The Anti-Christian Quran

Part 1

Origin and Content of the Quran

1. The Quran (The Recital), the unalterable word of the god Allah, 

The Quran is the holy book of the religion of Islam founded by the Prophet Muhammad (c.570CE – 632CE). Muhammad claimed that every word that he recited in his revelations was the actual and unalterable word of Allah, the senior god of all those idols worshipped at the Kabah in Mecca. 

    Muhammad was the first person in history to claim that this Arab god was the same god as Jehovah, the ancient creator ‘God of Abraham’ of the Bible, a claim rejected by both Jews and Christians at the time, and ever since. 

2. The Quran reflects events in the life of the Prophet Muhammad. 

It is essential to realise that every word of the Quran came out of the mouth of Muhammad ibn Abdullah, the self-proclaimed Prophet of Islam, during his lifetime - from his first revelation at the age of forty in 610CE until his death in 632CE. 

   So his revelations cannot be understood without relation to the raids, battles, revenge attacks, wars, killings, beheadings and lootings that he ordered against any Jews, Christians and pagans who resisted his newly-founded religion of Islam.

3. Muhammad’s attacks on Jews, Christians and other infidels. 

After his arrival in Medina in 622CE, Muhammad insulted, fought, exiled and killed the Jews of Medina who refused his summons to convert to his new religion of Islam and accept him as a prophet of their god Jehovah. 

   Having conquered the last Jewish stronghold of Khaybar in 628CE, Muhammad turned his sights on his ultimate goal, the conquest of Christian Syria, sending an armed force of 10,000 men to Muta in 629CE, personally leading a 30,000-strong Muslim army to attack Tabuk in 630CE, and finally, on his death bed in 632CE ordering a  surprise attack on innocent Syrian Christians in revenge for the Muslim defeat at Muta. 

4. Transmission and order of chapters in the Quran. 

Muhammad himself was illiterate, so it was his followers who wrote down his revelations as he recited them, and they used whatever materials they had to hand.

   It was only after Muhammad’s death, during the reign of Caliph Uthman, that tens of thousands of fragments were finally sifted through, and pieced together into suras (chapters). These suras were finally ordered, not chronologically, but by length of sura. 

   This explains why the shortest earliest revelations (often based on Christian teachings about the Day of Judgement) are found at the end of the Quran and the longest later ones come at the beginning. 

   Also some suras contain a mix of the early Meccan peaceful revelations and the later more violent revelations that Muhammad uttered after the Second Pledge of Aqaba (The Pledge of War against Unbelievers) in 622CE. 

5. The Quran to be followed to the letter. 

Muhammad taught his followers that they must follow the eternal and unchangeable commands of Allah as revealed in the Quran to Muhammad and must follow them slavishly. Indeed he taught that his followers should emulate the actions of their infallible prophet at all times, however warlike and violent. 

   Muhammad himself said, ‘You must follow my sunna (practices) and avoid novelties, Every novelty is an innovation and every innovation is an error.’ (D4590)

6. Muslims taught to shun Jews, Christians and other infidels. 

For 1400 years, devout Muslims have learned from Muhammad’s revelations in the Quran that Allah has repeatedly reviled and cursed all kuffar (infidels), Jews and Christians in particular, and that Muslims must never make friends with infidels lest they become ‘unclean’ or ‘corrupted’  by contact with them.

7. Muslims taught to wage war on unbelievers. 

Worse still, there are several hundred passages of the Quran in which the god Allah (through the mouth of Muhammad) reviles and curses all those who reject Muhammad’s revelations, and a certain crucial passage in which He commands Muhammad ‘to wage war on the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) until they submit to Muslim rule and ‘pay the jizyah (tribute) by hand in abject submission.’ (Sura 9.29)

8. Jews and Christians reviled in the Quran. 

The Quran contains 114 suras. From the very first main sura, and throughout the entire Quran, Allah (entirely through the mouth of Muhammad) repeatedly reviles Jews and Christians above all other unbelievers, branding them enemies of Allah destined for the Fires of Hell.

