Or, why Jesus isn't a Christian
I have seen my Lord with the eye of my heart, and I said: "Who are You?" He said:"You."
(Diwan al-Hallaj, M. 10)
Your Spirit mixed with my Spirit little by little, by turns, through reunions and abandons.
And now I am Yourself, Your existence is my own, and it is also my will.
(Diwan al-Hallaj)
ana'l -Haqq - I am the Truth.
(this is the saying which apparently earned al-Hallaj his martyrdom - al Haqq also means God)
In the year 922 CE a man, al-Hallaj, utterly unknown in the West (though widely known in the Muslim world, and revered as a Sufi mystic, poet, and teacher) came before the legal and religious authorities of his day and, in an an ecstatic trance, uttered the words recorded above - ana'l-Haqq - I am the Truth, by which he meant that he had attained to such unity with God that he embodied in his own person the love of God for Man, the love of Man for God, to such a degree that he had become (in the words of the Jesus of the Christian tradition) the way, the truth, the life -
Jhn 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
for his temerity in making so bold a statement, al-Hallaj was executed, by crucifixtion.
I believe that Jesus the man lived, breathed, exercised his ministry as a prophet, and died pretty much as the Gospels report these events. I do not believe that Jesus the man was the Son of God, nor do I believe that he died for my sins and is the means of redemption. Though I could once say in all sincerity that his is the only name on which a man may call in order to be saved, I can no longer say so because I no longer believe that to be true.
Indeed, I have come to believe that I am my own salvation (my own Jesus) just as much as I am my own damnation (my own Adam). I'm little inclined to repeat what I've written elsewhere in defence of such a statement. Those who are interested, go read here (Link).
The 'Christ' of conventional Christianity is actually a form of blasphemy, the idolatry of a man and a prophet based on the propaganda of the tent-maker Paul, who was more determined to preach a 'christ' consonant with the ancient Hebrew scriptures (and so vindicate himself and his people) than he was to affirm that one more Messenger had come, preaching the same message that all the other Messengers had preached: worship God and love your neighbour better than you love yourself.
Since I believe that the spirit of God is infinitely more than the spirit of 'the Christ' I see no reason why that same spirit might not just as readily visit a Sufi poet and mystic as a Jewish carpenter - and in this sense 'Jesus' was indeed a Muslim. Those of you who read the linked article will encounter the Pentagrammaton, the five letter word that proceeds from the Tetragrammaton which is the closest thing that exists to an actual Name for 'God'.
I'm going to quote myself, from that same linked article.
Anyone who would be saviour to himself or others must be able to unite the Divine with the physical, overcome all opposites within himself, and at the same time maintain that tension in unity which is the source of all poetry and prophecy. It is this act of overcoming and submission which is designated by the term 'Jesus'. If you pronounce the Pentagrammaton in Hebrew it becomes 'Yeh-ha-shu-ah' which is usually translated as 'Joshua'. In the Greek of the New Testament it became 'Yay-su', which in English became 'Jesus'.
Jesus the Prophet (in whom I believe); Jesus the God-form (in whom I believe and whom I honor - though I give him no allegiance and he holds no place in my Ritual practice); and 'Jesus' the vocalization of the Pentagrammaton, in which I breathe and move as a fish breathes and moves in the sea; are fundamentally different entities. And all are equally different from 'Jesus the Christ', that blasphemous aberration and idolatrous figment whom most 'Christians' worship without ever knowing that, even according to the tenets of their own faith, this very act of worship is actually a damnable sin.
Jesus the Prophet was, as the Muslims attest, both a prophet and a man. Jesus the God-form is the actuation, the 'making real' in spiritual realms, of the veneration given (erroneously) to Jesus the man over 20 centuries. And Yeh-ha-shu-ah is a proceeding of the Spirit from the utterly unknowable, incomprehensible and Nameless Abyss that is 'God'.
And none of them have anything remotely to do with abomination that most 'Christians' profess to worship even while being utterly ignorant of the true nature of what they claim as God.
Which is why Jesus was never a Christian.