A Christian Perspective on Islam
by Chawkat Moucarry
Islam claims that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam itself are three God-given religions. All prophets (including Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad) preached essentially the same message: God is one, and everyone must obey and worship him because on the day of judgment people will be sent to paradise or to hell according to whether or not they believed in their Creator and complied with his laws. This theological inclusiveness is only apparent since Islam is believed to be the only saving religion (3:19, 85).1 It comes at an exceedingly high price for the Christian faith. Indeed, Islam denies the reliability of the Christian Scripture, which contradicts the Qur’an on at least three key issues: God’s holy Trinity, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, and God’s saving grace supremely demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Christ. The first four sections of this essay examine and respond to Islamic criticisms of the Christian faith.
In its own way, Christianity is no less exclusive. As Eckhard Schnabel puts it,
The message of the early Christian mission is “exclusive” in terms of the offer of the forgiveness of sins, salvation and justification on judgment day by faith in Jesus the crucified and risen Messiah; it is “inclusive” in terms of people of all nations, tribes and languages being invited and called to believe in Jesus Christ.2
The New Testament presents Jesus Christ as God’s perfect and final revelation for all nations, which rules out any further divine revelation, including Islam. Nevertheless, as a world religion Islam cannot and should not be dismissed without thoughtful and courteous engagement. We need to explain, for instance, why the Islamic credentials for Muhammad’s prophethood are unconvincing (§5) and how Islamic law is so different from the gospel (§6).
At the same time, there is no doubt that as monotheistic religions Christianity and Islam share significant common ground despite their theological disagreements. This common ground needs to be appreciated if our interaction with Islam is to be informed and fair. This essay explains why the gospel, unlike the Qur’an, is indeed good news for all who heed it, including Muslims. It is good news because it is about God’s universal and undeserved love for people drawn from every language, ethnicity, and nation.
1. The Bible: The Christian Scripture
Falsification Theories
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are monotheistic religions. This means that Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship one God, the Creator. They believe that God has revealed his Word in the form of books known as the Holy Scriptures: the Bible and the Qur’an.
For Christians the Bible is divided into two main parts: the Old Testament (written before Jesus Christ) and the New Testament (written in the first century after Jesus Christ).3According to the Qur’an, God revealed the Torah to Moses, the Zabur (i.e., the Psalms) to David, and the Injil (i.e., the Gospel) to Jesus before he finally conveyed the Qur’an to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. This is why Jews and Christians are described in the Qur’an as “the People of the Book.”4
Muslims believe that the Bible has been altered. This is how they account for the discrepancies that exist between the Qur’an and the Bible. These discrepancies do not represent a real problem for Christians since they do not accept the Qur’an as God’s revealed Word.
Tahrif is the Arabic word for falsification. The verb harrafa (“to falsify”) occurs four times in the Qur’an (2:75; 4:46; 5:13, 41). The meaning of these texts is unclear. We have no idea as to when the falsification happened (in the time of Moses, Jesus, or Muhammad?), what “Word” was falsified (the Torah, Gospel, or Qur’an itself?), who did it (Jews and Christians, Jews only, or just some of them?), where (in Israel, Arabia, or somewhere else?), and how (orally or textually?). Muslim scholars trying to answer these questions are divided into two main groups, each comprising highly respected theologians.
The first group contends that the text of the Bible has been corrupted (tahrif lafzi). Proponents include Ibn Hazm (d. 456/1064), Juwayni (d. 478/1085), and Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328).5 When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and its temple (in the sixth century BC), they say, the Hebrew Scriptures were also destroyed. It was only after some Jews returned from their exile in Babylon that one of their leaders, Ezra, wrote the Torah. Because Ezra was not a prophet, his writing was defective. As for the New Testament, the distortion of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels is attributed to two “gaps,” namely, a language gap (the Gospels were written in Greek whereas Jesus spoke in Aramaic) and a time gap (the Gospels were written several decades after the events had taken place). Those who believe in this alleged textual falsification assert that God revealed one Gospel to Jesus (according to the Qur’an) whereas Christians have four Gospels. None of these Gospels is ascribed to Jesus, and it is claimed that they often contradict each other. As for the other writings of the New Testament, Muslims do not know what to make of them since they were written by followers of Jesus who were not themselves prophets.6 Today the vast majority of Muslims believe in the textual falsification of the Bible. They are not even aware that an alternative view exists.
