Resurrection and hijrah

At the occasion of Easter, my former student Syafaatun al-Mirzanah, now a very active professor of interreligious thinking at the UIN, Universitas Islan Negeri of Yogyakarta, sent me an article publisehd already in 2014 (19 April) in the English language Jakarta Post. It is a column on the meaning of Easter from a Muslim viewpoint. First she refers to differences amongst Christians: followers of Bultmann will not easily receive the story as 'historical event'. She also has a reference to Qor'an 4:158 ('Allah raised him up to himself') that usually is read as such that Jesus straight from the cross was taken to heaven, without dying. In this case Jesus should be 'resurrected' some 36 hours earlier than in the Christian story.

Syafa makes a comparison with the life of Muhammad, who was also rejected by most of his people in Mecca and with a small number of his faithfull Muslims moved to another place, 400 km north, Yathrib, later called Medina, or city of the prophet. About one year after he had to flee from threats in Mecca, moved to Yathrib in the hijra or the migration, Muhammad could stand the attack of people from that place who wanted to kill him in Yahtrib/Medina at the battle of Badr. But there God helped him and he received a military victory. After Easter also Jesus became the Lord of Glory and so Muhammad after the hijra.
This is quite a different interpretation from Snouck Hurgronje who claimed that while moving from Mecca to Medina, Muhammad put off his robe of being a prophet and became a politician (see also the title of the book by Montgomery Watt: Muhammad, Prophet and Statesman).
In the vision of Syafaatun, Muhammad in Medina was a further development of his prophetic role. It was not all smooth and easy, like also in the last chapters of the gospels and the book of Acts of the Apostles we read often about faith and courage, but also doubt and incertainty. But the hijra was the further development and now often in glory.