whom the scholars name Hannah, had reached old age without a child. When she finally conceived, she made a vow in gratitude: "My Lord, indeed I have pledged to You what is in my womb, consecrated for Your service, so accept this from me. Indeed, You are the Hearing, the Knowing" (Al-Imran 3:35). She intended her child to be devoted entirely to the service of Bayt al-Maqdis, as the custom of the devout allowed for boys.

But the child was a girl. "My Lord, I have delivered a female," she said, and the Quran adds, "and Allah was most knowing of what she delivered – and the male is not like the female" (Al-Imran 3:36). A girl could not serve the sanctuary as a boy would; yet Allah knew that this girl was greater than any boy her mother could have imagined. The mother named her Maryam and prayed: "I seek refuge for her in You and for her descendants from Shaytan, the expelled" (Al-Imran 3:36). The Prophet ﷺ told us that this prayer was answered in a unique way: every child of Adam is touched by Shaytan at birth and cries because of it, except Maryam and her son (Sahih al-Bukhari 3431; Sahih Muslim 2366).

"So her Lord accepted her with good acceptance and caused her to grow in a good manner and put her in the care of Zakariya" (Al-Imran 3:37). The men who served the sanctuary each wanted the honour of raising the daughter of Imran, and they cast lots with their pens to decide. The Quran mentions this scene briefly: "You were not with them when they cast their pens as to which of them should be responsible for Maryam" (Al-Imran 3:44). Zakariya (AS), the prophet, who was married to a relative of hers, won the lot and became her guardian.

Maryam grew up in a chamber attached to the sanctuary, devoted to prayer. There something happened that the Quran records as the first sign of what was to come. "Every time Zakariya entered upon her in the prayer chamber, he found with her provision. He said, 'O Maryam, from where is this for you?' She said, 'It is from Allah. Indeed, Allah provides for whom He wills without account'" (Al-Imran 3:37). The commentators relate that he found the fruits of summer in winter and the fruits of winter in summer. Her answer shows the faith she had been raised in: she took no credit, and she was not surprised that Allah could provide outside the usual order. It was this scene that moved Zakariya to pray for a child of his own, and Yahya (AS) was granted to him.

Allah describes the station Maryam reached: "And when the angels said, 'O Maryam, indeed Allah has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of the worlds. O Maryam, be devoutly obedient to your Lord and prostrate and bow with those who bow'" (Al-Imran 3:42–43). The Prophet ﷺ said: "Many men reached perfection, but no women reached perfection except Maryam the daughter of Imran and Asiyah the wife of Pharaoh" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3411). In another hadith he said: "The best of its women was Maryam daughter of Imran, and the best of its women is Khadijah" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3432).

The Quran names her alongside the wife of Pharaoh as an example for all believers: "And Maryam, the daughter of Imran, who guarded her chastity, so We blew into her through Our angel, and she believed in the words of her Lord and His scriptures and was of the devoutly obedient" (At-Tahrim 66:12). She is the only woman named in the Quran, and a whole surah bears her name. It was to this woman – chaste, devout, raised in the house of worship and under the eye of a prophet – that Allah entrusted the greatest sign He would show to the Children of Israel.

Maryam had withdrawn from her family to a place east of the sanctuary, screened from them, for her devotions. There Allah sent His angel to her. "Then We sent to her Our Angel, and he represented himself to her as a well-proportioned man" (Maryam 19:17). Her first reaction tells us everything about her character. A strange man had appeared in her private place of worship, and she did not panic or flirt or faint; she said: "Indeed, I seek refuge in the Most Merciful from you, if you should be fearing of Allah" (Maryam 19:18). She appealed to his taqwa, as if to say: if you have any fear of Allah, leave.

