17 January 2023

Muslims, Christians, And God

Why Good Theology Is Crucial for Effective Evangelism

Abstract

This article seeks to explore the question of the relationship between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Are they all “sister religions”, or is Islam built upon entirely different theological foundations to the biblical faiths? We will also examine why this is no mere academic question but is a crucial starting point for evangelism and apologetics to Muslims – and why getting this starting point wrong risks, at best, confusing our Muslim friends and at worst, even a sloppy syncretism.^[1]

I. Introduction

What exactly is the relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? Are they sister religions, closely related in a kind of monotheistic unity? Certainly many people think so – especially in Western postmodern culture which leans heavily toward the idea that all religions are essentially the same. For example, Richard Bulliet in The Case for Islamo-Christian Culture asserts:

[T]he scriptural and doctrinal linkages between Judaism and Christianity are no closer than those between Judaism and Islam, or between Christianity and Islam.^[2]

Even among evangelical Christians, there is sometimes a default assumption that Islam is organically related to Christianity and Judaism, even if somewhat remotely.^[3] There’s a growing tendency to lump Judaism, Christianity, and Islam together under the generic title of “Abrahamic faiths”, a phrase that has become widespread in the last few decades.^[4] But as the Australian linguist and qur’anic scholar Mark Durie wryly remarks, Abraham is a strange figure to use to try to harmonise Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.^[5] After all:

• For Jews, Abraham is the prototypical Torah observant Jew;
• For Christians, Abraham is the man saved by faith, not works;
• For Muslims, Abraham is the idol-destroying monotheist who rebuilds the Kaaba;

Behind the question of how Islam relates to Christianity and Judaism stands the question of the status of the Qur’an. How is the Qur’an related to the Bible – is it a sequel? Those of a pluralistic persuasion argue that there is continuity because both the Bible and the Qur’an are divinely inspired:

Is there any possibility that we are faced not with a choice between rivals [Muhammad or Jesus] but with complementary exemplars, both rooted in divine self-disclosure? … I do not know how the Qur’an was communicated by God through Muhammad, but I can accept that it was.^[6]

 Yet sometimes even critical scholars of the Qur’an also speak in terms of continuity; thus Gabriel Said Reynolds of Notre Dame University writes:

[T]he Qur’an and the Bible, far from being incompatible or in opposition, are very much in harmony … The Qur’an can no longer be seen as a foreign or irrelevant book. It now appears as a work very much within the tradition of Biblical literature, and should be considered as such at universities and seminaries.^[7]

Outside the academy, many Westerners assume that the Qur’an and Islam are effectively a sequel to the Bible, Christianity and Judaism. Indeed the 2018 “State of Theology” survey, which surveyed three thousand Christians, found that 46% “agreed very strongly” with the statement “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam”.^[8]

II. The Qur’an and Confusion

There’s an awful lot of confusion here, a major source of which is the Qur’an, which frequently refers to Biblical stories and characters; the Muslim scholar Faruq Sherif has calculated that approximately 25% of the Qur’an is concerned with stories and traditions that have come from Judaism and Christianity.^[9] My academic background is Qur’anic studies and I have been studying the text in depth for some twenty years. And I remember being struck when I first came to the came to the Qur’an by the sheer quantity of this kind of Biblicist material.

To show what we’re dealing with, consider the list of names which turn up in the Qur’an:^[10]

Aaron (Qur’an = Harun)	Abraham (Qur’an = Ibrahim)	Adam (Qur’an = ‘Adam)
Amran (Qur’an = Imran)	David (Qur’an = Dawud)	Elijah (Qur’an = Elias)
Elisha (Qur’an = Alyasaʿa)	Ezra (Qur’an = Uzair)	Gabriel (Qur’an = Jibrīl)
Goliath (Qur’an = Jalut)	Haman (Qur’an = Hāmān)	Isaac (Qur’an = Isḥāq)
Ishmael (Qur’an = Ismāʿīl)	Jacob (Qur’an = Yaqūb)	Jesus (Qur’an = Isa)
Job (Qur’an = Ayub)	John (Qur’an = Yahya)	Jonah (Qur’an = Yūnus)
Joseph (Qur’an = Yūsuf)	Lot (Qur’an = Lūt)	Mary (Qur’an = Maryam)
Michael (Qur’an = Mīkal)	Moses (Qur’an = Mūsa)	Noah (Qur’an = Nūh)
Pharaoh (Qur’an = Firawn)	Saul (Qur’an = Talūt)	Solomon (Qur’an = Sulaymān)
Zechariah (Qur’an = Zakariyah)

Some of these figures get considerable coverage in the Qur’an; for example Joseph has an entire chapter (sura 12) devoted to him whilst the annunciation to Mary is retold at length on two occasions (Q. 3:35-49 and Q. 19:16-34). On top of this, the Qur’an also draws on lots of “Biblicist” material – by which we mean Christian and Jewish traditions not from the Bible. From the Talmud to the apocryphal gospels, from Syriac hymns to Jewish folklore, the Qur’an draws extensively on a wide range of Jewish and Christian materials. No wonder that many people have looked at all of this and concluded that the Qur’an must be a sequel and that Islam is related – a sister religion, or a distant cousin, even – to Christianity and Judaism.

III. Borrowing Or Inheritance?

But just because biblical names occur in the Qur’an does not mean that it is a sequel, nor that Islam bears any kind of familial relationship to Christianity or Judaism, nor that we are even dealing with the same story (or even the same expanded universe).