9. Young Muslim children taught daily to recite the anti-Semitic and anti-Christian Quran. 

All over the world, including in Western democratic societies, devout Muslims send their young children daily to Islamic schools and madrassahs where they learn to recite in Classical Arabic the passages of the Quran that tell them that Jews and Christians are ‘the worst of creation’ and ‘accursed enemies of Allah.’ 

10. Quran the most violent and intolerant polemic in the world. 

As the Quran commands Muslims to wage eternal war on all non-Muslims until they submit to Islam, it could be argued that the Quran is the most ancient, widespread, intolerant, and violent polemic in the world today. 

   The only possible reason that it has not been condemned as such is because it is a holy book taught to, and recited by, many millions of people as the word of their God.

MUHAMMAD’S PORTRAYAL OF JESUS CHRIST IN THE QURAN

The Nicene Creed 

The 4th century Nicene Creed was an attempt by the Christian Church to unify the beliefs of all the different sects and to formalise the doctrine of the Early Church:

  ‘I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible:

   And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance with the Father, By whom all things were made; 

   Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man, And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. 

   He suffered and was buried, And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead: Whose kingdom shall have no end.’ 

The Islamic denial of every clause of the Nicene Creed 

With regard to Jesus Christ, the Prophet Muhammad’s revelations in the Quran, from 610CE onwards, deny and refute every single statement of the Nicene Creed.

  According to the Quran, the Arab god Allah (who, Muhammad claimed, was the same god as in the Bible), is not a Father to anyone and Jesus is not His only-begotten Son. Jesus was not crucified under Pontius Pilate and he did not suffer. He was not buried, and he did not rise again on the third day. 

   In the Quran, Jesus is demoted to being simply the predecessor of Muhammad as a prophet of Islam, and although still miraculously born of the Virgin Mary, is said to be merely a mortal like her. 

The Islamic denial of the Crucifixion   

Muhammad’s revelations in the Quran say that the Crucifixion was merely a sort of illusion that took place while Allah spirited Jesus straight up to heaven without any suffering.    

   According to Muhammad’s sayings in the hadith, Jesus will descend on the Last Day, but not to judge the quick and the dead. 

   Instead, Jesus will come to slay Dajjal (the False Messiah); to  exterminate all swine; to destroy all crucifixes (the symbol of Christianity); to condemn all Christians to hellfire for the sin of shirk (idolatry) in taking Jesus as a god besides Allah, and to proclaim the Truth of Islam over all other religions including Judaism and Christianity.

NON-BIBLICAL STORIES ABOUT JESUS IN THE QURAN

The Quran says the Virgin Mary was daughter of Imran

Muhammad’s revelations mistakenly describe the Virgin Mary as daughter of Imran, father of Moses and Aaron, an obvious confusion between Maryam of the New Testament and the Miriam of the Old Testament who lived over a thousand years before. 

   This explains why in the Quran, Mary is addressed as ‘sister of Aaron’, and why Muslims have ever since used the generic name ‘House of Imran’ for all the Hebrew prophets of Islam from Moses to John the Baptist and Jesus, in direct contradiction to the Bible which traces Jesus’s lineage from the House of David.

   In the Quran, Muhammad recites a story of how ‘the wife of Imran’ gives birth to Maryam who is brought up in the temple with Zachariah as her guardian. Mary is miraculously supplied with food by Allah Himself, and visited by angels who announce the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, ‘who will speak unto mankind in his cradle.’ (Sura 3.37 & 42-46).

The Quran says Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary in the desert

Muhammad’s revelation in Sura 19 of the Quran, entitled Sura Maryam, tells ‘the story of Maryam; how she left her people and betook herself to a solitary place to the east. We sent to her Our Spirit in the semblance of a full-grown man, who said, “I am only an emissary of Allah, come to give you a holy son. We shall appoint him a Sign to mankind and a Blessing from Ourself. Our will shall be done.” 

   Thereupon she conceived him, and retired to a far-off place. And when she felt the throes of childbirth, she lay down by the trunk of a palm-tree.’ (Sura 19.16-23)

   Allah places a rivulet beneath Maryam and tells her to shake the tree to ‘cause fresh ripe dates to fall upon thee.’ (Sura 19. 24-25)

The Quran says the baby Jesus spoke in the cradle   

‘Carrying the child, she came to her people, who said to her, “Maryam,  you have indeed done a shameful deed! Sister of Aaron, your father was never a whoremonger, nor was your mother a harlot.”   