The angel, Jibril, reassured her: "I am only the messenger of your Lord to give you a pure boy" (Maryam 19:19). In Surah Al-Imran the glad tidings are given in detail: "O Maryam, indeed Allah gives you good tidings of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Isa, the son of Maryam – distinguished in this world and the Hereafter and among those brought near to Allah. He will speak to the people in the cradle and in maturity and will be of the righteous" (Al-Imran 3:45–46). Everything about his life was announced in advance: his name, his title, his honour in both worlds, and the first of his miracles.

Maryam asked the same question that Zakariya had asked, but from a far more difficult position. "How can I have a boy while no man has touched me and I have not been unchaste?" (Maryam 19:20). She was unmarried. For Zakariya a child meant joy; for her it meant a scandal she could not explain. The answer was the same answer Allah gives whenever His decree meets human impossibility: "Thus it will be; your Lord says, 'It is easy for Me, and We will make him a sign to the people and a mercy from Us. And it is a matter already decreed'" (Maryam 19:21). In Al-Imran: "Allah creates what He wills. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, 'Be,' and it is" (Al-Imran 3:47).

This is why the Quran calls Isa "a word from Allah" (Al-Imran 3:45; An-Nisa 4:171). He is not Allah's word in the sense of being divine; he is the result of Allah's word "Be". Allah makes the point unmistakable by comparison: "Indeed, the example of Isa to Allah is like that of Adam. He created him from dust; then He said to him, 'Be,' and he was" (Al-Imran 3:59). If a man can be created with neither father nor mother, a man created with a mother but no father is no harder for Allah, and no more a reason to call him divine. Adam had no father, and no one calls Adam the son of God.

Allah then breathed into Maryam through His angel, as He describes: "And she who guarded her chastity, so We blew into her through Our angel, and We made her and her son a sign for the worlds" (Al-Anbiya 21:91). The commentators relate that Jibril breathed into the opening of her garment and the breath reached her womb, and she conceived. The details beyond the Quran's words are from the reports of early narrators and should not be pressed too far; what is certain is that the conception was by the command of Allah alone, through the angel, without any human father.

The angel also told her what her son would do. He would be taught "writing and wisdom and the Tawrah and the Injil", and he would be a messenger to the Children of Israel, bringing them signs from their Lord (Al-Imran 3:48–49). So before Isa was even born, Maryam knew that she carried a prophet. That knowledge did not remove the trial of facing her people, but it gave her the strength to bear it. She "believed in the words of her Lord and His scriptures" (At-Tahrim 66:12), and she waited for the decree of Allah to unfold.

"So she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a remote place" (Maryam 19:22). The Quran does not say how long the pregnancy lasted, and the reports that give a figure are not established. Many Muslim historians, following the People of the Book, say the birth took place in Bayt Lahm (Bethlehem), near Bayt al-Maqdis; the Quran itself does not name the place. What it describes is the loneliness of a young woman facing childbirth with no one beside her.

"And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm tree. She said, 'Oh, I wish I had died before this and was in oblivion, forgotten'" (Maryam 19:23). This cry has puzzled some readers: how could the chosen woman wish for death? The scholars explain that she did not despair of Allah; she dreaded what her people would say about her, and feared that they would be led into sin by accusing her. Then a voice called to her from below – either the child himself, or Jibril, according to the two readings of the commentators – "Do not grieve; your Lord has provided beneath you a stream. And shake toward you the trunk of the palm tree; it will drop upon you ripe, fresh dates. So eat and drink and be contented" (Maryam 19:24–26).

The instruction contained a lesson for all time. Allah could have made the dates fall without her lifting a hand, but He told her to shake the trunk – a woman in the pains of labour, shaking a palm tree that strong men cannot move. The miracle came, but it came through her effort. She was also told what to say if anyone questioned her: "Say, 'Indeed, I have vowed to the Most Merciful abstention, so I will not speak today to any man'" (Maryam 19:26). A vow of silence was a known form of devotion among the Children of Israel. She was not to argue her own case; the proof would come from elsewhere.

