What does the Koran say about Jesus?

#56: “What does the Koran say about Jesus?” by Brendon Wahlberg
The recent news story about a proposed Koran burning made me wonder… should a church be burning a book which contains stories about Jesus? I knew that the Koran included several figures from the Bible, so I began to ask what the Koran actually says about Jesus. Although I have studied the Bible for many years, I approached the topic of the Koran as a beginner, determined to learn if there is any common ground between what the two Holy books say about the central figure of Christianity.
First, a few Koran basics are in order. The Koran (also written as Qur’an) is the scripture of the religion of Islam, and contains the word of God, Allah, as spoken to the prophet Mohammed (also written as Muhammad) by the angel Gabriel. Mohammed was born in 570CE in Mecca. When the prophet was about forty, while he was praying and meditating in a cave, Gabriel began to recite the words to him that would become the Koran (Koran means “recital”). Mohammed wrote the words on paper, bones, leaves, skins, stones, and bark. Sometimes his followers memorized the words. The revelation continued for about twenty years, when Mohammed finally died in Medina in 632CE. About twenty years after his death, his followers began to compile the Koran as a unified written document in order to preserve it.
The purpose of the Koran was both to confirm and to correct the scriptures that had previously been given to the Jews (the Hebrew Bible) and to the Christians (the New Testament). The idea was that the Jews and the Christians had received God’s word but had gone astray. The Jews had corrupted their scripture, and the Christians had erroneously worshipped Jesus as the Son of God. The Koran was meant to bring them all back to the true religion that Abraham had originally followed before either Judaism or Christianity arose. This religion, called Islam, is about absolute submission to the will of God.
The Koran thus contains stories about Jesus that are meant to correct what the New Testament says about him. The Koran itself is divided into 114 chapters called Suras, arranged in order from longest (perhaps thirty pages or so) to shortest (one paragraph). Each Sura has a number and a name, like “The Cow” or “Noah”. There is no chronological order to the book, and as a result, the brief stories about Jesus, and the places where he is mentioned, are scattered throughout the Suras. There is not really a narrative about Jesus’ life like we find in the Gospels. Because we as Christians are used to thinking about Jesus’ life story in some sort of order, I will take what I found in the Koran about Jesus, and arrange it in a more chronological way. (Note: the English translation of the Koran used here was made by N. J. Dawood in 1956.)
One thing to be aware of as you explore the Koran looking for Jesus, is that several of the Koran’s stories are very similar to other stories which can be found in old Apocryphal Christian writings that did not make it into the New Testament, such as the “Proto-Gospel of James” or the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas” (both of which I have written about in this column.) Western scholars believe that the Koran may have used these writings as sources about Jesus. However, they are somewhat unfamiliar sources to western readers precisely because they were excluded from the Bible. I’ll mention such possible sources as I go along.
The Koran begins the story of Jesus with the birth of his mother Mary (in Sura 3: The Imrans). Mary’s mother dedicates her unborn child to the Lord, and so the child Mary is sent to the Jewish Temple to live under the care of a Priest named Zacharias. Mary is miraculously fed by God. “Whenever Zacharias visited her in the Shrine he found that she had food with her. ‘Mary’, he said, ‘where is this food from?’ ‘ It is from Allah’, she answered.” An angel says to Mary, “Allah has chosen you. He has made you pure and exalted you above all women.” When Mary is older, they cast lots to see which person in the community will take charge of her. Neither the miraculous feeding nor the lottery are details found in the New Testament, but they can be found in the “Proto-Gospel of James”, an apocryphal book that says it is Joseph who takes charge of young Mary. Curiously enough, the Koran does not mention Joseph at all.
The Koran tells of Jesus’ conception in Sura 3 and in Sura 19: Mary. In Sura 19, Mary goes alone to a solitary place in the desert. A spirit-messenger of God tells her that she will be given a “holy son”. Sura 3 elaborates that “The angels said to Mary, ‘Allah bids you rejoice in a Word from him. His name is the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary.” “’Lord,’ she said, how can I bear a child when no man has touched me?’ He replied, such is the will of Allah. He creates whom he will. When He decrees a thing He need only say: ‘Be’, and it is.” In the words of Sura 3, “Jesus is like Adam in the sight of Allah. He created him of dust and then said to him: ‘Be’, and he was.” Sura 19 concludes that “Thereupon she conceived him, and retired to a far-off place.”
