The document discusses portrayals of Jesus in the Quran from multiple perspectives. It examines how the Quran describes Jesus as the "Word" and "Spirit" from God, exploring three main interpretations - as a divine promise, divine revelation, or directly created by God. The document also analyzes the Quran's references to Jesus as a prophet, his miracles of healing and raising the dead, and compares the information about Jesus to the Gospels of Luke and John. Scholars are discussed analyzing the Quran's Christology in relation to the New Testament.

1. Word and Spirit of God
Jesus Christ in Islam
An Outlook
Arunmozhi Ramesh

2. Images of Jesus
Christ in Islam
ODDBOJORN LEIRVIC
BOOK SUMMARY

3. Christ in theQur'an
A diversity of approaches to the fundamental question
How the Qur’an portrays Christ

4. Christ in theQur'an
 Introduction / Prerequisite
 Willingness from Christians to read in Genuine
Islamic context
 If Religions are not studied in their own right,
No dialogue or comparative religion possible.
 The qur’anic image of Christ can only be
rightly understood as a presentation of Jesus
as a true Muslim.’
 Be emphasized that we speak of references,
and not a proper Christ-narrative.

5. How Can Islam be properly understood by
Non-Muslims?
Non-Muslims:
Open mindedness & Objective and removal of
preconceptions
Look into basic authentic sources of knowledge
Not rely on ill-authentic sources of information
Not to base judgment on behaviors of some Muslims

6. Jesus among theOther Prophets
in theQur’an
Q 2:136: Say (O Muslims): We believe in God and what is
revealed unto us and what was revealed unto Abraham,
and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes,
and what Moses and Jesus received, and what the
prophets received from their Lord.
We make no distinction between any of them, and unto
Him we have surrendered.

7. Jesus among theOther Prophets
in theQur’an
The narratives of Abraham and Moses are retold in
the Quran in a non-polemical way,
In all cases, the Medinan suras are clearly more
polemical than those revealed in Mecca.
The development can be studied both in view of
the internal logic of the various parts of the Qur’an,
and in the light of external factors related to
Muhammad’s encounters with Jews and Christians.

8. Jesus among theOther Prophets
in theQur’an
 The Qur’an has a number of polemical references to the
Christian belief in the sonship of Christ and theTrinity,
Resurrection and Nativity Narratives.
The Qur’an asserts: Both Christ and Mary were mortals
who ate food. Christ was no more than a messenger, and
many messengers have passed away before him (5.75).
Those who say that God is Christ the son of Mary, or that
God is one out of three in a trinity are indeed blasphemers
(5.72f.).

9. Jesus in theQur’an
Jesus (Isa): 25 times in the Qur’an
Q 2:87: And verilyWe gave unto Moses the
Scripture andWe caused a train of messengers to
follow after him,
andWe gave unto Jesus, son of Mary, clear proofs
(of God’s sovereignty), andWe supported him with
the Holy Spirit.

10. Information about Jesus
in theQur’an
 The Qur’an has no information from the Gospel of
Matthew.
 Jesus information in the Qur’an is related to the
Gospels of Luke and John only.
 Only Luke has Zechariah and Elizabeth, parents of
John the Baptist, whom the Qur’an knows.

11. Jesus
in theQuran
 In the Qur’an, Jesus is “theWord” from God that came
to Mary, mother of Jesus.
 The word of God to Mary was “Gospel” (“Injil” in
Arabic = “Evangel”).
 In the Qur’an, Jesus alone of all Prophet/Messengers
heals and raises the dead.