Consider an analogy for a moment. Imagine that on a trip to London you visit the famous Globe Theatre to watch a Shakespeare play, let’s say Macbeth for example. Before long you are having a wonderful time watching this classic tale of murder and intrigue. Partway through the evening the curtain goes down on Act 4 and you wander off to the bar to get a drink. You return for Act 5, the lights come up, and suddenly everything has changed. Now the stage is full of robots and lasers, flashing lights, dancers, and special effects. It’s very noisy and very impressive – but you’re totally confused. Sure, there’s a robot called “Macbeth”, an animatronic alien called “Duncan”, a spaceship called “The USS Dunsinane” and talk of a secret weapon called “The Birnam Wood of Doom”, but this clearly is not the same story. It may be fun and interesting, but it doesn’t belong as Act 5 of Macbeth.

Okay, that was a bit of light relief. But the serious point is that just because we may recognise the names of characters and places, does not automatically make something the same story. And I want to suggest that something not entirely dissimilar is going on when it comes to the Qur’an.

First, let us note that it is not surprising there is Jewish and Christian material in the Qur’an, for pre-Islamic Arabic had a strong and ancient Christian and Jewish presence.^[11] Given this background it is therefore no surprise that the Qur’an fished from a common pool of (probably oral) religious traditions, a pool that included Jewish and Christian stories.^[12] But simply fishing from a common cultural pool does not make the Qur’an (or Islam) a sequel. Rather we need to ask, when it comes to the Qur’an’s use of Jewish and Christian materials, has the Qur’an inherited these ideas, or has it borrowed them?

What is the difference between inheritance and borrowing? There are two metaphors that help to illustrate the difference: the first comes from building, the second comes from language. First, consider building. One of my favourite buildings is York Minister, one of the finest cathedrals in England. The beautiful Norman Church and later cathedral were built on top of an older Saxon church, the medieval building growing as the older buildings were repeatedly extended, reworked, and upgraded. Go below ground into the crypt and you see something amazing: not merely can you see how the Saxon foundations underpin the Norman and later medieval church, but you also discover that the older Saxon church was itself built on the ruins of a Roman barracks. Roman rubble was used in the foundations – there is even an old Roman pagan altar jammed sideways into a wall at one point. But there’s a difference between the Roman ruins and the oldest parts of the church. As the medieval cathedral grew, it grew organically out of the Saxon and Norman church, as the church was extended and developed. But the Roman ruins in the crypt? Sure, Roman stone was used, but purely for its use as a building material. There is no continuity between the Roman ruins and the cathedral. In other words, the medieval cathedral has inherited from the Norman and Saxon church structure. But in terms of the Romans? All that was borrowed were some pieces of Roman stone that were repurposed and dumped into the foundations. That’s the difference between inheritance and borrowing.

In his ground-breaking study, The Qur’an and It’s Biblical Reflexes, Mark Durie offers a second metaphor, one that comes from language. When two languages derive from a common source, they do not merely share words in common, but they will have deeply related structures. For example, consider the words for “mouse” in English, Icelandic and German:^[13]

	Singular	Plural
English	Mouse	mice
Icelandic	Mús	mýs
German	Maus	Mäuse

Observe how the singular and plural forms all show an internal variation in the vowel–this is a shared structural feature which all three languages have inherited. Comparative linguistics analyses patterns like this as evidence for how languages are related. When inheritance has occurred, structure is preserved. By contrast, borrowing is usually highly destructive (recall broken Roman stone in foundations). For example, consider the English word juggernaut, borrowed from Sanskrit via Hindi. It originally was Jagannātha, a Sanskrit name for a Hindu God. Chariots with huge wheels which crushed devotees were used in religious ceremonies – which led to the English meaning of the word. But all that original context has been lost when English destructively borrowed the term.

Something similar goes on with languages in creolization, a process whereby the lexicon of one language is combined with the grammar and structure of another. So, for example, in Haitian Creole, most of the vocabulary is French, but the grammar – the structure and logic – is West African. The process by which a creole is created is called relexification: meanings and structure from the substrate language are repopulated with forms from the superstrate. This can be deeply confusing for native speakers of French, for example, when they encounter Haitian Creole – the words sound familiar, but the grammar and structure have nothing in common with French. Haitian Creole is not a Romance language, the family of languages that developed from Latin; rather it is a new and distinct creation. It has not inherited; it has borrowed.

How does one tell the difference between inheritance and borrowing? When something, be it a building or a language, is inherited, the underlying systems and structures are brought across as well. When something is borrowed, the object is ripped from its context and the structure and systems lost. So, when it comes to the Qur’an, how do we determine if it has inherited from the Bible – if it’s a sequel – or if it has borrowed? We need to look at the structure, at the theology; not at words, names, and stories themselves but the fundamental theological ideas underpinning them.

IV. The Qur’an and The Bible: Comparing and Contrasting Theology

Given that theology is, at its core, the study of God, one of the most helpful ways to conduct a brief comparative study of Qur’anic and Biblical theology is by examining what the Bible and the Qur’an have to say about God.^[14] Not least because arguably much confusion has been caused over the years in interfaith discussion by the fact that everybody uses the word “god” but seldom are clarificatory questions (e.g. “What do you mean by that word?”) ever asked.

Right at the start, let us acknowledge that it’s perfectly possible for the Qur’an and the Bible (and for Muslims and Christians) to agree on some basic facts about God: namely that God exists, that he performs certain functions (e.g. creator, ruler, judge). But that’s not enough: we also need to ask about the character and the identity of the God described by Biblical and by Qur’anic theology. Neither the Bible nor the Qur’an are particularly interested in the purely theoretical question of whether God exists – no, rather they consider the infinitely more important question to be what is God like? What is God’s character, nature, attributes, and identity?