The second group contends that the meaning of the Bible, not the text itself, has been changed (tahrif ma’nawi). Proponents include highly respected Muslim scholars such as Baqillani (d. 403/1013), Ghazali (d. 505/1111), Razi (d. 606/1209), and ‘Abduh (d. 1323/1905). Razi, in his Great Commentary, argues that God’s Word must reflect God’s attributes. Therefore to say that God let his Word (i.e., Torah and Gospel) become untruthful is to undermine God’s truthfulness and trustworthiness. Muhammad ‘Abduh uses a rational argument in his renowned Qur’anic commentary Tafsir al-Manar. The fact that the Scriptures were so widely spread made it impossible for Jews and Christians to modify them even if they wanted to. For this group of scholars, falsification can be understood only in terms of wrong interpretation of biblical texts about, for instance, Muhammad’s attributes, God, and Jesus Christ. Misinterpretations of the Torah and the Gospel can now be dispelled, Razi observes, since we find in the Qur’an the plain meaning of the Bible.
Inspiration Versus Recitation
The Islamic charge against the reliability of the Bible raises some important issues. One issue is the difference between the Christian and the Islamic understandings of revelation.
Inspiration
Christians believe that God revealed his Word by inspiration. This means God did not bypass the human writers of the Bible. On the contrary he led them by his Holy Spirit to write down his Word, using their individual personalities and taking into account the historic and cultural contexts of the people for whom their writings were first intended (2 Peter 1:20–21).7 In other words the human authors of the Bible were actively involved in the process of writing down divine revelation. For instance, the gospel proclaimed by Jesus Christ is one message, yet it is written in four versions, namely, the four Gospels. Thus the Gospel of Jesus Christ may be read in Matthew’s Gospel as well as in that of Mark, Luke, or John. Moreover, Jesus spoke with his disciples in Aramaic, which was the language spoken by Jews living in Palestine at that time. The four Gospels, however, were written in Greek because they were addressed to different ethnic groups who used Greek as their common language.
Consequently, the Bible is at the same time God’s Word, which guarantees its trustworthiness, and the word of men, which underlines its humanness. The human authorship of Scripture means that we can study the Bible the way we study other books. We take into account what kind of text it is (historical, poetic, prophetic, narrative, legislative, apocalyptic, wisdom literature, etc.) and thus decide how we should go about interpreting it. The divine authorship of Scripture, on the other hand, means that we must also approach the Bible with due humility as we seek to understand and obey God’s Word.
Recitation
By contrast the Prophet Muhammad’s role was to learn the Qur’an by heart and to preach it to his fellow citizens in Mecca and Medina. It was communicated to him word for word. He was not to intervene in the shaping of the message but was to recite literally the words he heard. Gabriel’s command to Muhammad was iqra’. The verb qara’a usually means to read, whereas in a religious context, as here, it means to proclaim or to recite the Word of God. The word qur’an comes from the same root and thus means the ritual recitation of the sacred text. By extension the word has come to refer to the text itself. The fact that the Qur’an was dictated to Muhammad in this way means that the Islamic Scripture is God’s Word and God’s Word alone. This is why the Qur’anic text is usually in the first person plural, this being the plural of divine majesty. Thus recitation, qira’a, indicates the way Muhammad received and transmitted God’s Word.
Since Muhammad was an Arab, the Qur’an was revealed to him in Arabic. The difference between inspiration and recitation explains why for Muslim readers the Bible looks too much like a human book to be God’s Word. It also accounts for the fact that the Bible remains God’s Word when translated into other languages whereas the Qur’an is God’s Word only in Arabic.
God Himself Versus God’s Will
The Islamic Scripture does not reveal who God is for fear of undermining his transcendence. The Qur’an discloses only God’s will expressed in his law in order to enable human creatures to obey their Creator and worship him. As one Muslim scholar puts it, “You may not have complete transcendence and self-revelation at the same time.”8 This is quite different from the way Christians think about their Scripture. The Bible claims to reveal God’s will as well as God himself.
For Christians, God’s revelation reached its climax two thousand years ago: Jesus Christ is God’s supreme revelation, God’s Word manifested in the form of a human being (John 1:1, 10, 14). The Scriptures point to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ points to God (Revelation 1:1–2; 19:10). God is both transcendent (radically different from his creation) and immanent (he revealed himself in a human person).
Interpreting the Scriptures
The Bible is a collection of sixty-six books written by over thirty authors over at least thirteen centuries. By contrast the Qur’an was given to one man over twenty-three years. Each Scripture has its distinctive characteristics.
As far as possible one must understand each Scripture by itself before comparing it with the other Scripture. Common rules of interpretation apply to both Scriptures (e.g., respecting the historical context, interpreting Scripture by Scripture, taking into account various literary genres). One must attempt to understand the Scriptures without submitting them to a naturalistic form of human rationality. An open-minded, prejudice-free approach dispels many discrepancies between the Bible and the Qur’an. Some discrepancies, however, are irreconcilable.
Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible
The charge that the Torah and the Gospel have undergone textual corruption contains serious flaws. Here are some arguments that show that the Bible is trustworthy.
Qur’anical Evidence: The Qur’an Commends the Bible
Several texts in the Qur’an claim that the Qur’an confirms previous Scriptures (2:41, 89, 91, 97, 101; 3:3, 81). Would the Qur’an confirm the Torah and the Gospel if they were corrupted? The Torah is described as “light and guidance for humankind” (6:91), and the Gospel is depicted in similar terms (5:46). Would these Christian Scriptures be portrayed in this way if they were tampered with?
Theological Evidence: God’s Word Must Reflect His Attributes
Razi argues that textual corruption of the Scriptures is inconsistent with God’s truthfulness. If his Word was not reliable, he would not be reliable either. This is why the Qur’an insists, “There is nothing that can alter the Words of God” (6:34; cf. 10:64; 18:27).
Similar claims are made by both religions regarding their respective Scriptures. In the Bible, God himself guarantees that he will protect his Word from alteration (Psalm 119:89). Jesus confirms that God’s Word is unchangeable: “It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law” (Luke 16:17). Similarly in the Qur’an, Allah says, “We have sent down the Message and We Ourselves watch over it” (15:9). The way this is worked out in the two religions is sometimes quite different—especially with respect to how the original revelation each claims has been preserved. This is not the place to probe these differences. For our purposes, I shall focus on the Christian heritage.
Scientific Evidence: The Manuscripts Are Reliable and Predate Islam’s Birth
Translations of the Bible are based on the same Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. The material evidence for the corruption or authenticity of the Scriptures lies with these manuscripts. Their study has confirmed the integrity of the Bible. Far from being a handicap, the very existence of many manuscripts has enabled scholars to establish that the text of the Bible has been amazingly well transmitted. Regardless of their religious convictions, the manuscript experts agree that the Bible has been handed down with exceptional accuracy.9
Some Greek manuscripts of the whole Bible (Old and New Testaments) predate the birth of Islam. The Codex Sinaiticus (preserved in the British Museum in London) and the Codex Vaticanus (kept in the Vatican library) are from the fourth century. The Codex Alexandrinus (also in the British Museum) is from the fifth century. Some partial New Testament manuscripts date from as early as the second century; most of our oldest Old Testament manuscripts date from the first two centuries before Christ. When compared with later manuscripts, these manuscripts exhibit copyists’ errors of various kinds, but not one such error affects any fundamental teaching of the Bible, however minor. More importantly for our purpose, these later manuscripts show that the text of the Bible has not been changed one bit as a result of Jews and Christians not accepting Muhammad as God’s prophet.
Rational Evidence: Falsification Does not Make Sense
Muhammad ‘Abduh points out that the widespread propagation of the Scriptures made it virtually impossible that anyone could have tampered with them. Any attempt was not only doomed to failure for practical reasons; it was bound to be discovered and disowned. The animosity between Jews and Christians meant that if either community had tried to change the Scriptures, the other would have denounced them.
Not only were the Christian Scriptures widely scattered but they were translated into different languages. By the time of Christ, the Old Testament was available in Greek; by the end of the third century most of the New Testament had been translated into Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. The New Testament was also quoted in Christian writings as early as the second century.
The Verdict of Jesus Christ on the Scriptures
In his exegesis of sura 2 verse 159, ‘Abduh states that, just as the Jews had altered the Torah so as to reject Christ, so they misinterpreted passages in the Torah that foretold the coming of Muhammad. Jesus did indeed blame the Jewish leaders for their misinterpretation of the Torah and for their human traditions that amounted to nullifying God’s Word (Mark 7:1–13). Remarkably, however, he never criticized them for changing the text of the Tanakh (what Christians call the “Old Testament”). On the contrary, he showed the greatest respect for this text, insisting that it points to him: “If you believed Moses, you would believe in me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” (John 5:46–47).
Jesus knew that just as God was unchangeable, so was his Word. This was true of the Torah as much as of the Gospel: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35). Jesus’ verdict on the reliability of Scripture is paramount. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who revealed them, the message of Scripture becomes plain; otherwise God’s decision to reveal his Word to us would be pointless. This does not mean that everything in the Bible is easy to understand. The difficult texts summon us to further research, greater humility, and more trust in the divine author of the Scriptures. They should not be allowed to dim our vision of the clarity of the Scriptures’ message. Otherwise, we find ourselves in a position where we are not able to see the forest for the trees.