It is important to understand that the Koran’s understanding of Jesus’ origin is similar to the New Testament in some ways, and very different in others. Basically, the Koran agrees that Mary had a virgin birth, but denies that Jesus is the “Son of God”. Sura 19 says, “Those who say: ‘The Lord of Mercy has begotten a son’ preach a monstrous falsehood, at which the very heavens might crack…” The very idea that God could beget a child is impossible in the Koran. God is not physical and can never have a child. Instead, God breathed his spirit into Mary while she stayed a virgin (Sura 21: The Prophets). Sura 112: Unity says, “Allah is One, the Eternal God. He begot none, nor was He begotten. None is equal to him.” Sura 5: The Table says, “Unbelievers are those that say, ‘Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary’. […] Unbelievers are those that say, Allah is one of three’. There is but one God.” As we will see next, the Koran acknowledges Jesus as an anointed prophet who could do miracles, but denies that he is the Son of God. The idea is that God simply created Jesus, which is of course at odds with basic Christian theology.
Sura 19 continues the story of Mary and Jesus. Alone in the desert, she lies beneath a palm tree and gives birth. (This is of course a rather different birth location than in Bethlehem.) To sustain her, the Lord provides ripe dates that can simply fall down to the exhausted Mary from the high tree, and a brook of water starts to flow at her feet. This story is not found in the New Testament, but a very similar miracle is found in an Apocryphal work called “The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew”, during an account of Mary’s flight to Egypt. In “Pseudo-Matthew”, a very young Jesus makes a palm tree bend down for his exhausted mother, and causes a hidden spring to bubble up. In Sura 19, when Mary returns to civilization with the baby, she is accused of being a whore. To answer her accusers, Mary silently points them towards the cradle with baby Jesus in it. Miraculously, Jesus preaches to them from the cradle, saying, “I am the servant of Allah. He has given me the Gospel and ordained me a prophet. His blessing is upon me wherever I go, and he […] has purged me of vanity and wickedness.” Jesus does not preach from the cradle in the New Testament, but he does so in the very beginning of an Apocryphal work called the “Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Savior”.
Sura 3 contains a brief account of the adult life of Jesus, in the form of God describing what the baby Jesus will be like when he grows up. The Koran says, God “will instruct him in the Scriptures and in wisdom, in the Torah and in the Gospel, and send him forth as an apostle to the Israelites. He will say: ‘I bring you a sign from your Lord. From clay I will make for you the likeness of a bird. I shall breathe into it, and, by Allah’s leave, it shall become a living bird. By Allah’s leave I shall give sight to the blind man, heal the leper, and raise the dead to life. I shall tell you what to eat and what to store up in your houses. Surely that will be a sign for you, if you are true believers. I come to confirm the Torah that has already been revealed and to make lawful to you some of the things you are forbidden. I bring you a sign from your Lord: therefore fear him and obey me. Allah is my God and your God: therefore serve Him. That is the straight path.’” As strange as it may seem to Christian readers, this small passage is basically most of what the Koran has to say about Jesus’ adult ministry!
There are a few things to understand about the passage we just read. First, notice that Jesus has no power of his own. Every miracle he performs is only by God’s leave. Second, there is the odd mention of a clay bird that comes to life. This miracle is not found in the New Testament, but it is found in an Apocryphal work called the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas”, where young Jesus brings several clay birds to life. Third, notice how the passage maintains a strict monotheism. Allah is Jesus’ God.
The Koran has a few other things to say about Jesus’ adult life. Sura 5 says that God strengthened Jesus with the Holy Spirit, and protected Jesus from the Israelite unbelievers when they called Jesus’ miracles nothing but plain magic. Sura 61: Battle Array is also notable in that it depicts Jesus predicting the prophet Mohammed. “I am sent forth to you by Allah to confirm the Torah already revealed and to give news of an apostle that will come after me whose name is Ahmed.” (Ahmed = Mohammed.)
In the New Testament, Jesus has twelve disciples during his adult life. These are briefly mentioned in the Koran too. Sura 3 says that the disciples help Jesus in the cause of Allah, saying, “We are the helpers of Allah. We believe in Him. Bear witness that we have surrendered ourselves to him. Lord, we believe in your revelations and follow your apostle. Count us among your witnesses.” Sura 5 says that one day, the disciples asked for a sign from God as proof that what Jesus said was true. “Can Allah send down to us from heaven a table spread with food?” God replied, “I am sending one to you. But whoever of you disbelieves hereafter shall be punished as no man has ever been punished.” And that pair of stories is basically all the Koran has to say about Jesus’ disciples.