"Then she brought him to her people, carrying him" (Maryam 19:27). The scene the Quran paints is one of public confrontation. "They said, 'O Maryam, you have certainly done a thing unprecedented. O sister of Harun, your father was not a man of evil, nor was your mother unchaste'" (Maryam 19:27–28). "Sister of Harun" does not mean she was the sister of the prophet Harun who lived centuries earlier; the Prophet ﷺ explained that the people of that time used to name themselves after the prophets and the righteous who came before them (Sahih Muslim 2135). Either she was descended from Harun's line, or she was being compared to a righteous man of her own time who bore that name.

"So she pointed to him" (Maryam 19:29). The people were outraged: "How can we speak to one who is in the cradle a child?" Then the infant spoke. "He said, 'Indeed, I am the servant of Allah. He has given me the Scripture and made me a prophet. And He has made me blessed wherever I am and has enjoined upon me prayer and zakah as long as I remain alive, and dutiful to my mother, and He has not made me a wretched tyrant. And peace is on me the day I was born and the day I will die and the day I am raised alive'" (Maryam 19:30–33). The very first words of Isa were "I am the servant of Allah." The child who would later be worshipped as God began his life by declaring the opposite.

The Prophet ﷺ said that only three infants spoke in the cradle: Isa, the child who testified for Jurayj the worshipper, and the infant who spoke to his mother about the oppressor and the accused woman (Sahih al-Bukhari 3436; Sahih Muslim 2550). The speech of Isa cleared his mother of every accusation and announced his prophethood at once. Allah closes the passage with the words: "That is Isa, the son of Maryam – the word of truth about which they are in dispute. It is not for Allah to take a son; exalted is He! When He decrees an affair, He only says to it, 'Be,' and it is" (Maryam 19:34–35). The miracle was not given so that people might worship the child; it was given so that they might believe the Lord who made him speak.

The Quran says almost nothing about the years between the cradle and the mission. The angel had promised that Allah would teach Isa "writing and wisdom and the Tawrah and the Injil" (Al-Imran 3:48), and we should understand that he grew up as a devout member of the Children of Israel, learned in their Scripture, in the land around Bayt al-Maqdis. Reports that describe his childhood in Egypt or at Nasirah (Nazareth) come from the People of the Book; Muslim scholars record them as history but do not treat them as revealed fact. When the time came, Allah made him "a messenger to the Children of Israel" (Al-Imran 3:49), the last of the long line of prophets sent to that nation.

His message was the message of every prophet. "Indeed, Allah is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him. That is the straight path" (Al-Imran 3:51; Maryam 19:36; Az-Zukhruf 43:64). He did not come to abolish the Law of Musa but to confirm it: "And I have come confirming what was before me of the Tawrah and to make lawful for you some of what was forbidden to you" (Al-Imran 3:50). Allah gave him the Injil, "in which was guidance and light and confirming that which preceded it of the Tawrah" (Al-Ma'idah 5:46). The Injil, as the Quran uses the word, is the revelation given to Isa, not the four Gospels written later by his followers, which contain some of his teaching mixed with the words of men.

Isa also carried a message about the future. "O Children of Israel, indeed I am the messenger of Allah to you, confirming what came before me of the Tawrah and bringing good tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name is Ahmad" (As-Saff 61:6). Ahmad is one of the names of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (Sahih al-Bukhari 3532). The Prophet ﷺ said: "I am the answer to the prayer of my father Ibrahim and the glad tidings of Isa" (Musnad Ahmad; graded hasan by several scholars). Every prophet announced the next; Isa announced the last.

To support his claim, Allah gave him signs that no one could imitate. He listed them himself: "Indeed I have come to you with a sign from your Lord in that I design for you from clay the likeness of a bird, then I breathe into it and it becomes a bird by permission of Allah. And I cure the blind and the leper, and I give life to the dead – by permission of Allah. And I inform you of what you eat and what you store in your houses" (Al-Imran 3:49). Four times in the Quran's description of these miracles, the phrase "by permission of Allah" is repeated (Al-Imran 3:49; Al-Ma'idah 5:110). The Quran insists on it because the miracles were later used as proof of his divinity. A man who heals by Allah's permission is a servant; only the One who gives permission is God.

