Apologetics/Islam

Islam

For conversations with Muslim friends, neighbours and colleagues: what they believe about God, Jesus, Scripture and salvation, where we genuinely agree, where we differ, and how to talk about it with the gentleness and respect 1 Peter 3:15-16 asks for.

The three questions that matter most

1Who is Jesus: prophet, or God the Son?
2Did he die on the cross?
3How is anyone saved: by deeds weighed in the balance on the last day, or by grace, through faith in what Christ has done?

Part 1

What they believe

Islam confesses one God, Allah (the Arabic word for God, used by Arabic-speaking Christians too), who is absolutely one, without partner or son, the creator and judge of all. Muslims believe God has spoken through a line of prophets that includes Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus, and that Muhammad is the final prophet, through whom God gave the Quran as his last and perfectly preserved revelation. The earlier books (the Torah, the Psalms, the Gospel) are honoured as revelation in principle, but most Muslims hold that the texts Jews and Christians now possess have been altered or misunderstood, so the Quran corrects and supersedes them. Jesus (Isa) is held in high honour: born of the virgin Mary, a worker of miracles, the Messiah, and a prophet who will return; but not divine, not the Son of God, and, in the usual reading of the Quran, not crucified: it appeared so, and God raised him to himself. The Trinity is rejected as a form of associating partners with God, the gravest sin. Salvation is by God's mercy in response to faith and obedience: the five pillars (the confession of faith, the five daily prayers, almsgiving, fasting in Ramadan, and the pilgrimage), a life of submission, and on the last day a weighing of deeds, with the outcome finally in God's hands. There is no doctrine of original sin and no need for an atoning sacrifice; each person answers for their own deeds, and God forgives whom he wills. Muslims are not one bloc: Sunni and Shia differ over leadership and history, Sufi traditions emphasise the inner life, and the friend in front of you may be devout, cultural, or somewhere between.

Where to read it for yourself

Quran 112:1-4: God's absolute oneness; he neither begets nor is begotten
Quran 4:171: Jesus is the Messiah and a word from God, but do not say three; God is one God
Quran 4:157-158: the usual basis for the belief that Jesus was not crucified but was raised to God
Quran 3:45-49: the annunciation to Mary and the miracles of Jesus
Quran 5:46-48: the Gospel given to Jesus, and the Quran as confirming and guarding earlier Scripture
Quran 2:136: belief in what was revealed to Abraham, Moses, Jesus and the prophets, making no distinction between them
Quran 33:40: Muhammad as the seal of the prophets
Quran 99:6-8 and 23:102-103: the weighing of deeds on the last day
Quran 39:53: God's mercy and forgiveness for those who turn to him

Part 2

Where we agree

A great deal, and it should be said first. We both believe in one God who created everything, who is merciful, who speaks, and who will judge. We both honour Abraham, Moses, David and the prophets. We both believe Jesus was born of a virgin, lived without sin, healed and raised the dead, is the Messiah, ascended to God, and will return. We both believe prayer, fasting and giving are owed to God, that this life is a test with eternal consequences, and that a society should be ordered by God's law rather than by appetite. Your Muslim neighbour will usually take God more seriously in daily life than most people you know, and that is worth honouring out loud. You are not starting from nothing; you are starting from Abraham.

Part 3

Where Christianity stands, and why it matters

Three questions carry almost all the weight. First, who Jesus is: Islam honours him as a prophet, Christianity worships him as God the Son, and the whole New Testament turns on that claim (John 1:1-14; John 20:28; Colossians 2:9). Second, whether he died on the cross: Islam's majority view says he did not, Christianity says the cross is the centre of history and was witnessed, recorded within living memory, and confirmed by the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-8; Mark 15:33-39). Third, how a person is put right with God: Islam says by God's mercy in response to faith and deeds, with the verdict unknown until the last day; Christianity says by God's grace received through faith in what Christ has done, so that a person can know now where they stand (Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 5:1; 1 John 5:13). Beneath all three is the question of what God is like: whether he is one in the sense that excludes a Son, or one in a way that has always been Father, Son and Spirit, and whether he is a God who would come down himself to save. Everything else (the reliability of the Bible, the status of Muhammad, the Trinity) is a way into these three.

Part 4

Scripture to know

Read these before the conversation. Each one opens in the Bible reader.

1 Peter 3:15-16
The posture for the whole conversation: a reason, with gentleness and respect.
John 1:1-14
The Word was God and became flesh; the claim Islam cannot accept and Christianity cannot drop.
John 8:58
Jesus applies the divine name of Exodus 3:14 to himself, and his hearers understand exactly what he means.
John 14:6
Why the question of Jesus is not one question among many.
Colossians 2:9
The fullness of deity dwells in him bodily: the Christian claim in one sentence.
1 Corinthians 15:3-8
The earliest creed: he died, was buried, was raised, was seen. Read it before discussing the crucifixion.
Mark 15:33-39
The crucifixion narrated, with the centurion's confession.
Isaiah 53:1-12
The suffering servant, written centuries before, which many Muslims have never read.
Ephesians 2:8-9
Grace, through faith, not from works: the difference in how salvation is received.
Romans 3:21-26
How God is both just and the one who justifies: the answer to how a holy God forgives.
Deuteronomy 6:4
Christians confess the oneness of God too; know the verse Jesus himself quoted as the greatest commandment (Mark 12:29).
Matthew 28:19
Father, Son and Spirit named together in Jesus' own words.
Isaiah 40:8
God's word stands forever: the Christian answer to the claim that Scripture was corrupted.
Galatians 1:6-9
The New Testament's own warning about a later, different gospel.