Again, consider an analogy. Suppose that I am having a debate with my friend, Kevin, about who was the previous President of the United States of America. Being sufficiently educated to use Google, Kevin informs me that the previous President was Donald Trump. But I have little time for politics and so I’m slightly out of touch: ‘I thought the President was Donald Duck,’ I reply. Much as Kevin and I might have a thoroughly entertaining debate about the Disneyfication of politics and about who might make the better President, notice something interesting: we both agree there is a President, yet we disagree over who that President is. If you asked ‘Do Andy and Kevin believe in the same President?’ clearly the answer is ‘No’.^[15]

In the same way, it is perfectly possible for the Qur’an and the Bible to agree on some facts about God, whilst disagreeing profoundly about God’s identity. And if this is what we indeed discover when we dive deeply into Biblical and Qur’anic theology, this would suggest that what we have in the case of Islam and its relationship to Christianity and Judaism is borrowing, not inheritance.

So let’s proceed by taking a look at three characteristics that are central to the identity of the God of the Bible. These are by no means exhaustive, but nevertheless are fundamental aspects of God’s character portrayed on multiple pages of the biblical text, ranging across both Old and New Testaments. In each case, we will then examine what the Qur’an has to say about these same characteristics and thus compare whether its portrayal of Allah looks at all similar to how the Bible describes Yahweh.

Notice, as we proceed, that in the case of Biblical theology we are looking at divine characteristics that are found across the whole of scripture. There’s a common mistake in Christian-Muslims of assuming that because Muslims don’t worship Jesus, therefore Allah is a “different God”. But our Jewish friends do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, nor the Trinity, nor do they worship Christ – so if Jesus is the sole criterion, we must therefore bizarrely conclude that Jews worship a different God (an idea the New Testament would clearly reject!) It is therefore far more helpful to choose divine characteristics that are found in both the Old and New Testaments.

1. The God of the Bible is relational

The first major characteristic of Yahweh, the God of the Bible, that we will consider is that Yahweh is relational. In Genesis we read how after calling into existence the whole of creation – everything from planets and stars to oceans and continents, from trees and plants to animals, birds, and human beings – after all of this creative activity, what does God do? Yahweh then steps into creation in order to relate, in person, to the first humans: ‘Then Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.’ (Genesis 3:8)

Throughout the Old Testament we read of numerous ‘theophanies’, dramatic moments where God again steps down into creation and relates to human beings personally. One of the most astonishing examples comes in Genesis 15, where God appears to Abram (the original name of the patriarch Abraham) and forms a covenant with him. In the Ancient Near East of Abram’s day, covenants were often marked by a ceremony where the two parties would cut animals in two and walk between the halves–the symbolism implying if I break my word, may I be torn apart like these animals. In a sign of Yahweh’s incredible willingness to relate to human beings, God is even willing to take part in a covenant cutting ceremony, passing symbolically between the animals that Abram has severed:

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces [of the animals]. On that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram. (Genesis 15:17-18)

Time and time again, the Bible emphasises that as well as being powerful and exalted, Yahweh is also a God who dwells with the lowest of the low. A heavenly king who reigns in power, but also one who is able to stoop down and be present with us:

For this is what the high and exalted One says–
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
“I live in a high and holy place,
but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit” (Isaiah 57:15)

The theme of God relating to human beings runs throughout the whole of the Old Testament and onwards into the New Testament, where it reaches its zenith in the person of Jesus Christ who, according to the Bible, was no mere prophet but ‘God with us’. As the New Testament repeatedly teaches, if you want to see what God is like, look at Jesus:

[Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation … For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:15, 19-20)

The biblical theme of God’s relationality appears at the beginning of history, at creation; it appears in the middle of biblical history, in the person of Jesus; and it also appears at the end of history, in the Bible’s highly relational language of what our eternal future will be like. The future hope offered by the Bible is not a cloud-based party in the sky, but rather that we will be raised to eternal life in God’s new creation, enjoying an eternity of close relationship with him:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth … And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Now the dwelling of God is with humankind, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:1, 3-4)

That Yahweh is relational is also shown by the sheer number of relational titles that the Bible uses for God. Yes, God is certainly Lord and King, but he is also described as a Father, as a friend, even as a husband. According to Jesus, we can address God simply and intimately as ‘Our Father in heaven’.^[16]

So what about Allah, the God described by the Qur’an? By far the main emphasis of the Qur’an in its portrayal of God is not his relationality, but his distance. Allah is never close and personal, but only ever high and mighty, powerful and transcendent, lofty and distant:

Allah: there is no god but He, the Living, the Everlasting. Slumber seizes Him not, neither sleep; to Him belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth … His Throne comprises the heavens and earth; the preserving of them oppresses Him not; He is the All-high, the All-glorious. (Q. 2:255)

This theme of Allah’s power, transcendence, and distance is repeatedly emphasised by the Qur’an.^[17] For example, scholars who have carefully studied the Qur’an’s Arabic have noticed that the Qur’an is constructed using highly formulaic language, repeated phrases that are returned to time and time again.^[18] The frequency of these formulaic phrases gives an insight into the Qur’an’s central theological ideas and thus it is noteworthy that the third most common formula in the Qur’an, repeated some 50 times, is the phrase ‘Allah is over all things’.

Internationally renowned Muslim scholar Farid Esack sums up this aspect of the Qur’an succinctly: “Belief in the existence of one transcendent Creator and the struggle to live with all the implications of that belief may be said to be at the core of the Qur’an’s message.”^[19]

This emphasis of the Qur’an on Allah’s transcendence rather than his closeness to human beings is seen in other ways. For example, the Qur’an frequently retells stories from the Bible and from Jewish and Christian tradition. As it draws upon biblical stories, the Qur’an frequently reshapes them to suit its own theology; as it does this, one theme often edited out or downplayed is God’s relationality. Consider the Qur’an’s retelling of the story of Adam and Eve in the garden:

“O Adam! dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden, and enjoy (its good things) as ye wish: but approach not this tree, or ye run into harm and transgression.”

Then began Satan to whisper suggestions to them, bringing openly before their minds all their shame that was hidden from them (before): he said: “Your Lord only forbade you this tree, lest ye should become angels or such beings as live for ever.”

And he swore to them both, that he was their sincere adviser.