The nature of the miracles was suited to his time. The Children of Israel had many physicians, and healing the blind from birth and the leper by a touch was beyond all of them. Raising the dead was beyond anyone. Telling people what they had eaten and what lay hidden in their homes exposed the falseness of those who claimed secret knowledge. And the bird of clay that became a living bird was a reminder of Allah's creation of Adam from clay – and of Isa himself, created by a word.

Allah also strengthened him with "the Pure Spirit", Jibril (Al-Baqarah 2:87, 2:253; Al-Ma'idah 5:110), and He protected him from his enemies: "I restrained the Children of Israel from you when you came to them with clear proofs, and those who disbelieved among them said, 'This is nothing but obvious magic'" (Al-Ma'idah 5:110). The accusation of magic is the one levelled against every prophet with miracles, from Musa to Muhammad ﷺ. Isa lived simply, travelled through the land, taught in the synagogues and in the open air, and called the people back to their Lord. His disciples began to gather around him, and his enemies began to plan.

As opposition hardened, Isa (AS) turned to find out who would stand with him. "But when Isa felt disbelief from them, he said, 'Who are my supporters for Allah?' The disciples said, 'We are supporters for Allah. We have believed in Allah and testify that we are Muslims. Our Lord, we have believed in what You revealed and have followed the messenger, so register us among the witnesses'" (Al-Imran 3:52–53). The Quran calls them al-hawariyyun, a word that implies purity and sincerity; the early scholars said they were named for the whiteness of their clothes, or because they were the chosen and purified followers of the Messiah. Some reports say they were fishermen or washermen by trade. Their number, traditionally twelve, is not given in the Quran.

Allah holds them up as an example to the believers of this ummah: "O you who have believed, be supporters of Allah, as when Isa, the son of Maryam, said to the disciples, 'Who are my supporters for Allah?' The disciples said, 'We are supporters of Allah.' And a faction of the Children of Israel believed and a faction disbelieved. So We supported those who believed against their enemy, and they became dominant" (As-Saff 61:14). Note that the disciples called themselves Muslims – those who submit to Allah – centuries before the Quran was revealed. Islam, in the Quran's view, is the religion of all the prophets, and the true followers of Isa were Muslims in this sense.

One of the most famous episodes of his mission concerns these disciples. "When the disciples said, 'O Isa, son of Maryam, can your Lord send down to us a table from the heaven?' Isa said, 'Fear Allah, if you should be believers'" (Al-Ma'idah 5:112). Their request was not from doubt, as they explained: "We wish to eat from it and let our hearts be reassured and know that you have been truthful to us and be among its witnesses" (Al-Ma'idah 5:113). Isa was reluctant – demanding signs from Allah is dangerous – but he made the prayer for them.

His prayer is recorded in full: "O Allah, our Lord, send down to us a table from the heaven to be for us a festival for the first of us and the last of us and a sign from You. And provide for us, and You are the best of providers" (Al-Ma'idah 5:114). Allah answered: "Indeed, I will send it down to you, but whoever disbelieves afterwards from among you – then indeed will I punish him with a punishment by which I have not punished anyone among the worlds" (Al-Ma'idah 5:115). The surah that contains this story, Al-Ma'idah, is named after the table. Reports from the early generations describe what was on it – fish and bread, or fruits of Paradise – and relate that it came down between two clouds while the people watched; these details are from the narrators, not from the Quran or sahih hadith. What is certain is that the table came and the warning was given.