Now we come to the topic of Jesus’ crucifixion. The Koran differs greatly from the New Testament in this area. Basically, the Koran says that Jesus was not crucified, but was instead lifted up to heaven without dying. Here is the key passage from Sura 4: Women. “They denied the truth and uttered a monstrous falsehood against Mary. They declared: ‘We have put to death the Messiah Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of Allah.’ They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought they did. [literal translation: he was made to resemble another for them.] Those that disagreed about him were in doubt concerning his death, for what they knew about it was sheer conjecture; they were not sure that they had slain him. Allah lifted him up to His presence.” In other words, according to the Koran, Jesus was not really crucified, and someone else who looked like Jesus was crucified in his place. This idea is, of course, not found in the New Testament, but it is found in one Gnostic Christian work called the “Second Treatise of the Great Seth” (from the Nag Hammadi Library). In “Great Seth”, Jesus looks on, laughing in amusement as someone else is crucified instead, while other onlookers are ignorant of the truth (the Gnostic truth that Jesus was really a spiritual being who could not die).
So, what is the deal with all of these apparent Koran borrowings from Christian Apocrypha? Western scholars say it is just that – borrowing. When the Koran was being compiled, such apocryphal writings were still in circulation along trade routes, in written form or in popular oral traditions. Perhaps the apocryphal Jesus stories were given equal weight with canonical New Testament stories and included in the Koran. A western reader might say that this means parts of the Koran are based on fictional or fanciful sources, because that is how Christians classify their own apocryphal books. But a Muslim would argue the opposite: every word of the Koran is true and from God. If the Koran’s Jesus stories match those in so-called apocryphal writings, then the apocryphal writings must be really true.
The Koran claims that Jesus will have a role to play in the future. One day, the Day of Judgment will arrive (called the Day of Resurrection in Sura 3.) Jesus has been taken away from the unbelievers and lifted up to God until that day comes. On that day, unbelievers will be punished, and God will judge all disputes. Jesus will be a portent of the coming of the hour of doom and a witness against unbelievers.
The Koran makes passing references to Jesus in several places, adding to the final picture. Each time, the Koran has something to say about what Jesus is, or is not. For example, Jesus is not more than a mortal favored by God to be an example to Israel (Sura 43: Ornaments of Gold). Jesus is a descendant of King David who received scripture, wisdom, prophet-hood, and guidance from God (Sura 6: Cattle). Jesus is not someone who ever asked people to worship him and his mother (Sura 5). Jesus is a sign to all men (Sura 21). All of these details are part of the big picture of Jesus in the Koran. What is that big picture? Well, there are certainly many things which Christians must disagree with: Jesus was never crucified? Jesus is not the Son of God? Of course Christians cannot agree with these statements. But we should not be surprised by them. Islam was once a new religion that was in direct competition with Christianity. It was necessary for the Koran to dispute or deny some of the claims of a rival religion as Islam struggled into being. Look at the way early Christianity disputed and denied the claims of Judaism which came before it. I mean, if Islam had come along before Christianity, what would the New Testament have had to say about the Koran’s claims? Yet, the surprising thing is how much common ground can be found about Jesus. Let’s try for a moment to summarize as many points as we can, where the Koran and the New Testament agree about Jesus.
1. Jesus had a virgin birth and a miraculous conception. 2. Jesus and his mother Mary were pure and without sin. 3. God sent the Holy Spirit to help Jesus. 4. Jesus spoke for God as a prophet. 5. Jesus performed miracles such as curing the blind and raising the dead. 6. Jesus affirmed the Torah and brought the Good News, the Gospel “in which there is guidance and light, corroborating that which was revealed before it in the Torah, a guide and an admonition to the righteous” (Sura 5). 7. Jesus had disciples and preached to Israel, where some believed in him and some did not. 8. After his time on Earth was done, Jesus was taken to Heaven to be with God until the Day of Judgment. 9. Jesus was the Messiah.
Of course, there are disagreements too. What do we do with those? The Koran instructs Muslims to try to persuade Christians. “Say: ‘People of the Book, let us come to an agreement that we will worship none but Allah, that we will associate none with him, and that none of us will set up mortals as gods besides him.’ If they refuse, say: ‘Bear witness that we have surrendered ourselves to Allah.’” (Sura 3) That sounds like a path towards “agreeing to disagree.” And that is a good thing. Finding some common ground, combined with a peaceful disagreement, is the recipe for living together in America. Then there is no need for burning anyone’s books! These words from Sura 42: Counsel, are a good sentiment to end with: “We have our own works and you have yours; let there be no argument between us. Allah will bring us all together, for to Him we shall return.”