So by deceit he brought about their fall: when they tasted of the tree, their shame became manifest to them, and they began to sew together the leaves of the garden over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them: “Did I not forbid you that tree, and tell you that Satan was an avowed enemy unto you?” (Q. 7:19-22)

In this Qur’anic retelling of the biblical story from Genesis 3, it is fascinating to see which elements have been retained by the Qur’an and which have been dropped or edited. Notably changed is that Allah has been abstracted from the scene: yes, he speaks to the first human couple, but he is no longer portrayed as walking with them in his creation.

Something similar happens with the story of the covenant cutting in Genesis 15. The Qur’an has no real concept of covenant (probably because the idea of God binding himself to human beings is considered by the Qur’an to be beneath Allah) and so the story of God, Abraham, and the birds is turned into a strange little parable about resurrection:

(Remember) when Abraham said, “My Lord, show me how You give the dead life.” He said, “Have you not believed” He said, “Yes indeed! But (show me) to satisfy my heart.” He said, “Take four birds, and take them close to you, then place a piece of them on each hill, (and) then call them. They will come rushing to you. Know that God is mighty, wise.” (Q. 2:260)

When it comes to Jesus, the Qur’an demotes him to just another prophet, not the Son of God, and certainly not God-come-in-the-flesh to relate to us. About 90 verses in the Qur’an discuss Jesus and the Qur’an uses many of them to play down Jesus’s role. For example, the Qur’an reports this conversation between Allah and Jesus:

(Remember) when God said, “Jesus, son of Mary! Did you say to the people, ‘Take me and my mother as two gods instead of God (alone)’?” He said, “Glory to You! It is not for me to say what I have no right (to say). If I had said it, You would have known it. You know what is within me, but I do not know what is within You. Surely You–You are the Knower of the unseen.” (Q. 5:116)

Finally, what about ‘heaven’, an idea that in the Bible is far richer than one word can convey and is deeply relational – Yahweh promising to dwell with his people as he did with Adam and Eve in Eden. The Qur’an certain speaks much about heaven, painting a vivid picture of a place filled with fruit trees (Q. 2:25), rivers of wine (Q. 47:15), and young women to be enjoyed (Q. 52:20).^[20] Yet nowhere in these descriptions of heaven does the Qur’an promise its readers any kind of relationship with Allah.

In short, for the Qur’an Allah is distant at the beginning of history (not walking with Adam and Eve, nor covenanting with Abraham); he is absent in the middle of history (not coming in the person of Jesus); and is missing from the end of history (heaven has pleasures, but it lacks God’s presence).

This emphasis on Allah’s distance and transcendence explains why the Qur’an never invites readers into any kind of ‘relationship’ with God – and it certainly does not permit Muslims to dare to call Allah ‘father’. Indeed, in Sura 112, once described by Muhammad as so significant that reciting it is equivalent to reciting a third of the Qur’an,^[21] the Qur’an outrightly declares that Allah is not a father and that Allah has no son: “He (Allah) has not begotten, and has not been begotten.” (Q. 112:3)

Summarising these crucial differences from the Bible, Muslim philosopher Shabbir Akhtar explains: “Muslims do not see God as their father … Men are servants of a just master; they cannot, in orthodox Islam, typically attain any greater degree of intimacy with their creator.”^[22]

2. The God of the Bible is love

The second characteristic of Yahweh that we will examine is that he is a God of love. This is an attribute of God identified by the Bible hundreds of times. For example, in what scholars believe to one of the very oldest books of the Bible, Jonah, the titular prophet throws a tantrum and wails that God has not destroyed the city of Nineveh because: “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” (Jonah 4:2)

In the Psalms, the hymnbook of the Jewish people and the early Christians, the theme of God’s love is ever-present, such as in Psalm 136, where 26 times we hear the chorus “God’s love endures forever”. Love is one of the ways that Yahweh self-identifies, such as in the book of Jeremiah where we read of Yahweh saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” (Jeremiah 31:3)

When we reach the New Testament, the love of God is a theme to which Jesus repeatedly returned. In one of the most famous verses in the gospels, Jesus described the incredible love that God has for all that he has made: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

But the Bible is not content simply to describe Yahweh’s character as loving; it goes radically further, teaching that God’s very essence, his very identity is love: “God is love.” (1 John 4:16)

There is a lot packed into those three little words: the Bible teaches that it is not so much that Yahweh acts lovingly, but that he is loving. Love is not something God does: love is something God is. This gives Christians tremendous confidence in their ability to trust God, knowing that the heart of his identity is love. It also reveals why the Bible’s teaching that whilst there is one God, he exists in three persons – Father, Son and Spirit (what Christians came to call the Trinity) – is so important. For if God was not triune but single and solitary, it would not be possible for him to be loving without first creating something to love. As Michael Reeves puts it, in his book Delighting in the Trinity:

Such are the problems with nontriune gods and creation. Single-person gods, having spent eternity alone, are inevitably self-centred beings, and so it becomes hard to see why they would ever cause anything else to exist. Wouldn’t the existence of a universe be an irritating distraction for the god whose greatest pleasure is looking in the mirror? … Everything changes when it comes to the Father, Son and Spirit. Here is a God who is not essentially lonely, but who has been loving for all eternity as the Father has loved the Son in the Spirit. Loving others is not a strange or novel thing for this God at all; it is at the root of who he is.^[23]

When it comes to God and love, this is a common place where people often assume that the great faith traditions of the world are essentially the same. Yet when it comes to Islam, the Qur’an is extremely reticent about talking of Allah and love. In fact the main Arabic word for love, aḥabba, is used with Allah as the subject of the verb just 42 times and of those occurrences, 23 are negative,^[24] the Qur’an describing the kind of people Allah does not love. For example:

• God loves not the unbelievers. (Q. 3:32)
• God loves not the prodigal. (Q. 6:141)^[25]

The other 19 occurrences are conditional,^[26] the Qur’an describing the behaviour required to earn Allah’s love:

• Surely God loves the doers of good. (Q. 3:148)
• God loves those who fight in His way, (drawn up) in lines (for battle) as if they were a solid building. (Q. 61:4)

The Qur’an simply has no conception of Allah offering anything remotely like an unconditional love to humanity. As the Pakistani scholar Daud Rahbar bluntly puts it: “[T]here is not a single verse in the Qur’an that speaks of God’s unconditional love for mankind … [Its verses] do not say that God loves all men.”^[27]

Faced with this reality, some writers keen to create parallels between Islam and Christianity have tried to square the circle by claiming that whilst the Qur’an speaks little of God’s love, it often talks of God’s mercy – and surely mercy and love are effectively the same.^[28] But are they?

