The Beginning and Expansion of Islam
Islam as a world religion has existed for 1400 years. Shortly after the death of its prophet Muhammad (570–632), Islam marched out of Saudi Arabia and conquered large swaths of land previously occupied and ruled by Christians throughout the Middle East, North Africa, India, and as far as Spain and Portugal. It also went into the south Asian countries of Malaysia and Indonesia, the latter demographically now having the largest Muslim population.
Between the 1980s and the 2000s, Islam became much more visible in North America due to immigration and multiculturalism. It boasts being the largest minority religion in many Western countries such as France and the United Kingdom.[1] In Canada, Islam remains one of the fastest growing religions, and in the United States it continues to be a growing religion.[2]
According to the Pew Research Centre, Islam is the world’s second largest religion, and the fastest growing major religion second to Christianity. Between 2010 and 2020 the Muslim population grew from 1.7 billion to 2 billion, and they have grown twice as fast as the rest of the world’s population. Muslims have grown from 24% to 26% and are now more than a quarter of the world’s population.[3] These statistics should demonstrate that the Christian Church cannot ignore Islam but must be ready to engage it and give it a ready defense (1 Pet. 3:15). In this essay, I want to help Christians do this by understanding the origins and expansion of Islam along with its interactions with Christianity. We will examine the birthplace of Islam, including its prophet Muhammad. Who was Muhammad, and what were the factors involved in him becoming a prophet? Was he called by God as a prophet like Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and the other biblical prophets? Was the book that he received, the Quran, the word of God, equal to the Bible? Do Muslims worship the same God as Christians and Jews? We will also canvass the Islamic doctrine of God and Jesus Christ to see if there are any points of agreement or disagreement. The goal of this essay is to equip the Christian with a working knowledge of Islam and its relation to Christianity.
The Origins of Islam and Muhammad
Islam is the Arabic word for submission or surrender. Islam as a world religion originated in Saudi Arabia, in the city of Mecca with Muhammad the prophet of Islam. Muhammad was born in 570. He belonged to the Quraysh tribe. His father Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib died before he was born. His mother Aminah bint Wahb also died when he was six years of age. As an orphan, he was raised by his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib, and later by his uncle Abu Talib. At the age of twenty-five Muhammad married Khadijah bint Khuwaylid who was a wealthy widow. According to the standard version of Islam, in 610 when Muhammad was forty years of age, he was in a cave meditating when a spirit creature came to him and clasped him by the throat telling him to ‘recite’. Muhammad, shocked by this encounter, asked what he was to recite. The spirit creature squeezed his throat a total of three times; the third time, Muhammad claimed he almost passed out.[4] After this experience Muhammad believed he was possessed by a demon or a jinn, became suicidal, and fled to his wife in a state of distress.[5] His wife assuaged his fears by having her cousin, Waraqah ibn Nawfal, a supposed Nestorian monk who assured him that he had a genuine prophetic calling.[6] Nawfal further suggested that the spirit creature he encountered was none other than the angel Gabriel, the same angel who spoke to Moses.[7] Gabriel becomes the alleged angel of revelation, who brings down revelation from Allah for a period of twenty-three years and recites it to Muhammad.[8] The content of these revelations would become the Quran, the sacred text of Islam, with 114 surahs or chapters.[9] Muslims claim the Quran is inerrant and perfectly preserved to the present day, and that unlike the Bible it has no textual variants. This bold claim has been challenged by textual critical scholarship.[10] This sacred text fuelled Muhammad and his followers as Islam expanded. The Quran is treated by Muslims with the utmost respect. It occupies the highest place on every bookshelf and is never placed on the ground or treated as common.
