From birth, Muslims are immersed in the confession of God’s absolute oneness. They hear it regularly in the daily call to prayer, and many learn it early through memorizing Surah 112:1–4, “Say, He is Allah, One; Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, and there is none comparable to Him.” This surah functions as one of Islam’s central confessions of faith, comparable in some respects to the Shema in Judaism. It summarizes the Islamic doctrine of tawḥīd, the oneness of God, while also standing in clear opposition to historic Christian confessions about the Trinity and the deity of Christ. In particular, its denial that God “begets” directly challenges the Christian confession of Jesus as the eternally begotten Son of God, as expressed in the Nicene Creed.
Because this theological conviction is so central to Islamic faith and practice, many Muslims are often quite eager to discuss Christian beliefs in casual, everyday settings. Unlike Western cultures that generally treat religion as a taboo conversational topic, Muslims frequently raise questions about the Trinity and the deity of Christ, asking how Christians can confess one God while also speaking of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and how they can affirm that Jesus is divine.
Therefore, before answering Muslim questions about the Trinity, it is important first to understand how the Quran presents Christians and how it portrays the doctrine of the Trinity. This background provides a necessary foundation for meaningful dialogue and helps Christians build a bridge for bearing faithful witness. After laying this foundation, we can then turn to practical guidance for everyday conversations with Muslims.
Christians: Infidels or Believers?
A careful reading of the Quran and the wider Islamic understanding of monotheism and the Trinity shows that the issue is more complex than it may first appear. The Quran presents Muhammad as standing in continuity with the biblical prophets and teaches that Muslims worship the same God who was worshiped by the prophets before him (Quran 3:84; 2:136; 4:163–164; hereafter “Q”). It also speaks of the “People of the Book” (Christians and Jews) in ways that appear to recognize them as worshipers of the one God. This is especially clear in Surah 29:46, where Muslims are instructed to engage them with respect and to say, “We believe in what was revealed to us and to you; our God and your God is one, and we submit to Him.”
At the same time, Muslim nations are notoriously hostile to Christianity, and most condemn Christians as infidels. Classical Muslim exegetes, notably al-Ṭabarī, often appeal to the doctrine of abrogation[1] to justify the mixed signals about Christians. On the one hand, the Quran praises Christians as devout believers whose salvation is secure and who worship the same God (Q 2:62, 139; 3:113–115; 5:69), yet simultaneously it strongly condemns them as unbelievers because of their confession of Christ’s deity and their belief in the Trinity (Q 5:17, 72–73; 9:30–31). This tension raises important questions for Christian-Muslim dialogue. If Christians are unbelievers, in what sense can the Quran speak of their salvation? But if they are true believers who worship the same God, how can their Trinitarian faith place them under condemnation? This ambiguity makes dialogue more difficult, since Christians are portrayed both as people who share in true worship of God and as those who have fallen into serious doctrinal error.
The matter becomes even more complicated because the Quran’s critique of the Trinity does not accurately correspond to the doctrine confessed by orthodox Christianity.
Did the Quran Get the Trinity Right?
A close look at the Quran reveals that it misinterprets the orthodox Trinitarian theology. Instead, it appears to portray Christian belief as a form of physical, adoptive, or tritheistic belief in which God, Jesus, and Mary are treated as separate divine beings. This polemic is reflected in Surah 5:73, which condemns those who say that Allah is “the third of three,” and in Surah 4:171 which commands, “Do not say ‘Three.’” Yet these passages do not directly engage the historic Christian doctrine of the Triune God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Instead, the text assumes Christians worship a literal family of three gods consisting of God, Mary, and Jesus. This becomes especially clear in Surah 5:116, where God asks Jesus if he told his people to worship him and his mother as two deities besides God. Similarly, Surah 6:101 argues that God cannot have a son because He lacks a female mate (the Arabic word ṣāḥibah). This indicates that the Quran is criticizing the notion that God produced a son through a female consort, comparable to mythological accounts of divine procreation such as Zeus and Heracles or Osiris and Horus. Orthodox Christianity, however, does not teach that Jesus is God’s Son in a biological or carnal sense. Rather, it confesses the Son as eternally begotten of the Father and as the divine Word, or Logos, who shares fully in the one divine nature.
