“To Jesus through Mary”
It is evident that when the Islamic world, so resistant to conversion, finally accepts the Gospel and acknowledges the divinity of Jesus Christ, devotion to Mary will flourish in it without difficulty. For Mary is already venerated within Islam, not as Mother of God, but as Mother of the holiest of the prophets.
The Quran speaks to us of her: “O Maryam, God has chosen you, purified you, and chosen you above all the women of the worlds.”
A “hadith”, that is, a text of the tradition, also proclaims that Mary is immaculate: “Every child of Adam, as soon as he is born, is touched by Satan, except the Son of Mary and his Mother.”
The primacy of Mary over all women admitted no exception for Mohammed; his preferred wife, Aisha, felt herself at the summit, but not superior to Mary; indeed, she would say:
“I surpass all women, except in what was granted to Maryam.”
And the founder of Islam himself is said to have told his daughter Fatima: “You will be the first of the women in Paradise, after Maryam.”
Therefore Mary’s place in Islam is very high, and Fr. Perbal, citing the texts quoted above, observed in this regard: “Whereas the Jews slandered the woman of their nation, the daughter of their kings, Islam defended her and still defends her; it always glorifies her. For them, Maryam is the virgin and immaculate Mother of the sublime prophet, Jesus, the holiest of the prophets; for them she is an ‘oualiya’, that is, a saint raised by the Lord to the highest holiness, so that she is favored with ‘isma’, that is, with the fullness of perfection, and in this way stands above all women.”
And. V. Seumois, S.M.I., Marian Encyclopedia “Theotokos” — Ed. Studium — pp. 221-222
Mary and the Muslims, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, written in 1952 and reprinted Oct. 2001 by Mindszenty Report.
Translated into Spanish by Corazones.org
Mohammedanism is the only great post-Christian religion of the world. Since it began with Mohammed in the seventh century, it was able to gather certain elements of Christianity and Judaism, along with other customs of Arabia. Islam adopts the doctrine of the unity of God, His majesty and His creative power, and uses it to repudiate Christ, the Son of God.
The Power of Islam
Misunderstanding the notion of the Trinity, Mohammed made Christ a prophet who announced him (Mohammed), just as we Christians have Isaiah and John the Baptist as prophets who announced Christ.
The Christian European West barely escaped destruction at the hands of the Muslims. They were stopped once near Tours and, later, at the gates of Vienna. The Church throughout northern Africa was practically destroyed by Muslim power. At present the Muslims are beginning to rise again.
If Islam is a heresy, as Hilaire Belloc believes, then it would be the only heresy that has never declined. Others have had their moment of vigor and then later entered doctrinal decay when their leader died, finally evaporating into a vague social movement. Mohammedanism, by contrast, has only experienced its first phase. There was never a time when it declined, either in numbers or in the devotion of its faithful.
The Church’s missionary efforts toward this group have been, at least on the surface, a failure, since Muslims have so far been almost inconvertible. The reason is that, for a follower of Mohammed to convert to Christianity would be like a Christian converting to Judaism. Muslims believe that they have the final and definitive revelation of God for the world, and that Christ was only a prophet announcing Mohammed, the last of God’s true prophets.
In our times, the hatred of Muslim countries toward the West is becoming hatred against Christianity itself. Although statesmen have not yet taken this into account, there is still a grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return, and with it the threat that it will strike hard at a West that has ceased to be Christian. Muslim writers say: “When swarms of locusts darken the countries, they bear on their wings these words in Arabic: ‘We are the messengers of God, and each of us has 99 eggs; if we had 100, we would devastate the world and all that exists in it.’”
The problem is how to prevent the hatching of the hundredth egg. It is our firm belief that the fears some have about Muslims will not be realized; rather, Mohammedanism will eventually be converted to Christianity, and in a way that even many of our own missionaries do not suspect. We believe this will happen not by directly teaching Christianity, but through an appeal to Muslims to venerate the Mother of God. This is the line of argument:
Mary, Mother of God
The Quran, which is the Bible of Muslims, contains many passages concerning the Blessed Virgin. First, the Quran believes in her immaculate conception and also in her virginal childbirth. The third chapter of the Quran places the history of Mary’s family in a genealogy that goes back to Abraham, Noah and Adam. When the accounts of the Quran and the apocryphal gospel concerning Mary’s birth are compared, one is tempted to believe that Mohammed depended greatly on the latter. Both books describe the advanced age and sterility of Mary’s mother. When, nevertheless, she conceives, Mary’s mother proclaims, according to the Quran: “O Lord, I offer and consecrate to You what is already within me. Accept it from me.”