The Quran also tells us about the inner state of those who followed Isa, both in his time and after. "Then We sent following their footsteps Our messengers and followed them with Isa, the son of Maryam, and gave him the Injil. And We placed in the hearts of those who followed him compassion and mercy and monasticism, which they innovated; We did not prescribe it for them except that they seek the approval of Allah. But they did not observe it with due observance" (Al-Hadid 57:27). The true followers of Isa were gentle and merciful; the monasticism that later generations invented was their own addition, and they failed to maintain even that.

The Quran also describes how the followers of the Messiah were divided after him. Allah says that He gave the disciples support until they prevailed over their enemies (As-Saff 61:14), and that the Children of Israel split into those who believed in Isa and those who rejected him (Al-Imran 3:52; Al-Ma'idah 5:78). The Prophet ﷺ taught that the believers of Isa's community who remained upon his true teaching – worshipping Allah alone and waiting for Ahmad – were Muslims, and that the message of Isa was corrupted only later when people took him as a god. The disciples themselves, who called themselves Muslims and asked to be written among the witnesses, remain the model of what a follower of Isa should be.

The leaders of the Children of Israel could not refute Isa (AS), so they resolved to kill him. The Quran states the matter plainly: "And they planned, but Allah planned. And Allah is the best of planners" (Al-Imran 3:54). The Quran does not detail the plot, but the historians relate – consistent with the Gospels – that the religious authorities accused him before the Roman governor of claiming kingship and stirring up the people, and obtained a sentence of crucifixion. A group of men came by night to the house where he was with his disciples, intending to seize him.

What happened next is the point on which Islam differs from both Judaism and Christianity. The Quran addresses the claim of the Jews: "And for their saying, 'Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Isa, the son of Maryam, the messenger of Allah.' And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but another was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain. Rather, Allah raised him to Himself. And ever is Allah Exalted in Might and Wise" (An-Nisa 4:157–158).

The words "another was made to resemble him to them" (shubbiha lahum) are explained by the commentators through a report from Ibn Abbas, recorded by an-Nasa'i in his Sunan al-Kubra and by Ibn Abi Hatim, with a chain that Ibn Kathir considered sound to Ibn Abbas. In it, Isa said to his disciples: "Which of you will have my likeness cast upon him and be killed in my place, and be my companion in Paradise?" A young man volunteered. Isa was then raised through an opening in the roof of the house, and when the soldiers entered they seized the young man, who now looked like Isa, and crucified him. Other reports say the likeness fell upon the disciple who betrayed him. These accounts are not from the Prophet ﷺ; the Quran itself gives no name, and the scholars treat the identity of the one crucified as unknown. What the Quran establishes is the fact: someone else was crucified, and Isa was not.

The raising of Isa is confirmed in Al-Imran: "When Allah said, 'O Isa, indeed I will take you and raise you to Myself and purify you from those who disbelieve and make those who follow you superior to those who disbelieve until the Day of Resurrection'" (Al-Imran 3:55). The word mutawaffika, "I will take you", has been discussed by the scholars. The majority, following Ibn Abbas and the apparent sense of 4:157–158, hold that it means taking him up alive, body and soul; some said it refers to the sleep that preceded the raising; a few early scholars said it refers to a death that will come after his return. All agree on what the ayah plainly says next – that Allah raised him to Himself – and on the hadith that he will return and only then die.

The Quran observes that "those who differ over it are in doubt about it" (An-Nisa 4:157). Historically this is accurate: within the first centuries after Isa, Christian groups disagreed about whether the Messiah had really suffered on the cross, and the dispute was settled by councils, not by witnesses. The Quran cuts through the dispute with a single statement from the One who knows. Isa (AS) was neither killed nor crucified. His enemies failed; his Lord protected him; and his mission did not end in defeat but in an honour given to no other prophet – to be taken alive into the heavens.