Muhammad’s Mission
Muhammad in time proceeded to preach to his fellow Arabs, who were polytheists, that there is only one true God, who is Allah, and that they should abandon all the other gods in the Arabian pantheon along with their idols. What should be noted here is that Muhammad did not have to define who Allah was. The reason for this is that Allah was already recognized by the Arab pagans as one of their gods. Muhammad’s father had, as we have seen, contained the name Allah in his first name, Abdullah, which means “slave of Allah.” Allah was the high creator god, and he had three daughters, Al-Lat and Al-‘Uzza and Manat (Quran 53:19–23).[11] Some scholars think Allah is a contracted form of the Arabic al-ilāh / “the god,” but this remains debatable.[12] Some take Allah to be the proper name of the Islamic deity. In his mission, Muhammad set out to argue for the absolute oneness of Allah, known in Arabic as tawḥīd. The greatest sin, the unpardonable sin in Islam, is to commit shirk, which is associating partners or creatures with Allah, hence Muhammad’s insistence that the Arabs abandon all the other gods. I will return to this point shortly.
In the course of Muhammad’s ministry, while he and his movement were relatively small and in the minority in Mecca, his revealed messages were amicable. They called people to Allah by persuasion. It was during this time that the Meccan surahs, i.e., the Meccan chapters of the Quran were revealed. The Quran is divided into the earlier Meccan surahs, and then the later Medinan surahs. Here is an example of an early Meccan surah which is entitled “The Disbelievers (Al-Kaaferoon),” which by all counts is tolerant and accepting:
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Say, ‘O you disbelievers.
I do not worship what you worship.
Nor do you worship what I worship.
Nor will I ever worship what you worship.
Nor will you ever worship what I worship.
To you is your religion, and to me is my religion.’ (Q 109:1–6)[13]
This surah sounds like a Western democratic document on freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. But this was before the Medinan surahs were penned.
The Migration to Medina
When Muhammad persisted in his call to the Arabs to embrace Islam, some of his opponents grew frustrated with him as tensions began to rise to the point that they felt he was threatening their well being and their economic trade. Muhammad, sensing that they were plotting to seize him and most likely kill him, fled to the city of Medina with his followers. This flight or migration to Medina occurred in the year 622, and is known as the hijra. This date marks not only the beginning of the Islamic community known as the ummah, but also the beginning of the Islamic lunar calendar. In Medina, Muhammad built a mosque, a masjid, and it was in this city, that the Medinan surahs were revealed. This change from Mecca to Medina ushered in a shift in the tone of the surahs of the Quran. The tone changed from an amicable, tolerant, and peaceful approach (Meccan surahs), to an aggressive, intolerant, and militant approach (Medinan surahs).
Peaceful Surahs to Aggressive Surahs
It is from the Medinan surahs, that the doctrine of jihad emerges. It was in Medina that Muhammad was given orders to engage in jihad with the pagan Arabs in Mecca, and reclaim the Kaaba, a sacred cubic stone house of Allah. Another important factor must be taken into account here, and that is the doctrine of abrogation (see Q 2:106; 16:101). Islamic scholars maintain that the later Medinan surahs, abrogate the earlier Meccan surahs, which means, the peaceful verses have been overridden and set aside.[14] Consider the following surahs and their tone in comparison to the one we saw above:
Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful… Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture [Jews and Christians] as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth [Islam], until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low. And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse are they! (Q 9:5, 29–30). [15]
Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book [Jews and Christians] and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the worst of creatures. Those who have faith and do righteous deeds, – they [the Muslims] are the best of creatures. (Q 98:6–7). [16]
In 630 Muhammad and the Islamic armies conquered Mecca and claimed the Kaaba by removing the idols of the 360 gods that were contained in it. Fuelled by these verses, Islamic expansion would only continue.