When Mary is born, her mother exclaims: “And I consecrate her, with all her descendants, under Your protection, O God, against Satan!”
The Quran passes over Joseph in Mary’s life, but Muslim tradition knows his name and has some familiarity with him. In this tradition Joseph speaks with Mary, who is a virgin. When he asks her how she conceived Jesus without a father, Mary answers: “Do you not know that God, when He created wheat, did not need seed, and that God, by His power, made trees grow without the help of rain? All God had to do was say, ‘Be,’ and it was.”
The Quran also contains verses about the Annunciation, the Visitation and the Nativity. It portrays angels accompanying the Holy Mother and saying: “O Mary, God has chosen you and purified you, and chosen you above all the women of the earth.”
In the nineteenth chapter of the Quran there are 41 verses about Jesus and Mary. There is such a defense of Mary’s virginity here that the Quran, in its fourth book, attributes the condemnation of the Jews to their monstrous calumny against the Virgin Mary.
The Meaning of Fatima
Mary, then, is for Muslims the true Sayyida, or Lady. The only possible serious rival in their creed would be Mohammed’s own daughter, whose name is Fatima. But after Fatima’s death, Mohammed wrote: “You will be the most blessed of all women in Paradise, after Mary.” In a variant of the text, Fatima says: “I surpass every woman except Mary.”
This brings us to our second point: why did the Holy Mother, in the twentieth century, reveal herself in the small village of Fatima, so that all future generations would know her as “Our Lady of Fatima”? Since nothing happens from heaven except with the greatest finesse of detail, I believe that the Blessed Virgin chose to be known as “Our Lady of Fatima” as a promise and sign of hope for the Muslim people, and as an assurance that they, who show her such respect, will one day also accept her divine Son.
Evidence supporting these views is found in the historical fact that Muslims occupied Portugal for centuries. When they were finally driven out, the last Muslim chief had a beautiful daughter named Fatima. A young Catholic fell in love with her, and for his sake she not only stayed when the Muslims withdrew, but also embraced the Faith. The young husband was so in love with her that he changed the name of the town where he lived to Fatima. Therefore, the place where the Virgin appeared in 1917 has a historical connection with Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed (and with the conversion of Muslims).
The final proof of the relationship between Fatima and Muslims is the enthusiastic reception that Muslims in Africa, India and elsewhere gave to the pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima. Muslims attended church services in honor of Our Lady, allowed religious processions and even prayers in front of their mosques. In Mozambique, Muslims who had not converted began to become Christians after the statue of Our Lady of Fatima was erected.
Strategic Mission
The missionaries of the future will increasingly see that their apostolate among Muslims will be successful insofar as they proclaim Our Lady of Fatima; Mary is the advent of Christ, bringing Christ to the people before Christ is born. In apologetic work, it is always best to begin with what people already accept. Since Muslims have devotion to the Virgin, our missionaries should be satisfied simply to increase and develop that devotion, with the full realization that Our Lady will lead Muslims the rest of the way to her divine Son. Just as those who lose devotion to the Virgin lose faith in the divinity of Christ, those who intensify devotion to her gradually acquire faith in the divinity of Christ.
Many of our great missionaries in Africa have managed to break down the bitter hatred and prejudices of Muslims toward Christians through their acts of charity, schools and hospitals. Now another path remains: to take chapter 41 of the Quran and show them that it was drawn from the Gospel of Luke, that Mary could not be, even for them, “the most blessed among all the women of heaven” unless she had also given birth to the Savior of the world. If Judith and Esther of the Old Testament prefigured Mary, then perhaps Fatima was a later figure of Mary. Muslims should be prepared to recognize that, if Fatima gives way in honor to the Blessed Mother, it is because she is different from all the mothers of the world, and that without Christ she would be nothing.