I live in the countryside and because our house backs onto fields, we often get mice in our garage. After many requests from the younger members of our household, I switched to humane mousetraps and began showing mercy to our furry visitors, rather than killing them. Do I love mice? Not a bit of it. I may have shown mercy but love certainly did not come into it. I suggest it is the same for Allah in the Qur’an: yes, he may be described as merciful – but this is very different to his being loving. Mercy and love are not interchangeable words.

Drawing out the implications of this, some Muslim scholars have gone so far as to suggest that because the Qur’an speaks so little of Allah’s love, because Allah is so transcendent, and because it is crystal clear in the Qur’an that Allah is ruler and master but certainly not a father as God is described in the Bible – because of all this, Muslims should avoid using the very word love. The German Muslim scholar Murad Hofmann writes:

In the Qur’an we are told that Allah is self-sufficient. This fundamental self-description definitely excludes that Allah is in love with his creation … therefore it is safer and more accurate not speak of ‘love’ when addressing His clemency, compassion, benevolence, goodness, or mercy.^[29]

3. The God of the Bible has suffered

One of the crucial things about love is that it cannot simply be spoken about, rather it must be demonstrated. If somebody says ‘I love you’ but spends all their time insulting you, throwing rocks at you, or even just entirely ignoring you, then you might justifiably protest: ‘You keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means’.^[30]

Love needs to be demonstrated, not just verbalised, not least because a major aspect of genuine love is that it is costly. If you truly love another person, you are willing to give of yourself to help them; and if they are hurting, you will grieve and suffer when they suffer.

This brings us to a third characteristic of Yahweh, the God of the Bible, namely that he is a God who has experienced suffering. Time and again we are told that Yahweh grieves over the disobedience, rebellion and brokenness of his people. For example, at the start of the story of Noah we read: “Yahweh was grieved that he had made humankind on the earth and his heart was filled with pain.” (Genesis 6:6)

The Hebrew words translated ‘grieved’ and ‘filled with pain’ are profoundly emotional words, conveying a deep sense of sorrow.^[31]

The theme of God grieving for his people runs throughout the Old Testament and is found in passage after passage, such as these words of great pathos in the book of Hosea, describing Yahweh’s love for his people and grief that they have rushed headlong after other gods:

¹ When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son
But the more I called Israel,
the further they went from me.
They sacrificed to the Baals
and they burned incense to images.

…How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
…. My heart is changed within me,
All my compassion is aroused. (Hosea 11:1-2, 8)

Because of Yahweh’s love and deep concern, he promises that he will take up our suffering, bear our wounds, and carry our sorrows. In the book of Isaiah, in a famous passage that the New Testament then picks up and applies to Jesus,^[32] we read:

Surely he took up our infirmities,
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5)

The Bible is very clear that out of Yahweh’s love for the people he has made, out of his desire for relationship with humankind; his intention that we should not just know about him but know him – that out of these fundamental aspects of God’s character comes the plan of salvation that stands at the heart of the Bible’s story. Resounding down through the centuries of Old Testament history like a drum beat comes the message that God would save his people and find a way to deal with our rebellion so that we could return to his presence, despite his holiness and our foolishness. That theme of God’s acting to save us because we couldn’t save ourselves reaches its climax in the person of Jesus, who through suffering demonstrated most clearly and concretely the very character of God:

Jesus, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient to death–
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11)

As the historian and New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham puts it, all the biblical themes about God and suffering come together powerfully in Jesus:

[Jesus’s] humiliation belongs to the identity of God as truly as his exaltation does. The identity of God – who God is – is revealed as much in self-abasement and service as it is in exaltation and rule. The God who is high can also be low, because God is God not in seeking his own advantage but in self-giving.^[33]

So what of the Qur’an and this final theme? Does it, too, portray a God who responds to our rebellion not just with judgement and wrath, but who is moved to grief, compassion, and action? In short: no. As one reads the Qur’an, it is clear that human sinfulness and disobedience is a problem, that Allah gets angry at sin, but nowhere is there any hint of sadness or grief.

Consider another biblical story that the Qur’an picks up and retells, reshaping it to fit an Islamic agenda – in this case, the story of Noah and the flood, which is retold in sura 11:25-49. It opens quite differently from the Bible’s version, with the Qur’an only mentioning Allah’s judgement –indeed, Noah is explicitly told not to be concerned about the disbelievers:

And it was revealed to Noah: “None of your people will believe, except for the one who has (already) believed, so do not be distressed by what they have done. Build the ship under Our eyes and Our inspiration, and do not address Me concerning those who have done evil. Surely they are going to be drowned.” (Q. 11:36-37)

Unlike the Bible, which repeatedly stresses how Yahweh grieves over his people and is moved to act for their salvation, the Qur’an takes a diametrically different angle, emphasising that Allah is entirely unmoved, even so far as advising the reader not to trouble themselves over the disbelief of unbelievers:

Do not let those who are quick to disbelieve cause you sorrow. Surely they will not harm God at all. God does not wish to assign to them any share in the Hereafter. For them (there is) a great punishment. (Q. 3:176)