   She made a sign to them, pointing to the child. But they replied: “How can we speak with a babe in the cradle?” (Sura 19. 27-29)

   Whereupon the baby Jesus spoke and said, “Lo! I am indeed a slave of Allah! He has given me the Scripture and made me a Prophet! He has exhorted me to honour my mother and has purged me of vanity and wickedness. Peace be on me on the day I was born and on the day of my death and on the day I shall be raised to life.” (Sura 19.30-33)

   These Quranic accounts of Mary’s upbringing, her solitude during Jesus’s birth in the desert, and the baby Jesus speaking in the cradle, are taken, not from the Nativity stories in the Bible, but from various apocryphal Judeo-Christian stories such as the so-called Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Saviour, and other fanciful tales in oral circulation at the time of Muhammad.

The Quran says Jesus performed miracles, but only by Allah’s leave

The Quran mentions several miracles of Jesus in passing, but provides no details. It also refers to an apocryphal story of the boy Jesus making birds out of clay:

   ‘Allah will say, “O Jesus, son of Maryam! Remember the favour I bestowed upon you and on your mother. How I strengthened you with the Holy Spirit, so that you spoke to people in childhood and in the prime of manhood.’ (Sura 5.110)

    The Quran admits that Jesus performed miracles but is very careful to emphasise that Jesus was not God incarnate, but only a human being through whom Allah performed those miracles. Hence the Quran’s repetition of the phrase ‘by My leave’:

   ‘(Jesus), remember how I taught you in the Book and in Wisdom, in the Torah and in the Gospel. How by My leave, you fashioned from clay the likeness of a bird and breathed into it so that by My leave  it became a bird. How, by My leave, you healed the blind man and the leper, and by My leave, restored the dead to life.’ (Sura 5. 110)

The Quran relates a ‘Miracle of the Heavenly Table’ 

Another miracle of Jesus, according to the Quran, is a table laden with food that Allah supposedly sent down to Jesus at the request of his disciples:

   ‘When the disciples said, “O Jesus, son of Mary! Can your Lord send down to us from Heaven a table spread with food?” he said, “Fear Allah, if you are believers.” They said, “We wish to eat from it, to have our hearts reassured, to know that you have told us the truth, and to be witnesses of it.”

    Jesus, son of Mary, said, “O Allah, our Lord! Send down to us from Heaven a table spread with food, as a feast for the first and last of us, and as a Sign from You. Give us our sustenance. For You are the best of providers.”

   Allah said, “I will send it down to you. But any one of you who disbelieves after this shall be punished with a punishment such as I have not inflicted on anyone else in the world. ” (Sura 5:112-115)   

   This strange Quranic tale, unknown to the Bible, appears to be based on misheard or misunderstood accounts and pictures of the Last Supper, combined with an inaccurate rendering of the miracle of the Feeding of the Four Thousand, known as the miracle of the seven loaves and fish used by Jesus to feed a multitude, as found in the Gospel of Matthew:

   ‘And he took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.’ (Matthew 15.32)

   Both Quranic and hadith versions omit the essence of the miracle - that the disciples distributed the food to a 4000-strong crowd. Instead some Muslim scholars use this spurious story to denigrate Jesus’s disciples as typical doubting Jews who demand proofs of Allah’s favour. 

The Quran says that Jesus was not crucified

Muhammad’s revelations in the Quran deny the essential doctrine of Christianity – that of Christ the Redeemer dying on the Cross to save mankind from original sin and death. In one cryptic verse, Allah claims that the Jews did not crucify Jesus.

   ‘They (the Jews) declared: “We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the apostle of God.” They did not slay him, nor did they crucify him, but it appeared so unto them. Allah lifted him up to His presence. Allah is Almighty, All-Wise.’ (Sura 4.156-7)

    This claim, that the crucifixion was some sort of mirage, and that Jesus was not killed but taken directly up to heaven by God, was a heretical belief taught in pre-Islamic Arabia by several Judeo-Christian sects, including Prophet Maslama b. Habib of the Beni Hanifa, whom the Meccans accused Muhammad of copying.