In addition, when the Quran discusses the claim that Jesus is God’s Son, it often frames the issue in terms that resemble adoptionism, which was an early Christian heresy that viewed Jesus as an ordinary human being whom God later chose or “adopted” as His Son, rather than confessing him as the eternal Son of God. This framework appears in the Quran’s repeated rejection of the idea that God has “taken” a son. For instance, Surah 2:116–117 rejects the claim that “Allah has taken a son” (emphasis added), contrasting this claim with God’s absolute transcendence over the created order. In a similar vein, Surah 72:3 explicitly denies that God has “taken a wife or a son.” Thus, the Quranic argument effectively rejects a notion of sonship in which God acquires, adopts, or takes a son. However, historic Christianity does not teach that the Son became God’s Son at some later point, nor that God adopted him from among created beings. Rather, it confesses that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father and shares fully in the one divine nature.
There are at least three possible explanations for why the Quran presents the Christian doctrine of the Trinity in this way. The first possibility is that it reflects a misunderstanding of orthodox Christian theology, especially the careful distinction between God’s one essence (ousia) and the three distinct hypostases or persons. A second possibility is that the Quran deliberately employs a straw man fallacy, intentionally mischaracterizing Christian theology to simplify its theological refutation. A third and historically plausible explanation is that the Quran may be responding to certain local or heterodox forms of Christianity present in or near the Arabian Peninsula during the seventh century. One commonly suggested example is the Collyridians, who elevated the Virgin Mary to divine status and incorporated her into a godhead.[2]
Even after Muslims came into sustained contact with established Christian communities in the territories conquered after Muhammad’s death, many Muslim theologians continued to rely on the Quranic critique rather than engaging orthodox Trinitarian theology on its own terms. Consequently, Islamic polemics often addressed a form of Christian belief that orthodox Christians did not actually confess.[3]
From Common Ground to Divine Mystery
This misrepresentation of the orthodox Trinity can become a useful starting point for finding common ground with our Muslim friends. A Christian may say to a Muslim friend, “I agree with you—we do not say ‘Three!’” Christians do not believe in tritheism. Rather, they confess one God who exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. From that point, the Christian can explain that both the Old and New Testaments consistently affirm monotheism and teach that God alone is to be worshiped (Deut. 6:4; Isa. 43:10–11; Isa. 44:6; Mark 12:29; John 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:4–6; Eph. 4:4–6; 1 Tim. 2:5; Jas. 2:19).
A similar argument appears in Paul of Antioch’s Concise Intellectual Treatise.[4] Writing as a twelfth-century Arabic-speaking Christian theologian, Paul argues that monotheism is not merely a revealed truth but also a logical necessity. He writes, “Every confined is limited, and every limited has a beginning. And what has a beginning is created, and the creature is not everlasting. Therefore there can never be more than one everlasting.”[5] In other words, Paul argues that a plurality of gods would necessarily imply limitation. If there were more than one deity, each would have to be distinguished from the other by some boundary, distinction, or limitation. But anything limited cannot be absolutely infinite or eternal. Therefore, the very nature of true divinity requires that there be only one everlasting God.
Therefore, when talking to a Muslim friend about God, the best place to start is by making it clear that Christians absolutely believe in one God who created the universe. You can point out that centuries before Islam began, Christians had already rejected the false idea of three gods. However, while we agree that God is one, we also believe He isn’t just a larger version of a human. Both the Bible (Ps. 86:8; Jer. 10:6) and the Quran (Q 42:11) agree that there is absolutely nothing like Him. Because God is wholly unlike His creatures, His oneness must also be understood as unique. God is not “one” in the same simple and solitary way that a human person is one. If that were the case, His unity would simply mirror our creaturely existence. Rather, God’s oneness is a comprehensive unity, existing in a manner that far exceeds the limits of human understanding.