Reflecting on the Qur’an’s understanding that Allah is one who is not loving nor self-giving, but rather one who, by default, responds with power and anger, not ever with grief or sorrow, Muslim scholar Muhammed al-Burkawi writes:

Allah can annihilate the universe if it seems good to Him and recreate it in an instant. He receives neither profit nor loss from whatever happens. If all the infidels became believers and all the wicked pious He would gain nothing. And if all believers became infidels it would not cause Him loss. He can annihilate even heaven itself.^[34]

V. Drawing the Threads Together

When it comes to the Qur’an and the Bible and more broadly with Islam’s relationship to Christianity, are we dealing with a case of inheritance or borrowing? Has Islam grown naturally and organically out of Christianity, or did Muhammad (assuming that he was the originator of the Qur’an – a key critical question that we don’t have the space to cover here) borrow biblical phrases but weave an entirely differently theology around them? What we have seen as we have done a deep dive into the nature of God in the Bible and the Qur’an strongly suggests the latter, with the Qur’an offering a radically different view of Allah’s nature and character than the Bible offers about Yahweh.

If we had space, we could explore many other theological themes – for example in my book, Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? I offer similarly deep dives into the nature of humanity, sin, salvation, forgiveness, and heaven,^[35] showing how in each case we see the same pattern: the Qur’an has borrowed biblical phrases and terms, but built an entirely different theology with them. In many ways this should hardly surprise us. Unlike Judaism and Christianity, which are closely related (Jesus was a first-century Jew; most of the first Christians were Jewish, not least Paul who wrote one third of the New Testament; the New Testament quotes or alludes to the Old Testament hundreds of times), the origins of the Qur’an lie six centuries after the New Testament, a thousand miles away, in a cultural context vastly removed from that of the Bible. Whilst there has been Christian and Jewish influence on the formation of the Qur’an,^[36] it does not stretch beyond borrowing, the Qur’an picking up biblical words and names in the same way it has borrowed other religious ideas that were circulating in the seventh-century Arabian cultural milieu.^[37]

A question I am often asked is “Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?” and whilst there are many layers to that seemingly innocent question, one thing seems increasingly clear: the Qur’an at least has a remarkably different view of the nature, character, and identity of God. And the reason for this is obvious: to return to our earlier linguistics metaphor, what we see in the Qur’an is a theological and religious example of creolization. Whilst the Qur’an’s superstrate may contain many words borrowed from the Bible, the Qur’an’s substrate (its deep meaning and structure) are profoundly different, reflecting most probably their Arabian religious origins. As Durie summarises:

Once we stray beyond what is implied straightforwardly from the idea of one all-powerful creator God, the Qur’an and the Bible diverge considerably.^[38]

VI. From Theology to Evangelism

When we think about a question like “Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?” certainly a crucial starting point to answering this is theology – figuring out what the Qur’an says by setting it in its context and milieu. But there are other levels to the question too: namely what do individual Muslims think? Given that a minority of Muslims have actually studied the Qur’an for themselves, it is little wonder that Qur’anic theology and Muslim religious practice do not always align.^[39] Thus over almost thirty years of ministry in various forms to Muslims, both in the UK and abroad, I have often met Muslims who have said things like “I believe in a God of love” – even though this is not something the Qur’an would claim.

Much confusion in Muslim-Christian dialogue comes from mixing up the questions “What does the Qur’an say?”, “What does later Islamic theology say?”, and “What do Muslims actually believe?”. But I believe that starting with the Qur’an and its understanding of the nature of God is helpful for a number of reasons. If we ignore Qur’anic theology we risk prioritising our friendships with Muslims. Because we don’t want to offend our friends, we tend not to look too hard at what the Qur’an says, in case it forces us to ask difficult questions. (One former Muslim friend of mine, now Christian, wryly remarked: “Too many Christian missionaries seem to me to do little more than drink endless cups of tea with Sufi Muslims, as that way they don’t have to get into difficult theological debates!”)

We risk confusing Muslims. For example, if we don’t address the very different view of God in the Bible and the Qur’an, then when we say things like “Jesus is God” our Muslim friend hears this as “Jesus is the Allah of the Qur’an”. But given that the Allah of the Qur’an has strongly rejected the Trinity,^[40] denied the divinity of Jesus,^[41] and is a deity who is remote, transcendent, non-relational, is not loving, and has not suffered that equation makes absolutely no sense. And thus no wonder Muslims struggle with the Trinity. However, by contrast, I have found that if I take the time with a Muslim friend to explore the nature of God, I can sometimes lay the foundations for more fruitful conversations about Jesus and the Trinity.

We risk bending Islam to fit Christianity. Rather than accept that Islam is vastly different, there is a temptation to try to “Christianise” Islam, by papering over differences, misrepresenting Qur’anic passages, changing the meaning of Qur’anic words and so on. Not merely is this dangerous because Muslims may spot this and call it out as another example of “Christian missionaries lying about Islam!” but it is not actually that far removed from the Muslim attempts to do this in reverse; e.g. the many Muslim books and pamphlets that claim that Jesus was a Muslim or that the Bible contains prophecies foretelling Muhammad.^[42]

So how should we proceed? I suggest that when dialoguing with Muslim friends or neighbours we remember the importance of asking good questions – after all, this is the evangelistic method that Jesus used so frequently.^[43] When your Muslim friend talks about God, don’t leap in by immediately proclaiming “You worship a different God!” (nor saying: “Wonderful, we worship the same God!”) but what about asking: “Tell me about the God you believe in?” Ask lots of questions, listen well; then as the conversation proceeds, you can segue to: “Some of what you say I would agree with: but the Bible would also say some very different things about God”.