12. Christ in theQur'an
 Jesus is the only one to be called Messiah in Muslim tradition.
 As to the titles kalima and rûh, the qur’anic expressions in the key
passage of 4.171 are kali- matuhu (‘His word’)7 and ruhun minhu (‘a
spirit from Him’).
 In later Muslim tradition we also find the more absolute expression
rüh-ullãh, ‘God’s Spirit’, cf.
 the title rasül-ullãh (‘God’s Messenger’) for Muhammad. In a letter to
the Christian Negus of Abyssinia, Muhammad said (according to his
biographer Ibn Ishãq):

13. Spirit fromGod
Bear witness that Jesus son of Mary is the spirit of God and His word which
he cast to Mary theVirgin, the good, the Dure, so that she conceived
Jesus. God created him from His spirit and His breathing as He created Adam
by His hand and His breathing.
It is clear also from the qur’änic use of ‘spirit’ that it is connected with
creation (cf. about Adam in 15.29) and life-giving ability. In the qur’änic
perspective, Christ himself is seen as a creation of the life-giving spirit, but
at the same time as a privileged vehicle of the spirit, aided by the Holy
Spirit in his mighty signs (2.253).
 “The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only an apostle of Allah, and
HisWord that He cast toward Mary and a spirit from Him.” (4:171).

14. Word fromGod
Kalimat Allah, the “Word of God,” or rather, to be more precise, he is
referred to as kalimatin min Allah “aWord from God.”Angels called out
to Zachariah:
“Allah gives you the good news of John, as a confirmer of aWord from
God, eminent and chaste, a prophet, among the righteous.” (3:39)

15. Word fromGod
 Contrast to Lukan Christology of subordination, Räisänen
points to the Gospel of John, its doctrine of a pre existent
Christ and its identification of Christ with God.
 Luke and John seems to imply a simplificationtion of the
NewTestament counterparts to qur’anic Christology. It
 It may be argued that an ambivalence between
subordination and identification can be traced in all the
Gospels,
 All NewTestament Gospels represent different
interpretations of this process.
 Although the Logos-Christology of the Gospel of John is
considered by Räisänen to be the most obvious contrast to
the overall qur’anic Christology,

16. Word /Spirit fromGod
Exegesis / Interpretations
There is no other prophet or any other human being given the title by
which Allah honors Jesus as His word; so, in this sense, we can say that
Jesus is theWord ofGod according to the Qur’an. However, the term is not
to be understood as the Logos in the Christian sense.
three main interpretations reviewed by Islamic Scholarsi that might be
called promissory, revelatory, and creative.

17. Word /Spirit fromGod
Exegesis / Interpretations
 Word of God”as a title for the Messiah, and the creative word of God;
As for the creative sense,Tabataba’i simply states that although
everything is brought into existence through God’s creative word, “Be!”,
this normally occurs through the usual natural mediating causes. In the
case of Jesus, however, the virgin birth implies that Jesus was brought
into existence without the mediation of a father. And in this way, he
became the “Word” itself, as we see in the verse:
… and HisWord which He communicated to Maryam (4:171).
God’s spirit is breathed into Mary:
And (remember) her who guarded her chastity; We breathed into her of
Our spirit, andWe made her and her son a sign for all peoples. (21:91).16

18. Word /Spirit fromGod
Exegesis / Interpretations
The next indication of a link between revelation and the creation of Jesus
by divine fiat, comes in the repeated references to Mary and Jesus (peace
be with them) as a sign.21
CertainlyWe gave Moses the book so that they might be guided/ andWe
made the son of Mary and his mother a sign (23:49-50).
Here we find a direct comparison in the Qur’an between the revelation
given to Moses in the form of a book and the guidance provided through
Jesus and his mother.

19. Word /Spirit fromGod
Exegesis / Interpretations
 Just as the divine revelation given to Muhammad ‫ص‬is made manifest
in the form of the Qur’an as a book in Arabic, so too, the revelation
given to Jesus may be supposed to have been made manifest in the
form of his life, including his conduct and teaching. If this is right, we
can say that theTorah was revealed in Hebrew, the Qur’an in Arabic,
but the Gospel is revealed in deeds as well as words.

20. Word /Spirit fromGod
Exegesis / Interpretations
 The first interpretation is to take “Word of God” to mean something
like “God’s promise”. Jesus may have been called the “Word of
God” because he was a fulfilment of God’s promise.