Study-Islam.org

VIII

“One Mightier Than I”

Mark 1:7

Muslims not only profess to find in the Old Testament certain predictions concerning Muhammad, but they, in the same manner, quote a number of passages from the New Testament, in which, they affirm, the advent of Muhammad is clearly stated. We shall now proceed to deal with the principal of these latter. The first we shall discuss is found in the Gospel according to Mark, and reads as follows, ‘There cometh after me he that is mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose’ (Mark 1:7). ²⁷ In this passage, we are told, Hazrat Isa plainly points to the coming of the last and greatest Prophet Muhammad.

For thorough disingenuousness this claim on the part of some Muslim writers is probably unique. It cannot for the moment be believed that the writers who quote the passage in question have not read the context; and the only conclusion which can be drawn is that they rely upon the ignorance of their Muslim readers in trying to persuade them that the speaker of the words quoted is Jesus, and the person referred to Muhammad; for the context makes it transparently clear that the speaker is not Hazrat Isa at all, but John the Baptist (Yahya Nabi). Thus in the fourth and sixth verses we read, ‘John who baptized in the wilderness and preached the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins. And John was clothed with camel's hair, and had a leathern girdle about his loins; and did eat locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, There cometh after me he that is mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose’ (Mark 1:4,6-7).

Moreover John uttered these words, not of Muhammad who did not live until nearly 600 years later, but of the Messiah who was even then living in their midst. Thus we read in another place that ‘John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: in the midst of you standeth one whom ye know not, even he that cometh after me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose’ (John 1:26-27). The passages which we have quoted leave no possible room for doubt that the speaker in the verse quoted was John the Baptist, and that he spake of Jesus the Messiah. There is no possible reference to Muhammad in any shape or form, and it would puzzle the Muslim author referred to to explain how Muhammad baptized men with the Holy Ghost!