As you converse with Muslims, look out for those in whom the Holy Spirit is already at work – for example the Muslim who says they believe that God is love. Whenever I hear Muslims say something like that, I look for ways to gently suggest that the God they are drawn to is the one found in the Bible. In this situation, we’re in Acts 17 territory –where, you may recall, Paul preaches at the Areopagus and uses the Altar to the Unknown God as a bridge-building point to his audience. But does this give us carte blanche to simply equate gods? Duncan Peters seems to lean that way when he writes: “What is interesting is that Paul does not introduce some entirely new God. He takes the truth they know, however limited it may be, and uses it to build a bridge to communicate the gospel.”^[44]

However, Peters misses something crucial: namely that the “Unknown God” which Paul used as a peg to hang his sermon on was entirely empty of theological content. After all, why did Paul not use Zeus, or Diana, or Athena – much more well-known gods – why use this minor “Unknown God” in his message? The answer must surely be that Zeus, Diana, Athena or any of more famous members of the Graeco-Roman pantheon had theologies attached to them which did not align with Biblical theology. But the Unknown God was little more than a name; so Paul could fill this empty vessel with theologically rich Biblical content.

I am very much in favour of using an “Acts 17 approach”.^[45] Yet we do need to be careful. Rather than announce to Muslims “Let me affirm most of what you believe and just add a little bit more!” we need to lean more towards saying “Your desire to know a God who is love is deeply significant – I don’t think the Qur’an describes Allah that way, but let’s explore this idea of God and love together – not least let’s see what Jesus had to say about it”. In our bridge building, we can certainly start from Qur’anic theology; but we want to get away from the Qur’an and its wildly different view of God and get to Jesus as quickly as possible. And as we do that, we can invite our Muslim friends to “Come on home!” to the real and living God, not the shadowy two-dimensional caricature who haunts the pages of the Qur’an. As my dear late friend, the former Muslim Nabeel Qureshi put it in his spiritual autobiography, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus:

Over the next few days [after my conversion], my heart was filled with a new joy, the joy of meeting God Himself. I thought I had known Him my entire life, but now that I knew who He really was, there was no comparison. Nothing compares to the one true God.^[46]

According to some estimates,^[47] there will be 13 million Muslims in the UK by 2050 and so it is vital that as churches, as leaders, and as Christians we take more seriously the task of evangelism among them. That evangelistic task begins with good theology and robust apologetics, but it doesn’t end there. For we need to build friendships, we need to have robust dialogue and debate, and we need to build bridges –but the whole point of a bridge is to invite your friends to cross it and to come home to the relational, covenant-making, loving, suffering God who revealed himself so uniquely in the person of Jesus.

About the author

Dr. Andrew G. Bannister, PhD is the Director of Solas, a Visiting Lecturer at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, and Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology. He is the author of several books including An Oral Formulaic Study of the Qur’an (New York: Lexington Books, 2014) and Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? (London: IVP, 2021) and has almost three decades of experience in evangelism and apologetics among Muslims.

---

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Sections of this essay were originally published as chapter 4 of Andy Bannister, Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?, (London: IVP, 2021).

[2] Richard W. Bulliet, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 6.

[3] This assumption underpins much of Duncan Peter’s article in this journal; see Duncan Peters, ‘The “Same God” Issue and the Communication of the Gospel to Muslims’, Foundations 82 (May 2022), 22-32, citing 27-28.

[4] See the Google ngram: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Abrahamic+faiths&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CAbrahamic%20faiths%3B%2Cc0

[5] Mark Durie, ‘The Abrahamic Fallacy’ (https://markdurie.com/the-abrahamic-fallacy/), accessed 18 Aug 2022).

[6] Clinton Bennett cited in Peter G. Riddell, Christians and Muslims: Pressures and Potential in a Post-911 World (Leicester: IVP, 2004), 116.

[7] Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur’ān and Its Biblical Subtext (London: Routledge, 2010), 258.

[8] https://thestateoftheology.com/

[9] Faruq Sherif, A Guide to the Contents of the Qur’an (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1995), 69.

[10] List derived from the Qur’an Tools software. Qur’an Tools is a free to use digital edition of Qur’an developed by myself and several other Qur’an scholars out of work originally carried out for our PhDs. It is widely used by many universities, is free of charge, and can be found at: www.quran-tools.com.

[11] See e.g. J. Spencer Trimingham, Christianity Among the Arabs in Pre-Islamic Times (Beirut: Librarie du Liban, 1990).

[12] Studies that have explored the way the Qur’an was formed in this kind of oral, intertextual milieu include: Mark Durie, The Qur’an and Its Biblical Reflexes: Investigations into the Genesis of a Religion (Lanham, MA: Lexington Books, 2018); Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur’ān and the Bible: Text and Commentary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018); Andrew G. Bannister, An Oral-Formulaic Study of the Qur’an (New York: Lexington Books, 2014); and Reuven Firestone, Journeys in Holy Lands (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990).

[13] Source: Durie, The Qur’an and Its Biblical Reflexes, xl.

[14] For a far more wide ranging analysis of multiple theological topics and the differences in how Qur’anic and Biblical theology understand them, see Durie, The Qur’an and Its Biblical Reflexes, chapters 4-6.

[15] Boston University professor Stephen Prothero offers another example from politics. Imagine you asked a Communist and a Social Democrat if they both believed in ‘politics’ and on hearing the answer ‘Yes’, you assumed that Communism and Social Democracy were essentially the same. Arguably you have missed something fairly crucial, simply because you forgot to ask the vital question: ‘What do you mean by the word ‘politics’?’. See Stephen Prothero, God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 1, 9.

[16] Matthew 6:9.

[17] People will sometimes quote Q. 50:16, which speaks of Allah being ‘closer to a person than his jugular vein’, as an example of Allah’s closeness in the Qur’an. But when one reads the entire passage, it is clear that this verse is talking about judgement, not relationality: human beings should mind their behaviour, because Allah is literally watching over our shoulder.

