Jesus and Islam

As we enter into the Christmas season (what, already?!) it is obviously a good time to pause and reflect upon the birth of Jesus Christ, the son of God, the second person of the Trinity, and our great Savior. However, as we well know, not everybody will be celebrating Jesus this Christmas. One group of religious observers, Muslims, certainly will not be celebrating Christmas. What exactly do Muslims believe about Jesus and why is there such a barrier talking to them about Christ?

There exists a great deal of ignorance in the Christian community about what Muslims actually do and don’t believe. Many Christians see Islam as nothing more than a global menace that needs to be eradicated; a worldwide terrorist movement that hates all that is sacred to Christians. While I would certainly agree that Islam is a false religion, it is interesting to note areas of shared heritage. For instance, Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is an Abrahamic faith. By that I mean they consider Abraham a father of the faith. A major difference, however, is that they believe Ishmael was actually the child of promise, not Isaac.

Likewise, there are many Biblical characters that Islam revered. In fact, the Qur’an repeats (and distorts) many of the stories found in our Bible, especially the Old Testament. Many of the major Biblical characters are found in the Qur’an and are revered by Islam. Muslims would say that they basically believe in the Old Testament and much of the New—but that our Bibles have been corrupted. Most Muslims would say that “most” of the Old Testament was uncorrupted and agrees with the Qur’an, but that the New Testament is more heavily corrupted. The biggest corruption Muslims would say would be the New Testament’s assertion that Jesus is God the Son in the flesh, was mankind’s Messiah, and was put to death on the cross and later rose.
It is not at all the Muslims do not believe in Jesus or think negatively in Him. In fact, they assert that Jesus was miraculously born of the Virgin Mary. They believed Jesus was a miracle worker and will return to earth in the end of time with other significant Islamic figures. However, they do not believe Jesus was God’s son or was eternal with the Father. Islam considers such thinking to be blasphemous because they allege God the Father is so powerful and great that He does not need a Son and has no equal. Muslims also have a very difficult time with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, considering it to be illogical, polytheistic (belief in more than one God), and heretical. This is a result of not truly understanding what Christians and the Bible teach about the Trinity and trying to understand God on a logical level (no, the word "Trinity" is not found in the Bible. It's just a theological term and there are plenty of theological terms used that are not found directly in the Bible. The concept, however, is there in a number of Scriptures).

The Qur’an also teaches that Jesus did not rally die on the Cross. Islam explicitly teaches that before Christ was to be put to death; God miraculously delivered Him and confused His enemies. In some quarters of Islam and that someone else was killed in His place. They also consider it offensive to assert that Jesus was killed on the Cross. Jesus ranks amongst the highest and most revered prophets in Islam, but they do not believe He was divine and consider Muhammad the greatest and final prophet.

Muslims believe that with the arrival of Muhammad and the composure of the Qur’an (written in the beginning of the 600’s and put into its canonical form around 650 A.D.) and that Allah (Allah simply means “God” in Arabic. Even Arab-speaking Christians call God “Allah” just as a Spanish speaking Christian would call God “Dios") stopped sending prophets after that. There is no further revelation after the Qur’an needed, the many Muslim groups have some lesser sacred writings that they claim to come from the hand of Muhammad. It’s appropriate to point out that while all Muslims are basically united in the above information, there are some significant differences between Islamic groups that I don’t have time to go into.

But what do we make about the above claims, especially the claims about Jesus (whom Muslims also call the Messiah, though they believe He came for the righteous in the House of Israel, not for all humanity in all times who will accept Him as Savior through faith)? There is quite a bit to be said, but it is interesting how Islam selectively quotes from the Old and New Testaments when such passages line up with their beliefs but disregard other passages that do not and claim that they were “corrupted.”

In fact, the Qur’an was in part to set the record straight about God’s teachings and revelations. With so many major claims in Islam—that Ishmael was the son of promise, that Jesus did not die on the Cross, etc—there is absolutely no textual evidence for this anywhere before the Qur’an. By that I mean we have found absolutely zero instances of ancient manuscript witnesses that even come close to affirming Islamic claims. You think they would be out there somewhere and that something would have been found by now. However, it’s not until the mid-600’s that these new teachings surfaced, and at that point we are talking about 2600 years to over 600 years after the original events took place. It would be like creating new facts or changing the story of Columbus discovering the West Indies today in 2007 and saying that all previous accounts of Columbus were lacking or corrupted, while only basing this on an alleged “revelation” from God.

To this day, there have not been adequate responses to these quite basic problems with Islamic story and teaching from Islamic scholars. In fact, the Qur’an is not exposed anywhere near the same amount of scrutiny that the Bible faces. When Christians deal with Muslims, however, they should not approach them with resentment, condemnation, or even fear. They should strike up conversation about our similarities but also lovingly raise the above problems with Qur’anic assertions. We need to remember this Christmas season that God loves Muslims too, wants them to discover a true faith in Christ, and that Christ was born and died for them as well as us.