The Death of Muhammad and Succession
In 632 Muhammad died and the Islamic community was taken over by his companions. Muhammad had ensured that there would be no successor after him. He abolished adoption (see Q 33:4–5, 37) and as a result his adopted son Zayd was renamed after his biological father. The Quran states: “Muhammad is not the father of any man among you, but he is the messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets; and Allah is ever Aware of all things.” (Q 33:40). In the same verse disavowing any successor it reinforces the fact that Muhammad is the “Seal of the Prophets”. This been taken to mean that Muhammad is the last of all the prophets and there is no other after him.[17] The Quran also asserts that Muhammad is found mentioned in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, in the Law and the Gospel (Q 7:157). As a result of this text in the Quran, Muslims have claimed that Muhammad is prophesied in the Old and New Testaments.[18] While the Quran is considered the eternal speech of Allah that has been preserved in a heavenly tablet (Q 43:4; 56:77–78; 85:21–22), the second source of authority in Islam are the Hadith (Ahadith; plural) which record the deeds and words of Muhammad, the most reliable being Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.[19] The earliest biography of Muhammad is that of Ibn Ishaq’s Sīrat Rasūl Allāh (Life of the Messenger of Allah) which was written about 120–130 years after Muhammad’s death in 632, about 752 to 762. [20] This original biography by Ibn Ishaq no longer exists. Much of it has been preserved through the recension of Ibn Hisham (d. 833/834), and quotations of the Islamic tafsir writer Al-Tabari (d. 923). [21] This would place Muhammad’s earliest biography at 200+ years after his death. [22]
Islam and the People of the Book
The Quran recognizes a designated group called “the People of the Book” or “People of the Scripture” (Ahl al-Kitāb; Arabic) because they possess books or scriptures that the Quran recognizes as revelation from Allah (Q 29:46). Ironically, modern day Muslims will accuse the Bible of being corrupted, although the Quran never says this.[23] In jihad, while polytheists only have a choice to convert or die, Jews and Christians being People of the Book have a third choice. If they want to remain in their respective faiths, they need to pay a special poll tax known as the jizya. Jews and Christians are to pay this tax under the Islamic state: “until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Q 9:29). It is intended to be a humiliating poll tax so that they “feel themselves subdued” with the intent that they will convert to Islam. [24]
Islam’s Relation to Christianity: The Oneness of God
In modern interactions between Christians and Muslims a very common fallacy of equivocation is committed. When Christians and Muslims speak to one another about “God,” they assume they are speaking of the same God, and the Quran does as well (Q 29:46). The problem here is that they do not worship the same God. Christians and monotheistic, and Islam is vehemently so. The first article of the Islamic faith is that there is only one God; they emphasize the oneness of Allah as a corollary to redemption. Muslims are unitarian monotheists, whereas Christians are trinitarian monotheists. Muslims believe God/Allah is an absolute oneness/unity with no plurality of persons. Christians believe God is one in his being or essence, but many in his persons, namely the distinct persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In short, Christians believe in a plurality of persons in the unity of the being of God. This indicates that Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God and thus the Quran’s equivocational affirmation that we do is blatantly false (Q 29:46).
It is clear that the Quran does not understand the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Scholars have correctly noted that: “[Muhammad] never understood the doctrine of the Trinity” [25] and that, “[There are] mistaken concepts of the Trinity in the Quran.”[26] It assumes that Christians believe the following: “They [Christians] surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the third of three; when there is no God save the One God.” (Q 5:73). [27] The Quran incorrectly assumes that Christians believe that Allah is the one we call God the Father. The Quran also assumes that Allah for Christians is “a third” of three. This is in fact the heresy of partialism, that God can be divided into parts, which Christians have never accepted. If Allah is the “third of three,” who are the other two? The answer comes in the following passage: “And when Allah saith: O Jesus, son of Mary! Didst thou say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah? he saith: Be glorified! It was not mine to utter that to which I had no right” (Q 5:116). [28] The Quran assumes Christians are tritheists who believe in three gods: Allah, Mary, and Jesus. This again is problematic as it shows that the writer(s) of the Quran were ignorant of the doctrine of the Trinity.
The Fatherhood of God
Another sharp difference between the view of God in Islam and Christianity is that Allah is father to no one. Muslims do not see themselves as children of Allah, but rather, as slaves of Allah. The Quran never speaks of Allah as father, and certainly not the father of Jesus Christ (see Q 5:18). In the Bible God is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:3), and the Father of believers in Christ (John 1:12–13).