Moreover, if the comprehensive unity of the triune God seems difficult for the human mind to grasp, the strictly solitary model of Islamic monotheism raises its own theological difficulty. This view creates an important question concerning God’s immutability, or unchangeability: were God’s relational attributes, such as love and speech, eternally inactive before creation? If divine unity is understood as absolute solitude, then one must ask: with whom did God exercise these attributes before the existence of the world? To say that such attributes became active only after creation would imply a change in God’s nature.[6]
Orthodox Christian theology answers this difficulty by confessing that God is eternally relational within Himself. The divine attributes were never dormant. Rather, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have eternally existed in mutual love, glory, and communion. Therefore, God’s unity is not the unity of an isolated monad, but the rich and inclusive oneness of the triune God. This unity is not simply a relationship between the members of the Trinity, but a unity of essence: Father, Son, and Spirit, are one being: one God, sharing one essence, one power, one will, one love, and one existence while yet being three persons. This unity remains beyond full human comprehension while preserving God’s eternal perfection and immutability. In his Fifth Theological Oration, fourth-century church father Gregory of Nazianzus showed just how far the concept of the Trinity goes beyond human imagination,
I have very carefully considered this matter in my own mind, and have looked at it in every point of view, in order to find some illustration of this most important subject, but I have been unable to discover anything on earth with which to compare the nature of the Godhead.[7]
This brings up an excellent point: if early Christians were simply making up a religion, they never would have invented a core belief that their own minds could not explain. The Trinity is a profound mystery where God gives believers a glimpse into who He is. Since God is infinite, it should not surprise us that His being cannot be fully contained within the limits of the human mind.
The eleventh-century Arabic-speaking Syriac Orthodox theologian Yaḥyā ibn Jarīr makes a similar point in Kitāb al-Murshid.[8] He argues that our inability to understand fully the reasons or inner workings of certain revealed truths does not make those truths false, nor does it give us grounds for rejecting them. As he writes, “Our ignorance of the reasons behind certain beliefs does not invalidate them, nor does it stop us from accepting them.”[9] Ultimately, our inability to fully comprehend this divine mystery—or everything God has revealed through His incarnate Word and His written Word—does not give us a reason to reject it. Rather, it points to the truthfulness of the Christian faith, since those who were merely inventing a religion would not likely place at its center a doctrine that so far exceeds their own understanding.
Practical Tips for Dialogue with Muslims
Just as the confused disciples on the road to Emmaus needed Jesus to walk with them and explain the truth about the Messiah in Luke 24:13–35, Muslims who have questions about Christianity often need patient and loving guidance. Their questions should not be treated as interruptions or threats, but as opportunities to follow the example of Christ and bear witness to the gospel.
Here are a few practical tips for these conversations:
- Pray constantly: Pray before, during, and after your conversations, remembering that no one can confess Jesus as Lord apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.
- Pace the conversation: Do not feel pressured to answer every question at once. Sometimes a person may raise several objections quickly, one after another, in a way that makes it difficult to respond carefully. Slow the conversation down and ask to address one question at a time.
- Start with shared beliefs: Begin with common ground, such as belief in one Creator and the shared rejection of three separate gods. From there, use clear language and simple examples to explain Christian truth.
- Build genuine friendship: Keep the conversation warm and relational, following the pattern of Jesus on the road to Emmaus. A helpful way to end the conversation is to ask, “How can I pray for you this week before we talk again?”
Finally, be ready to walk a long and steady road with your Muslim friend. Share the hope that is in you, not out of fear or a desire to win an argument, but out of sincere love for the person, praying that God would open their eyes to the truth, just as Jesus opened the eyes of the disciples on the road to Emmaus.