[18] For an overview of the Qur’an’s use of formulaic language, see Andrew Bannister, ‘Retelling the Tale: A Computerised Oral-Formulaic Analysis of the Qur’an’ (available on the Academia website at https://www.academia.edu/9490706/) which is a summary of my much longer An Oral Formulaic Study of the Qur’an (New York: Lexington Books, 2014).

[19] Farid Esack, The Qur’an: A User’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld, 2005), 147.

[20] Later Islamic theology is full of speculation about what the women of Paradise will be like, with some traditions explaining how Allah will renew their virginity every time they have sex with their designated believer. Gabriel Said Reynolds, Allah: God in the Qur’an (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), 87 notes how many Islamic exegetes connected this idea with Q. 56:36-37 which says ‘Surely We [Allah] produced them specially and made them virgins’.

[21] See the hadith recorded in Sahih Bukhari 5015.

[22] Shabbir Akhtar, A Faith for All Seasons (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1990), 180.

[23] Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012), 40-41.

[24] See Q. 2:190, 205, 276; 3:32, 57, 140; 4:36, 107, 148; 5:64, 87; 6:141; 7:31, 55; 8:58; 16:23; 22:38; 28:76-77; 30:45; 31:18; 42:40; 57:23

[25] As Gordon Nickel points out, this is a striking contrast with Jesus’s famous story in Luke 15:11-31, where the father (representing God) shows incredible love and forgiveness toward his prodigal son. See Gordon Nickel, ‘The Language of Love in Qur’ān and Gospel’ in Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala & Angel Urban, eds., Sacred Text: Explorations in Lexicography (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2009) 223-248, citing p. 229.

[26] See Q. 2:195, 222 (twice); 3:31, 76, 134, 146, 148, 159; 5:13, 42, 54, 93; 9:4, 7, 108; 49:9; 60:8; 61:4.

[27] Daud Rahbar, God of Justice: A Study in the Ethical Doctrine of the Qur’an (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 225.

[28] This a major supporting plank of Miroslav Volf’s thesis that Yahweh and Allah are the same: see Miroslav Volf, Allah: A Christian Response (New York: HarperOne, 2011) chapter 8, especially pp. 153-156. Whilst Peters (‘The “Same God” Issue’) tries somewhat to have his cake and eat it when he writes: “True, mercy is not the same as love, but there is a significant overlap.”

[29] Murad Wilfried Hofmann, ‘Differences between the Muslim and the Christian Concept of Divine Love’ in 14th General Conference of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought (Amman, Jordan, 2007), 8-9. Discussing the verses (mentioned above) where the Qur’an does use the Arabic word for love, aḥabba, Hofmann suggests the word is better translated as ‘likes’ or ‘approves’ rather than ‘loves’.

[30] With apologies to Inigo Montoya.

[31] See Derek Kidner, Genesis, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1967), 85-86.

[32] See Matthew 8:14-17; Luke 22:35-38; John 12:37-41; Acts 8:26-35; Romans 10:11-21; 1 Peter 2:19-25.

[33] Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998).

[34] Muhammad al-Burkawi cited in Samuel M. Zwemer, The Moslem Doctrine of God: An Essay of the Character and Attributes of Allah According to the Koran and Orthodox Tradition (New York: American Tract Society, 1905), 56.

[35] Whilst Durie in The Qur’an and Its Biblical Reflexes also studies prophethood, covenant, and messiahship.

[36] The classic essay that first demonstrated this for Judaism was Abraham Geiger, ‘What did Muhammad borrow from Judaism?’ reprinted in Ibn Warraq, ed., The Origins of the Koran, New York: Prometheus Books, 1998 [1898], 165-226. Geiger assumes a literary connection between the Qur’an and Jewish traditions, whereas critical scholarship would now recognise (and has extensively mapped the processes) that the influence was primarily oral.

[37] Arguably the most exhaustive of recent studies of the Qur’an’s borrowing of biblical ideas is the massive volume by Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur’ān and the Bible: Text and Commentary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018). See also the growing list of intertextual connections between the Qur’an and earlier traditions that can be searched at www.quran-tools.com.

[38] Durie, The Qur’an and Its Biblical Reflexes, 119. See also Durie’s book Liberty to the Captives: Freedom from Islam and Dhimmitude through the Cross (Melbourne: Deror Books, 2015) for a collection of unique resources (including prayers and liturgy) to help minister to former Muslims who wish to reject the spiritual hold of Islam and embrace the freedom from fear that is offered in Christ.

[39] The misalignment can sometimes be quite dramatic–for example the practice of praying five times daily that Muslims either undertake or aspire to is not mandated by the Qur’an (which certainly talks about praying, but not five times).

[40] Q. 4:171; 5:73.

[41] Q. 5:116; 19:34-35

[42] See for example Muhammad ‘Ata Ur-Rahim, Jesus: A Prophet of Islam (London: MWH, 1979); Thomas McElwain, Islam in the Bible (Minerva Press, 1998); and Derik Adams, ‘Are there Prophecies of Muhammad in the Bible?’ (https://www.answering-islam.org/authors/adams/rebuttals/zawadi/mhd_prophecies_bible.html).

[43] See Conrad Gempf, Jesus Asked (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003) and Martin B. Copenhaver, Jesus is the Question: The 307 Questions Jesus Asked and the 3 He Answered (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2014).

[44] Peters, ‘The “Same God” Issue and the Communication of the Gospel to Muslims’, 31.

[45] See Daniel Strange, Plugged In: Connecting Your Faith With What You Watch, Read, and Play (Epsom, UK: The Good Book Company, 2019) for multiple examples of how to apply Acts 17 evangelistically to contemporary culture.

[46] Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity, 3rd Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018) 277, emphasis mine.

[47] ‘Europe’s Growing Muslim Population’, Pew Research Center, 29 November 2017 (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/)