Related to this language of father and sons, is the idea in Islam that Allah has no son. The very claim that Allah has a son would cause the earth to split and the heavens would nearly tear apart (Q 19:88–90). The Quran states: “That they attribute to the Most Merciful a son. It is not befitting for the Most Merciful to take a son.” (Q 19:91–92). Ironically the Quran then asserts: “If Allah had intended to take a son, He could have chosen from whatever He creates what He willed. Exalted is He! He is Allah, the One, the Subduer.” (Q 39:4; cf. 21:17). Why is that Allah cannot have a son? The answer lies in the following passage: “To Him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the earth: How can He have a son when He hath no consort? He created all things, and He hath full knowledge of all things.” (Q 6:101). Allah cannot have a son because he does not have a “consort”. In the Quran, the virgin Mary can have a son without a husband, but Allah cannot have a son because he needs a consort. It seems ironic, that Mary is able to do something that Allah cannot do.
Does God have a Son?
This immediately demonstrates that the Quran has no accurate awareness of what Christians believe about Jesus being the eternal Son of God. The Son of God is not created; he is the eternal Son of the Father. His sonship is eternal, not biological and finite as it is with creatures. While the God of the Islam cannot have a son, the God of the Bible has an eternal Son (Ps. 2:7; Prov. 30:4; John 3:16). The writer(s) of the Quran assume that Christians think God needed to have sexual relations with a consort to have a son. Christians have never believed this and view this as blasphemy. Again, the Quran says Christians have taken Jesus and his mother as “two gods besides Allah” (Q 5:116). If the author of the Quran is Allah, would not Allah at the very least know what Christians believed about the eternal Sonship of Jesus? Islam is so opposed to the Sonship of Jesus that one of the surahs of the Quran, believed by many to be the most important surah, asserts the oneness of Allah while dismissing any idea of Allah begetting a son or being begotten:
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Say: He is God, the One and Only;
God, the Eternal, Absolute;
He begetteth not, nor is He begotten;
And there is none like unto Him. (Q 112:1–4)
Notice how the Quran defines itself against Christianity using negatives: “He begetteth not [lam; Arabic], nor [lam] is He begotten”. [29] The Arabic word lam is a negation particle usually used for past tense negation. [30] The language in this verse appears to be a rejection of the language used in the Nicene Creed (325) concerning the Son as “begotten, not made”. In saying Allah does not beget, it rejects the idea that God eternally begets his Son, as the Nicene Creed claims: “one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages”. In the Bible, God the Father begets his Son (Ps. 2:7; Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5). The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and he is also the only-begotten Son of God (John 1:14; 3:16). The Quran here attacks the Father-Son relation by denying the Father begets, and that the Son is begotten. The Quran is once again presuming temporal begetting as we saw in Q 6:101 with Allah needing a consort to have a son. Christians do not believe this and never have.
Islam’s Relation to Christianity: Jesus Christ
Muslims revere Jesus as one of Allah’s greatest prophets.[31] The Quran mentions him twenty-five times. As Christians we need to be reminded of the Scriptural warning about those who preach “another Jesus,” “another gospel,” and a “different spirit” (2 Cor. 11:3–4). Such preachers who proclaim another Jesus are later described by Paul as “false apostles” who “disguise themselves as apostles of Christ” in imitation of Satan, the great deceiver, who also “disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:13–14). These “false apostles” are “his [Satan’s] servants,” (2 Cor. 11:15) or “his ministers” (KJV).
In the Quran, Muhammad is regularly referred to as Rasūlu Allāh, messenger of Allah (Q 48:29), but “messenger” shares semantic overlap with “apostle,” which makes the warning in 2 Corinthians 11:13–14 more apropros. The Arabic word rasul means “messenger,” “envoy,” or “one who is sent.” [32] Edward Lane in his Arabic-English Lexicon notes that rasul also means “an apostle of God; and with the articleال [the] especially applied to Mohammad”. [33] Hans Wehr in his A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, also defines rasūl as “messenger; envoy; apostle.” [34] The word rasul is also used in the Arabic Bible for the Greek word ἀπόστολος / apostolos where we get the English word apostle. The word rasul also appears in the Arabic Bible translation of 2 Corinthians 11:13–15. In some English translations of the Quran the word “apostle” is in fact applied to Muhammad.[35] In other words, Paul is stating that those who deem themselves to be apostles and preach “another Jesus,” are in fact false apostles. It is for this reason among others that Christians including the Reformers historically rejected Muhammad as antichrist and a false messenger / apostle. [36] Muhammad came and preached “another Jesus” as a false apostle—exactly what the true apostle Paul warned the church about.