Abrogation (naskh) refers to the cancellation or replacement of a legal ruling found in an earlier Quranic verse by a later Quranic verse or, in some cases, by a ḥadīth. In this context, some Muslim interpreters argue that Quranic verses that speak positively about Christians were later abrogated by verses that classify them as unbelievers. See Abū Jaʿfar al-Naḥḥās, al-Nāsikh wa-al-Mansūkh (Kuwait: Maktabat al-Falāḥ, 1988), 47–63; Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, al-Itqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿĀmma li-l-Kitāb, 1974), 36–72; John Burton, “Naskh,” in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., vol. 7, Mif–Naz, ed. C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W. P. Heinrichs, and Ch. Pellat (Leiden and New York: Brill, 1993), 1009–1012; Ayman S. Ibrahim, A Concise Guide to the Quran (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 77–82. ↑
Epiphanius of Salamis, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Books II and III, De Fide, trans. Frank Williams, 2nd ed., Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 79 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 637–645; Stephen J. Shoemaker, “The Cult of the Virgin in the Fourth Century: A Fresh Look at Some Old and New Sources,” in The Origins of the Cult of the Virgin Mary, ed. Chris Maunder (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2008), 71–83. ↑
David Thomas, “The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Abbasid Era,” in Islamic Interpretations of Christianity, ed. Lloyd Ridgeon (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 78–98. ↑
For more about Paul of Antioch, see Alexander Treiger, “Paul of Antioch’s Responses to a Muslim Sheikh,” in Heirs of the Apostles, eds. David Bertaina, Sandra Toenis Keating, Mark N. Swanson and Alexander Treiger (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 333–346; David Thomas, “Paul of Antioch,” in Christian-Muslim Relations: A Biographical History, Vol. 4 (1200–1350), eds. David Thomas and Alex Mallett (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 78–82; Herman Teule, “Paul of Antioch’s Attitude towards the Jews and the Muslims,” in The Three Rings: Textual Studies in the Historical Trialogue of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, eds. Barbara Roggema, Marcel Poorthuis and Pim Valkenberg (Utrecht: Thomas Instituut, 2005), 91–110; Georg Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur Vol. II (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1975), 72–78; Sidney H. Griffith, “Paul of Antioch,” in The Orthodox Church in the Arab World 700–1700: An Anthology of Sources, eds. Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2014), 216–235. ↑
Būlus al-Rāhib, “Risālah ʿAqlīah fī wjūd al-Bārī wa Kamālātah wa ʾAqānīmah,” in Maqālātin Dīnīātin Qadīmatin: Libaʿḍ Masẖāhīr al̊-Katabā al-Nasārāh min al̊-Qarn al-Tāsiʿ ʾIa al-qarn al-tẖālitẖ ʿasẖar (Beirut: Jesuit Publishing House, 1906), 48. ↑
Imad Shehadeh, Allāh Maʿanā wa-Min Dūninā (Mansourieh, Lebanon: Dār Manhal al-Ḥayāt, 2020), 223–237. ↑
Gregory of Nazianzus, “The Fifth Theological Oration (Oration 31): On the Holy Spirit,” sec. 31, trans. Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 7, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894), accessed March 18, 2026, www.newadvent.org. ↑
For more about Yaḥyā ibn Jarīr, see Muwaffaq al-Dīn Abī al-ʿAbbās Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, ʿUyūn al-Anbāʾ fī Ṭabaqāt al-Aṭibbāʾ (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Wahbiyya, 1883); Georg Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, vol. 2 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1947), 259–263; G. Khouri-Sarkis, “Le livre du guide de Yahya ibn Jarir,” L’Orient Syrien 12 (1967): 303–354; Samir Khalil Samir, “Yaḥyā ibn Garīr,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 3rd ed., vol. 10, Thomaschristen bis Żytomyr, ed. Walter Kasper (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2001); Herman G. B. Teule and Mark N. Swanson, “Yaḥyā ibn Jarīr,” in Christian-Muslim Relations: A Biographical History, Vol. 3 (1050–1200), eds. David Thomas and Alex Mallett (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Ray Jabre Mouawad, “La prière chez Yahya Ibn Garir, XIe S.,” Parole de l’Orient 22 (1997); Georg Graf, “Eine Theologische Propädeutik von Jaḥyā Ibn Ǧarīr,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 50, no. 2 (1926): 310–22. ↑
Yaḥyā ibn Jarīr, Kitāb al-Murshid, Université Saint-Joseph, Bibliothèque orientale (Beirut), MS 568, 1.29. ↑