On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will ask Isa whether he told people to take him and his mother as gods, and Isa will reply: "I said not to them except what You commanded me – to worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. And I was a witness over them as long as I was among them; but when You took me up, You were the Observer over them, and You are, over all things, Witness" (Al-Ma'idah 5:117). His own words confirm the sequence: he was among them, then he was taken up, and after that he no longer knew what they did. The deification of Isa happened after he was gone, in his absence, and he will disown it before his Lord.

No prophet is defended in the Quran against false praise as much as Isa (AS). Allah addresses the Christians directly: "O People of the Scripture, do not commit excess in your religion or say about Allah except the truth. The Messiah, Isa, the son of Maryam, was but a messenger of Allah and His word which He directed to Maryam and a soul from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers. And do not say, 'Three'; desist – it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God. Exalted is He above having a son" (An-Nisa 4:171). The ayah affirms everything true about Isa – messenger, word, spirit from Allah – and denies the one thing that was added: that he is God or the son of God.

The Quran records the Christian claim and answers it: "They have certainly disbelieved who say that Allah is the Messiah, the son of Maryam, while the Messiah has said, 'O Children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord'" (Al-Ma'idah 5:72). And: "They have certainly disbelieved who say, 'Allah is the third of three.' And there is no god except one God" (Al-Ma'idah 5:73). Then comes a gentle, almost humorous proof: "The Messiah, son of Maryam, was not but a messenger; messengers have passed on before him. And his mother was a supporter of truth. They both used to eat food" (Al-Ma'idah 5:75). One who needs to eat is a creature; the Creator needs nothing.

The honour of Isa is not reduced by this. "Never would the Messiah disdain to be a servant of Allah, nor would the angels near to Him" (An-Nisa 4:172). To be Allah's servant is the highest title there is. Isa himself claimed it from the cradle (Maryam 19:30), and the Quran reports his own words: "It is not for me to say that to which I have no right" (Al-Ma'idah 5:116). The Prophet ﷺ summed up the Muslim creed concerning him: "Whoever testifies that there is no god but Allah alone with no partner, that Muhammad is His servant and messenger, that Isa is the servant of Allah and His messenger and His word which He bestowed on Maryam and a spirit from Him, and that Paradise is true and Hell is true – Allah will admit him to Paradise" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3435; Sahih Muslim 28).

The Quran also addresses the Jews' rejection of him and their slander of his mother, counting among their sins "their saying against Maryam a great slander" (An-Nisa 4:156). Between the two extremes – one nation that called him an illegitimate child and another that called him God – the Quran places the truth: a pure birth, a true prophet, a servant of Allah. The Prophet ﷺ said: "I am the nearest of all people to Isa son of Maryam in this world and the Hereafter. The prophets are paternal brothers; their mothers are different but their religion is one" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3443; Sahih Muslim 2365).

The Prophet ﷺ saw Isa on the night of the Mi'raj in the second heaven with Yahya (Sahih al-Bukhari 3207), and he described him to his companions. In one account he said: "I saw Isa, a man of medium height, with a reddish complexion, as if he had just come out of a bath" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3438). In another: "Isa is reddish, with curly hair and a broad chest" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3438), and when he saw him at the Ka'bah in a dream he was "of brown complexion, with the best figure one can see among brown men, his hair lank and reaching his shoulders, water dripping from his head" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3440). The hadith scholars reconcile the descriptions as referring to different occasions and different lighting; what matters is that Muslims have, from their own Prophet, an eyewitness portrait of the Messiah.

Why does Islam care so much about this? Because the religion of all the prophets is tawhid, and the greatest wrong done to Isa is to make him an object of the worship he spent his life forbidding. The Quran ends Surah Maryam's account of him with this: "Indeed, Allah is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him. That is a straight path. Then the factions differed from among them, so woe to those who disbelieved – from the scene of a tremendous Day" (Maryam 19:36–37). To love Isa, in the Quran's terms, is to believe what he believed and to worship whom he worshipped.

