What the Qur’an Says about Jesus

For the th anniversary of theSept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, CRC News has prepared a series of stories about how the Christian Reformed Church and its members have responded – and what we have learned – in the last 10 years.

After planning to do it for a while, I finally read the Muslim holy book carefully and compared how the Qur’an and the Bible portray Jesus. I was surprised to find similarities, as well as important differences, between the two faiths on the topic of Jesus.

The Bible is more narrative in its telling the life of Jesus. The Qur'an's approach is more episodic and a view of Christ must be pieced together from sections throughout the book.

Nonetheless, taken together, the portraits of Christ in the texts portray a person of great stature and wisdom.

A vital difference, however, is that while the Bible declares that Christ is God, the Qur’an never claims this and outright rejects it. Also, some things the Qur'an recounts about Jesus are not in the Bible.

The Qur'an seems to view Mary, the mother of Jesus, with great reverence. Mary is mentioned many times in the Qur'an. While the Bible doesn’t provide a story about Mary’s birth, the Qur'an does.

It says that she was the child of Imran and Hannah, who was the sister of the wife of a prophet and priest in the Jewish temple. Believing that they never would have a child, they promised to dedicate their child to Allah if Hanna was able to conceive an infant.

After she became pregnant, Hanna told Allah that she would indeed dedicate the child to Allah. Allah, according to the Qur'an, named the baby Mary and promised to protect her and her offspring from the snares of Satan.

Later comes the announcement to Mary that she, a virgin, would bear a child.  The Bible and Qur'an share parts of the story, but diverge in other, often substantial, ways.

In the Bible, the Angel Gabriel appears, greeting Mary as "highly favored" and telling her that Lord was with her. Gabriel assures her that she should not be afraid because the Lord has found favor in her and that she would conceive and give birth “to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.”

In the Bible, Gabriel tells Mary she will give birth to the “Son of God.”  No such claim is made in the Qur'an. The Qur'an recounts an angelic visitation and announcement, but this does not include telling Mary that her child is the Son of God.

As for Christ's birth, the Bible describes the familiar story of there being no room at the inn in Bethlehem and of Mary and Joseph taking shelter in a stable, where Jesus was born in a manger.

It is not portrayed this way in the Qur'an. Upon learning she was with child, Mary withdrew and secluded herself in a remote place, where the child was born. Afterward, she returned to her family, carrying the infant with her. One of her family members chastised her for doing something terrible. She was not married and yet had a child.

Perhaps to show the significance of what had happened in that remote place, Mary set the child down and beckoned to him. The Qur'an describes how the infant then began speak, telling Mary's family he was "a servant of God," who had made him a prophet and would bless him wherever he might go.

The child went on to say that Allah told him to give alms as long he lived, and to cherish his mother. Allah also told him that peace would be with him on the day he died and that he would live with Allah in Heaven.

The Qur'an says that Allah taught Jesus what he knew and gave Christ the gospel message to pass on. But with the Jesus of Islam, there is no Sermon on the Mount or Beatitudes. Many other aspects of Christ’s message and life as God on earth are not chronicled.

In the Qur'an, Allah guides Christ’s every action and reminds Jesus of that. Allah also reminds Jesus that he was the source of the miracles Jesus performed, such as when Jesus, with the permission of Allah, dug his hands into wet clay and fashioned it into the shape of a bird.  

With Allah’s approval, he breathed onto the clay and a bird sprang to life. At Allah's bidding, he also gave sight to the blind, healed lepers, and brought people back from the dead.

The Bible recounts in greater depth the miracles and often gives the particulars of who Christ helped, such as bringing Lazarus from the grave.

The two books, to an extent, parallel one another until the crucifixion. While both the Bible and the Qur'an provide accounts of that event, the differences are major.

Nailed to the wooden cross, Christ bore all the sins ever committed and wiped them all away with his death. All four of the gospel accounts describe this.

The Qur'an teaches that Jesus was not crucified and likely someone else was killed in his place, probably Judas, his betrayer.

Scholars say Muslims reject the crucifixion, despite all of the evidence, because crucifixion is sign of defeat, and Christ was not defeated; also it is a sign of disgrace for a prophet of Christ's stature to be nailed to a cross.

Both the Qur'an and the Bible, however, say that Jesus rose to heaven and will be the one to pass judgment on people in the last days.