Apologetics: Flippin’ Fatwa Friday – What do Muslims Believe About Jesus?

With Christmas only a few weeks away, for this month’s series, we’re going to be talking about what different religious groups believe about Jesus and who Jesus is. As I said on another post, this series will be focusing on Islam, Mormonism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, the three biggest heresies stemming from Christianity. I will be starting with Islam, as it’s the biggest heresy and its story about the virgin birth and view of Jesus is the most disturbing.

Our story begins with Mary, as told in Surah 3:35-51. According to the Quran, Mary was born to Imran (a.k.a. Joachim, husband of Saint Anne) and was basically the super special Chosen One^TM. According to Surah 3, she moved in with Zachariah as a child and apparently joined a women’s group or something, because she lived in a sanctuary, and whenever Zachariah would go to visit her, he would find her with a ton of provisions. Confused, he would ask, “O Mary! Where did this come from?” (Surah 3:37), to which Mary would respond that it was from Allah.

Anyway, fast forward a few years. Mary was now an adolescent, Zachariah and Elizabeth were now expecting the birth of John (similar to what we find in the Bible), and this is where things start getting very creepy, and, for many of us Christians, very insulting. Mary’s doing her thing in the sanctuary, and suddenly Gabriel appears to her as a man. According to Surah 19:16-18…

¹⁶ And mention in the Book ˹O Prophet, the story of˺ Mary when she withdrew from her family to a place in the east, ¹⁷ screening herself off from them. Then We sent to her Our angel, ˹Gabriel,˺ appearing before her as a man, perfectly formed. ¹⁸ She appealed, “I truly seek refuge in the Most Compassionate from you! ˹So leave me alone˺ if you are God-fearing.”

To this, Gabriel replies in a similar manner to what we see in the Bible, saying…

{Note: purple lines are taken from Surah 19:16-34 and red are taken from Surah 3:35-51. I’ve put some of these verses together in the most natural order I could manage so hopefully the dialogue is a clearer and easier to read.}

And ˹remember˺ when the angels said, “O Mary! Surely Allah has selected you, purified you, and chosen you over all women of the world. O Mary! Be devout to your Lord, prostrate yourself ˹in prayer˺ and bow along with those who bow down. […] I [Gabriel] am only a messenger from your Lord, ˹sent˺ to bless you with a pure son.”

She wondered, “How can I have a son when no man has ever touched me, nor am I unchaste?”

He replied, “So will it be! Your Lord says, ‘It is easy for Me. And so will We make him a sign for humanity and a mercy from Us.’ It is a matter ˹already˺ decreed. […] O Mary! Allah gives you good news of a Word from Him, his name will be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary; honored in this world and the Hereafter, and he will be one of those nearest ˹to Allah˺. And he will speak to people in ˹his˺ infancy and adulthood and will be one of the righteous. […] So will it be. Allah creates what He wills. When He decrees a matter, He simply tells it, ‘Be!’ And it is! And Allah will teach him writing and wisdom, the Torah and the Gospel, and ˹make him˺ a messenger to the Children of Israel ˹to proclaim,˺ ‘I have come to you with a sign from your Lord: I will make for you a bird from clay, breathe into it, and it will become a ˹real˺ bird—by Allah’s Will. I will heal the blind and the leper and raise the dead to life—by Allah’s Will. And I will prophesize what you eat and store in your houses. Surely in this is a sign for you if you ˹truly˺ believe. And I will confirm the Torah revealed before me and legalize some of what had been forbidden to you. I have come to you with a sign from your Lord, so be mindful of Allah and obey me. Surely Allah is my Lord and your Lord. So worship Him ˹alone˺. This is the Straight Path.’”

After that passage, as Christians we would think, “Oh, so that was the end. Gabriel leaves and we go forward to Mary having the baby, right?”

Wrong.

The Quran continues and elaborates on how it thinks Jesus was conceived. In Surah 21:91 and Surah 66:12, it describes the Angel Gabriel sticking around and… well… I’ll let the Quran explain:

(Surah 21:91) And ˹remember˺ the one who guarded her chastity, so We breathed into her through Our angel, ˹Gabriel, ˺ making her and her son a sign for all peoples.