The Jesus of Islam
Muslims regard Jesus as a Muslim, like themselves. In fact, they believe all the prophets were Muslims, beginning with the first human, Adam, and ending with the final prophet, Muhammad. The Jesus of Islam is only a prophet who was virgin-born, performed miracles, and was sent exclusively to the children of Israel (Q 3:46–47; 5:78, 113; 19:16–21, 29–31). Jesus is also quoted as predicting the coming of messenger who will come after him by the name of Ahmad (Q 61:6), whom Muslims assert is another name for Muhammad. Contrary to Christian belief, the classical position in Islam maintains that Jesus was never crucified or killed on the cross (Q 4:157),[37] but that someone else died in his place. This passage Q 4:157 is extremely ambiguous and vague and can also be interpreted as teaching Jesus was in fact crucified and killed by Allah’s decree. [38] Some early Muslims did in fact believe Jesus was crucified. [39] According to the Quran, Jesus was rescued by Allah and is presently in heaven (Q 4:158). He is the only prophet who is still alive in his body and in heaven with Allah. He will return one day, to destroy the Antichrist, destroy the crosses and the pigs and rebuke Christians for their erroneous views regarding him (his deity, atoning death, the Trinity). In short, he will force Christians to convert or revert to Islam. Jesus will be killed fighting for Islam and will be buried next to the grave of Muhammad. [40]
The Question of Salvation
The denial of the death of Jesus and thus by extension, his resurrection, is a direct attack on the very heart of the gospel which maintains Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised again the third day. (1 Cor. 15:1–4). [41] The basis of salvation according to the Bible rests on the crucified and risen Jesus (Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 1:18). Islam on the other hand is not so much a religion of salvation, as it is a religion of guidance. People do not need to be saved; they need to be rightly guided by Islam. Muslims need however to do good works to earn paradise with the hope that their good works will outweigh their bad works. If they make it, the paradise that awaits them is one that is described as a place where men recline on couches, and are served by beautiful women and young boys wearing necklaces and bracelets (Quran 37:48; 44:54; 52:24,50,72; 56:17,22; 74:19). As good works are necessary, there is never any absolute assurance of paradise. [42] The only absolute assurance a Muslim can have is to die as a shahid (literally a “witness”) in the act of jihad, that is striving or struggling in the cause of Allah which includes fighting and slaughtering the enemies of Islam. [43] They must not only slay their enemies, but they must also be slain in the process. Thus, the Quran states: “Surely Allah has bought of the believers their persons and their property for this, that they shall have the garden [Paradise]; they fight in Allah’s way, so they slay and are slain” (Q 9:111). [44] Christians however rest on the finished work of Christ and can have assurance of their salvation (Rom. 8:1; John 5:24; 1 John 5:13).
Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?