Isa (AS) is the only prophet whose story is not yet finished. The Quran hints at this: "And indeed, he is a sign of the Hour, so be not in doubt of it" (Az-Zukhruf 43:61), which Ibn Abbas and most commentators explained as referring to his descent before the Day of Resurrection. Another ayah says: "And there is none from the People of the Scripture but that he will surely believe in him before his death, and on the Day of Resurrection he will be against them a witness" (An-Nisa 4:159) – that is, before the death of Isa after his return, every Jew and Christian then alive will believe in him as he truly is.

The hadiths on this are numerous and reach the level of mass transmission. The Prophet ﷺ said: "By Him in whose hand is my soul, the son of Maryam will soon descend among you as a just ruler. He will break the cross, kill the swine and abolish the jizyah, and wealth will be so abundant that no one will accept it, until a single prostration will be better than the world and all it contains" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3448; Sahih Muslim 155). Breaking the cross means ending the worship of the cross; killing the swine means ending its consumption; abolishing the jizyah means that no religion other than Islam will remain to pay it. He will rule by the Shari'ah of Muhammad ﷺ, as one of his followers, not with a new law.

The fullest account is in the long hadith of an-Nawwas ibn Sam'an about the Dajjal (Sahih Muslim 2937). While the Dajjal is spreading his trial across the earth, "Allah will send the Messiah, son of Maryam, and he will descend at the white minaret in the east of Damascus, wearing two garments dyed with saffron, placing his hands on the wings of two angels. When he lowers his head, drops fall, and when he raises it, drops like pearls roll down. Every disbeliever who smells his breath will die, and his breath will reach as far as his sight. He will pursue the Dajjal and catch him at the gate of Ludd and kill him." Then Allah will reveal to Isa that He has brought out Ya'juj and Ma'juj, and Isa will take the believers to Mount Tur and pray until Allah destroys them.

The Prophet ﷺ also said: "How will you be when the son of Maryam descends among you and your imam is from among you?" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3449; Sahih Muslim 155). The scholars explain that when Isa descends, the prayer will be about to begin, and he will decline to lead it, saying that the imam of this ummah is from this ummah – an honour from Allah to the community of Muhammad ﷺ. After the Dajjal and Ya'juj and Ma'juj, there will be years of peace and justice in which "the lion will lie with the camel and the leopard with the cow" (Musnad Ahmad; graded sahih). Abu Dawud records that he will remain on earth forty years, marry, and then die, and the Muslims will pray over him and bury him (Sunan Abi Dawud 4324; graded sahih by al-Albani).

So the greeting Isa gave himself in the cradle – "peace is on me the day I was born and the day I will die and the day I am raised alive" (Maryam 19:33) – covers a story that stretches from a palm tree in Palestine to the end of the world. Born without a father, raised alive to the heavens, he will return as a Muslim, defeat the greatest deceiver in history, die a natural death, and be raised with all mankind. No other prophet has such a story, and Allah told it to us so that the Muslims who meet him will recognise him and so that no one will be deceived by the Dajjal's claim to be the Messiah.

What is the legacy of Isa for the Muslim today? First, the Quran's balance: to love and honour him as one of the five greatest messengers, the "Ulul-Azm" (Al-Ahzab 33:7; Ash-Shura 42:13), while rejecting any claim that he was more than a servant. Second, his example of mercy, simplicity and detachment from the world; Ibn Kathir records the early scholars saying that he owned no house and ate from the leaves of trees, though these are reports, not revelation. Third, his loyalty to his mother, which Allah recorded among his virtues. Fourth, the lesson of the disciples: when he asked who would help him, they said "we are the helpers of Allah", and Allah told this ummah to say the same. And fifth, the knowledge that the Messiah who was announced by Yahya, who announced Ahmad, and who was met by Muhammad ﷺ in the heavens, will one day pray behind a man of this ummah. The religion of Isa and the religion of Muhammad ﷺ are, in the end, one religion.