(Surah 66:12) ˹There is˺ also ˹the example of˺ Mary, the daughter of ’Imrân, who guarded her chastity, so We breathed into her ˹womb˺ through Our angel ˹Gabriel˺. She testified to the words of her Lord and His Scriptures and was one of the ˹sincerely˺ devout.

I want you to look at the word “chastity” here. In the Dr. Ghali translation of the Quran, chastity is translated as “private parts,” which, given what chastity means, makes sense. But this is where it gets disturbing. While some Muslim commentators will try to make the case that Allah, through Gabriel, blew into Mary through her mouth or just blew on her stomach, another interpretation is more likely; Gabriel blew into her privates, her “chastity”.

Why this interpretation? Because a commentary by Islamic Scholar Ibn Kathir (1300-1373 AD) literally translates 66:12 as, “And Maryam, the daughter of `Imran who guarded her chastity (private part). And We breathed into it through Our Ruh [angel/spirit], and she testified to the truth of her Lords Kalimat, and His Kutub, and she was of the Qanitin.“

So much for Mary being a perfect, chaste virgin. According to the Quran, Gabriel in the form of a man technically had a form of sex with her, which could be considered rape. The only reason why she’s still considered a virgin here is because a certain organ didn’t go into another organ, if you catch my drift.

This is found nowhere in the Bible. In the Bible, Gabriel just appeared to Mary, told her what was going to happen, and left. Nine months later, boom! Cute little baby Jesus lying in a manger. No creepy breathing into anything needed. God just sent the third person of the Trinity (the Holy Spirit who is not an angel) to impregnate Mary.

So why, then, did Allah send Gabriel to breathe on Mary’s privates? The reason is rooted in an ancient belief stemming from the ancient Egyptians that semen is stored in the spine and a later belief that it is the mixing of that and a woman’s discharge (which the ancients believed to be female semen) that created a baby. According to Islamic scholar Al-Qurtubi, Mary was basically intersex, her body creating/storing both fluids that, when mixed, lead to the “miraculous” conception. All that needed to happen first was for her to get “excited”, hence Gabriel being a pervert.

As we know that Jesus later had siblings, I guess by the Islamic explanation of the virgin birth, they were miracle babies too, and Joseph was not the father. Jerry Springer would have had a heyday.

And as the cherry on top, did I mention that Islamic scholars also teach that Mary was 12 when this was all happening? Well, they do, and I would say that the consensus that this comes from the Protoevangelium of James (a later apocryphal text that’s suspiciously similar to the virgin conception/birth story in the Quran) is correct, however, apparently these scholars skipped over the part that says Mary was 16 when she got pregnant. With that said, I honestly have no clue why they chose 12 for Mary’s age. My guess is that it has something to do with what Barbara Regine Freyer Stowasser argues. According to Wikipedia, she “argues that Islamic scholars believed the Jewish restrictions against women entering the Temple, came down to menstruation, thus the aforementioned Qur’anic recasting of Mary in the Temple instead of the Christian Mary as the Temple was rationalized with her virginal ritual purity of not having bled.” So, naturally they chose an age where historically a girl is likely to get her first period or is close to it but probably hasn’t yet because…reasons.

Then we finally get to the last part of the story, where Mary gives birth to Jesus under a fig tree for some reason. This is stolen from multiple apocryphal texts and some even think its modeled after the Greek myth of Apollo’s birth.

Clearly, this is all way different than the Christmas story that we’re used to, but the differences don’t just stop there. Muslims also don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and they adamantly reject the Trinity, even going so far as to say that Christians believe the Trinity is Mary, Jesus, and Allah.

This, of course, is all hogwash and misconceptions from a 7th-century, illiterate caravan robber with a weird Catholic cousin. According to the people close to Jesus (who – of course – are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), Jesus was born to a virgin (whose age we don’t know because the Bible never specifies that), laid in a manger, grew up to be a carpenter, began His ministry around 30 years old, performed miracles, and was finally crucified and rose from the dead. According to the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, He was the Son of God, co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit; He was not a mortal prophet as the Quran posits Him as.

Until next time,

M.J.