It becomes abundantly clear that the Jesus of Islam is far removed from the Jesus of the Bible. Many of the stories of Jesus in the Quran are not taken from the first century canonical gospels but come from late apocryphal sources that were well known in Arabia. Muhammad’s opponents even pointed this criticism at him (Q 25:4–6). Historians and scholars who investigate the historical Jesus never go to the Quran as their primary source, but go to the earliest sources, the New Testament gospels. Jesus in the Quran is more of a talking head, pointing people to Islam and the coming of Muhammad. Muslim scholar Tarif Khalidi is very forthright when he comments that: “The Quranic Jesus is in fact an argument addressed to his more wayward followers, intended to convince the sincere and frighten the unrepentant. As such, he has little in common with the Jesus of the Gospels, canonical or apocryphal.” [45]
The Jesus of the Quran has been revised, recast, as have all the other biblical figures into Muslim prophets who preached the same message: Islam. Thus, Muslims will claim Islam as the oldest religion in the world tracing its roots back to Adam. This claim is found wanting with no evidence to substantiate it. In order to convince Christians and others that Jesus was a Muslim, they will often cherry pick passages from the New Testament gospels which they feel portrays Jesus as a Muslim while ignoring context. An example of this is seen in the common Muslim claim that Jesus was a Muslim because Matthew 26:39 states that in the Garden of Gethsemane, he “fell on his face and prayed.” Muslims will quickly assert that Jesus prayed like they do, with his face prostrate to the ground. The vacuity of this argument is evident in that it backfires because in the very same verse, Jesus prays: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” Islam does not believe as we have seen that Allah is the Father of Jesus or anyone else for that matter. Muslims do not address Allah as Father, nor do they believe that Jesus is the Son of God. In short, if Muslims cite Matthew 26:39, then they should become Christians and pray to God as “Father” just as Jesus did. Jesus was no Muslim. Moreover, the posture of prayer was not always static in first century Jewish practice. The most common posture was “standing,” not prostration, a point Jesus himself makes (see Mark 11:25; cf. Luke 18:11-13). Jesus also raised his eyes to heaven when he prayed (John 17:1). Kneeling in prayer was another posture among early Christians (Acts 20:36; 21:5). Their selective reading of the Gospels results in inconsistent argumentation while taking whatever agrees with the Quran as true, and dismissing those parts as disagreeing with the Quran as false. These and other arguments, demonstrate an ad hoc approach to the New Testament texts by Muslims that ignore both its immediate and overall context about God and Christ. We try to be consistent in our reading of the Quran and other Islamic texts. We ask that our Muslim friends mutually and respectfully do the same thing with our Scriptures.
Summary
Islam is a world religion that the Christian cannot ignore. From its rising 1400 years ago, its message has been one that opposes the Triune God of Scripture. It opposes his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and distorts his person and mission. Islam has appropriated Jesus Christ and has remodeled him, recast him, revised him into something he never was: a Muslim prophet. In denying the Christ of Scripture, written by those who were his eyewitnesses and servants (Luke 1:1–4), they have accepted “another Jesus” (2 Cor. 11:3–4). This Jesus is not a Saviour, he does not atone for sin, his ministry is restricted only to the children of Israel, and he preaches Islam and points as a forerunner to another messenger who will come. It is for this reason that historically Christians have never accepted Islam or its prophet. The church understood that their Lord had predicted the coming of false prophets and false messiahs (Mark 13:22). In rejecting the biblical Jesus, they reject his cross and resurrection, which is the means by which salvation was procured for us. Without the gospel of grace, our Muslim friends, like all religious groups, need to work hard, try harder, and anxiously hope they will be accepted or saved by Allah who is a stern Master to his slaves—and not a loving Father like the God revealed by Jesus Christ. It is our earnest hope that our Muslim friends will come to know the real Jesus who is found in the pages of Scripture. This Jesus actually saves those who come to him, he gives them eternal life and blessed assurance, and they shall never perish (John 10:27–28). In the meantime, we need to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3), and always be ready to give answers to our Muslim friends (1 Pet. 3:15).