   Indeed, apart for the change of wording from ‘Romans’ to ‘Jews’, the Quran mirrors one of the principal beliefs of Hanifism: ‘And as for their saying, “Indeed, we Romans condemned the Messiah, Jesus ibn Maryam, the apostle of God the Father,” the Romans did not really condemn him, nor did they crucify him, only his appearance unto them.’ (Binah Hymnody)

The Quran says Jesus was sent to foretell the coming of Muhammad 

The Quran says that Jesus was merely a prophet of Islam sent down to confirm Allah’s commands in the Torah and to announce the coming of Muhammad himself:

   ‘Jesus son of Mary said, “O Children of Israel! Lo! I am sent to you by Allah to confirm the Torah already revealed (to Moses), and to bring good tidings of an apostle who will come after me whose name is Ahmad.” (Sura 61.6)

   Muhammad and his advisors based this claim on a particular passage of the Gospel of St John:

    ‘Jesus said,“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray to the Father and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever. Even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14.13-18)

   However, it is clear from the context that there is no reference to any human being here. Jesus is speaking of the invisible  Holy Spirit, or Comforter, known in Greek as the Paraclete, who will dwell among and within the disciples to help them through the trials and persecutions to come.

The Quran says that there is a revelation from Allah to Jesus, the Injeel,  that Christians have distorted and corrupted

Muhammad was illiterate. When he heard mention of the Torah, the Psalms and the Gospel, he thought that they were divine messages about monotheism that had ‘come down from Allah’ to Moses, David and Jesus respectively. Thus the Quran says repeatedly that the Injeel (Gospel) was a revelation from Allah to Jesus, confirming the Torah sent down to Moses:

  ‘And He (Allah) will teach him (Jesus) the Scripture and wisdom, and the Torah and the Injeel and send him as a messenger to the Children of Israel.’ (Sura 3.48-49)  

   ‘We sent forth Jesus son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the Torah; and we bestowed upon him the Injeel, in which there is guidance and light, confirming what was revealed before him in the Torah: a guide and an admonition to the righteous.’ (Sura 5.46)

ISLAM’S WAR ON THE CHRISTIAN GOSPELS

Because of the Quranic statements quoted above, Muslims believe that the Injeel (Evangelum or Gospel) was a direct revelation from Allah to Jesus confirming Islam as the true monotheistic faith of Abraham, and so they have never accepted the fact that the four gospels are merely four early accounts by different people of the life and sayings of Christ.  This explains why:

1. Muslims are taught that the four Christian gospels are false 

Muslim apologists claim (a) that the gospels are not written by the authors ascribed to them, (b) that the message of Allah in the Injeel has been corrupted by wicked people like St Paul who they claim invented the concept that Jesus was the Son of God, and (c) that Christians throughout the ages have continually re-written and altered the Word of God to suit themselves.  

2. Muslims are not permitted to read the Christian gospels

Muslims, who are not permitted to read the Christian gospels, unless to analyse them for prophecies of Muhammad, or to contest Christian beliefs,  know nothing of the miracles, the parables and the original teachings and blessed sayings of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament.

3. Muhammad ignored Christ’s teachings

After his arrival in Medina, the Prophet Muhammad re-introduced Old Testament punishments such as ‘an eye for an eye’ and ‘stoning for adultery’ into Sharia Law in an attempt to prove he was an authentic prophet foretold in the Bible, although Jesus had rejected them six centuries before.

4. Muslims regard Christians as cursed idolators

Christians who believe that Jesus was the Son of God and follow his teachings in the New Testament are regarded by Muslims as cursed idolators and infidels who have deliberately distorted and disobeyed the words of Allah in his original Injeel and deserve to burn in Hell forever. 

5. Muslims are not taught the Ten Commandments

Muslims are not taught the Ten Commandments, because Muhammad did not know of them. He appears to have believed that ‘the Torah’ was a Message that ‘came down to Moses giving him the entire secrets of the universe’ which wicked Jews have also concealed and corrupted over the centuries.

For details of the differences between the Christian Jesus and the Muslim version known as Isa, and to learn where Muhammad got his apocryphal stories about Jesus from, go to the Prophets Section of this website, Prophet 24: Jesus.