INSEE, “Religious Diversity in France: Intergenerational Transmissions and Practices by Origins,” Insee Références (2023), https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/7342918 (Islam ~10%, second after Catholicism); for the UK, Office for National Statistics, “Religion, England and Wales: Census 2021” (Islam 6.5%, the second-largest religion); Pew Research Center, “How Religious Groups’ Sizes Changed in Europe, 2010–2020,” June 9, 2025, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/06/09/religion-in-europe/. ↑
Statistics Canada, Census of Population 2021 (Islam the second-largest religion at 4.9%, up from 2.0% in 2001); for the United States, Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Study / Muslim population reports. ↑
Conrad Hackett et al., “How the Global Religious Landscape Changed from 2010 to 2020,” Pew Research Center, June 9, 2025, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/06/09/muslim-population-change/. ↑
Sahih al-Bukhari, “Book of Revelation,” no. 3; Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, trans. A. Guillaume (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955), 105–6. ↑
Sahih al-Bukhari, “Book of Revelation,” no. 3; Ibn Ishaq, Life of Muhammad, trans. Guillaume, 106; al-Tabari, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 6, Muhammad at Mecca, trans. W. Montgomery Watt and M. V. McDonald (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988). ↑
The identification of Waraqah as a Nestorian is a scholarly speculation based on the presence of various forms Eastern Christianity in Arabia and Persia in the sixth to seventh centuries connected to the Church of the East (Nestorian). If Waraqah was a Nestorian, he would have held a theology which viewed Christ as two persons and asserted the Virgin Mary was the mother of Christ, but not the mother of God. As such, he would be considered a heretic by the Christian Church, both West and East. ↑
Equating the experience of Muhammad in the cave with the prophetic calling of Moses in Exodus 3 is highly questionable. God appears to Moses in the burning bush, not the angel Gabriel. The passage actually refers to “the angel of the LORD [Yahweh],” “the LORD [Yahweh],” and “God” (Exod. 3:2–4) being in the bush which I take as indicative of plurality within God. It is God who appears and commissions Moses, not Gabriel. Beyond this, throughout the Pentateuch, Gabriel is never mentioned as the angel of revelation. Gabriel appears by name only twice both in the Old Testament (Dan. 8:16; 9:21) and the New Testament (Luke 1:19, 26). Rabbinic literature such as the Talmud and Midrash describe angels being present at Sinai but never identify them by name. See https://www.sefaria.org/search?q=gabriel&tab=text&tvar=1&tsort=relevance ↑
In 2 Corinthians 11:3–4 Paul warns that in addition to those who preach “another Jesus” and “a different gospel,” there are those who also preach “a different spirit from the one you received.” There is a counterfeit Jesus, counterfeit gospel, and a counterfeit spirit / Holy Spirit. ↑
While the standard Quran today is composed of 114 surahs / chapters, there have been other Qurans that differed from the standard number. Two of Muhammad’s close companions in their codices of the Quran differed from the standard number. Abdullah ibn Masud had 111 surahs in his Quran (he did not have surahs 1 and 113–114), while Ubayy bin Ka’b had two additional surahs bringing the number up to 116 surahs. Ubayy bin Ka’b was also considered out of four of Muhammad’s closest companions to be the best reciter of the Quran. The twentieth century Islamic scholar Rashad Khalifa (1935–1990) in his English translation of the Quran removed verses 128–129 of surah 9 because he believed they were a Satanic interpolation into the Quran. ↑
On the textual critical scholarship of the Quran that has shown that it also suffers from textual transmission see Arthur Jeffery, Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’an: The Old Codices (Leiden: Brill, 1937); Keith E. Small, Textual Criticism and Qur’an Manuscripts (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011); Keith E. Small, Qur’ans: Books of Divine Encounter (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2015); Daniel Alan Brubaker, “Intentional Changes in Qurʾān Manuscripts” (PhD diss., Rice University, 2014); Daniel Alan Brubaker, Corrections in Early Qurʾān Manuscripts: Twenty Examples (Lovettsville, VA: Think and Tell Press, 2019); Behnam Sadeghi and Uwe Bergmann, “The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qurʾān of the Prophet,” Arabica 57, no. 4 (2010): 343–436. ↑
Hereafter I will use Q as an abbreviation for the Quran when it is being cited. ↑
Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., s.v. “Allah” (L. Gardet). ↑
Khalifa translation. Rashad Khalifa, Quran: The Final Testament. Authorized English Version (Tucson: Islamic Productions, 1981; rev. ed.; Tuscon: Submitters to God / United Submitters International, 1989). ↑
John Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law: Islamic Theories of Abrogation (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990). ↑
Pickthall translation. Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran: An Explanatory Translation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930). ↑
Yusuf Ali translation. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary (Lahore: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, 1934). ↑
For an excellent treatment on this subject see David S. Powers, Muhammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). ↑
For a fuller treatment on these Islamic claims see Tony Costa, “Does the Bible Predict the Coming of Muhammad?,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 20, no. 2 (2016): 59–73. ↑
For a further detailed treatment on the life of Muhammad see Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam: The Crescent in the Light of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), 68–88. ↑
See Ibn Ishaq, Life of Muhammad, trans. Guillaume. ↑
A tafsir is a commentary on the Quran. ↑
Compare the dating of Muhammad’s earliest biography here with the biographies of Jesus in the gospels which date within decades of Jesus’s death and resurrection and written during the time of the eyewitnesses who heard and saw him (Luke 1:1–4). ↑
For a helpful treatment of this subject see Ghiyathuddin Adelphi and Ernest Hahn, The Integrity of the Bible according to the Qur’an and the Hadith, 2nd ed. (Mississauga, ON: Philoxenia/Hospitality, 1993). ↑
On the subjugation of Jews and Christians in Eastern Christianity under the Islamic state see the important work of Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, Seventh–Twentieth Century (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996). ↑
Richard Bell, Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’an (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1953), 141. ↑
Encyclopedia Britannica (London: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1957), 12:708. ↑
Pickthall translation. Italics mine. Some English translators of the Quran like Yusuf Ali, Hilali-Khan, and Khalifa have inserted the word “Trinity” in Q 5:73. They do the same (including Rodwell) in Q 4:171 knowing very well that the word “Trinity” nowhere appears in the Quran but rather the Arabic word thalāthah which means “three.” This is disingenuous at best. The Arabic word for Trinity is thālūth which is absent in the Quran. ↑
Pickthall translation. Italics mine. ↑
Yusuf Ali translation. Italics mine. ↑
See entry of لَمْ / lam in William Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896–98), vol. 2. ↑
For a more extensive treatment of the portrait of Jesus in Islam see Tony Costa, “Jesus in Islam,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 20, no. 2 (2016): 41–57. ↑
See entry of رَسُول / rasul in Edward William Lane, An Arabic–English Lexicon, 8 vols. (London: Williams & Norgate, 1863–93). ↑
See https://www.laneslexicon.com/word/%D8%B1%D8%B3%D9%88%D9%84. Bold lettering in original text. ↑
See entry of رَسُول / rasul in Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, ed. J. Milton Cowan (Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, 1976). ↑
See the English translations of the Quran by Yusuf Ali, Shakir, Palmer, Rodwell, and Sale. ↑
See Tony Costa, “Islam in the View of Early Christian Theologians and Reformers,” in Jubilee.Vol. 17 (2017): Islam. ↑
The Surah reads “[The Jews were condemned} for boasting, ‘We killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of Allah.” But they neither killed nor crucified him—it was only made to appear so . . . They certainly did not kill him.” ↑
See my video: Tony Costa, “Does the Qur’an Really Deny That Jesus Was Crucified and Died on the Cross? Answer May Surprise You,” YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_huwoxb6qMU. ↑
On the various views and interpretations of the crucifixion of Jesus in Islam see the important work of Todd Lawson, The Crucifixion and the Qur’an: A Study in the History of Muslim Thought (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009). ↑
Muhammad Abdullah Khouj, The End of the Journey (Washington, DC: Islamic Center, 1988), 42–43, 54–55. ↑
The earliest Christian creed to date is contained within this passage of Scripture, particularly in 1 Cor. 15:3–4 where Paul passes on traditional material that he received from the Jerusalem apostles namely that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and was raised the third day according to the Scriptures. New Testament scholar, James D. G. Dunn, states this creed originated within months of the death of Jesus. See James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 854–55. For a concise treatment of this ancient creed see Tony Costa, Early Christian Creeds and Hymns: What the Earliest Christians Believed in Word and Song; An Exegetical-Theological Study (Pickering: H&E Academic, 2021), 29–43. ↑
On further study on the doctrine of salvation in Islam see Geisler and Saleeb, Answering Islam, 122–28. ↑
The Arabic word jihad means “striving,” “exertion,” and “struggle” among other meanings. See Lane, An Arabic–English Lexicon, s.v. “جهاد” [jihad]. ↑
Shakir translation. M. H. Shakir, The Holy Qur’an: Arabic Text and English Translation (Karachi: Taj Company Ltd., 1970). Italics mine. ↑
Tarif Khalidi, The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 16. Italics mine. ↑