Part 5

How to make the case

Start with what you share, and mean it. Ask about their faith before you explain yours: what they love about it, what the daily prayers are like, what Ramadan means to their family. Many Muslims have never been asked by a Christian and will be moved that you did. Then be straight about the differences without heat; a Muslim friend expects you to believe your own faith and will respect you more for saying plainly that you believe Jesus is God and died on the cross than for hedging. Use the Bible, not arguments about the Bible: offer to read Isaiah 53 or Mark 15 together, since many Muslims have been told what the Bible says but have never read it. Talk about Jesus more than about Muhammad; you are not there to attack their prophet, and criticism of Muhammad ends conversations that questions about Jesus keep open. When you do not know an answer, say so and come back to it; that honesty is itself a witness. Expect the questions you will be asked: how can God have a son (answer: not as a man has a son; the Son is eternal, not made), how can one be three (answer: one God who has always been Father, Son and Spirit, not three gods), and how can God die (answer: the Son took on a human nature that could die, and did, for us). Keep the relationship longer than the argument; most Muslims who come to Christ do so over years, through a friend who stayed. Pray for them, and tell them you do.

Part 6

What not to claim

Do not say Muslims worship a different God as an opening move. Allah is simply the Arabic word for God, used by Arab Christians in their Bibles and prayers; the real question is what God is like, and that is the conversation to have.
Do not claim the Quran teaches that Jesus is God. It does not, and a Muslim will know you have not read it.
Do not argue that Islam is inherently violent, or that your friend secretly agrees with extremists. It is untrue of the person in front of you and it ends the conversation.
Do not say the Bible has never been questioned or has no textual variants. It has, and they are catalogued openly; the Christian claim is that the text is reliably preserved and that no doctrine rests on a disputed reading, which is a claim you can defend.
Do not mock the prophet or the Quran. Nothing is gained and everything is lost.
Do not present Christianity as Western and Islam as foreign. The church was in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Ethiopia centuries before Islam existed, and Arab Christians are your brothers and sisters.

Part 7

Objections you will hear

What your friend is likely to say, and an answer you can give in your own words, with the passages behind it.

How can God have a son? God does not beget and is not begotten.

Agree with what they are rejecting. Christians also deny that God took a wife or produced a child; the Quran's rejection of that idea is a rejection of something the Bible never taught. The Son is called Son because he shares the Father's nature eternally, not because he began. John 1:1-3 puts the Word with God and as God before anything was made; Colossians 1:15-17 says all things were created through him. Ask your friend what a son shares with a father: not a beginning, a nature. Then say plainly that this is a mystery Christians confess rather than a mechanism they explain.

Scripture: John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:15-17, Hebrews 1:1-3

The Bible has been corrupted; the Quran is preserved perfectly.

Ask when and by whom. The Quran itself tells Muslims to judge by the Torah and the Gospel and calls them God's word, so if they were corrupted it had to happen after the seventh century, and we have complete manuscripts of the New Testament from the fourth century and fragments from the second. The text your friend fears was changed is the text we still have. Be honest that there are variant readings, thousands of them, catalogued openly; then say what they amount to: spelling, word order, and a handful of disputed passages, none of which carries a doctrine on its own. Offer to read a chapter of Mark together; most Muslims have been told what the Bible says by someone who never opened it.

Scripture: Isaiah 40:8, Matthew 24:35, 1 Peter 1:24-25

Jesus never said I am God. Show me where he says it.

Do not reach for the verses that use the word God of Jesus first; reach for the ones where he does what only God does, because that is how his own hearers understood him. He forgives sins that were not committed against him (Mark 2:5-7, and the scribes say only God can do that). He calls himself the I am of Exodus 3:14 (John 8:58) and they pick up stones. He accepts Thomas calling him my Lord and my God without correcting him (John 20:28). He says he and the Father are one and is charged with blasphemy for it (John 10:30-33). Then ask: if he was only a prophet, why did his own people try to kill him for claiming more?

Scripture: Mark 2:5-7, John 8:58, John 20:28, John 10:30-33

God would never let his prophet be humiliated and killed. Jesus was rescued and someone else was crucified.

This is the heart of the difference, so go slowly. The cross is not God failing to rescue Jesus; it is Jesus doing what he came to do. Read Isaiah 53 together, written centuries before, and ask who it describes. Then 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, the earliest Christian creed, naming witnesses who were alive to be questioned. Ask what a rescue would have saved us from, and what the cross saves us from. Muslims believe God is merciful; the cross is where mercy and justice meet, so that God forgives without pretending sin does not matter (Romans 3:25-26).

Scripture: Isaiah 53:3-6, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, Romans 3:25-26, Mark 15:33-39

You worship three gods.

Say what you actually believe before defending it: one God, and Christians recite Deuteronomy 6:4 as gladly as anyone. The Trinity is not three gods and not one God wearing three masks; it is one God who has always been Father, Son and Spirit, which is why Jesus can be baptised while the Father speaks and the Spirit descends (Matthew 3:16-17) and why he sends his disciples out in one name that is three (Matthew 28:19). Admit the word Trinity is not in the Bible; it is the church's summary of what the Bible says when read whole. Your friend does not need to accept it tonight; they need to know you are not a polytheist.

Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:4, Matthew 3:16-17, Matthew 28:19, Mark 12:29

Part 8

Case studies

Example conversations: what was said, what worked, what to avoid, and the passages used.

The colleague who asked about Ramadan

An office. A Christian and a Muslim colleague who has just finished a month of fasting, over lunch.

The Christian asked what Ramadan had been like for her family, and listened for ten minutes: the pre-dawn meals, the evening prayers, the sense of being cleaned out. He said that sounded like something Christians used to be better at, and mentioned that Jesus fasted forty days. She asked whether Christians believe Jesus was a prophet. He said yes, and more than a prophet, and that he would rather show her than argue: would she read one chapter with him some lunchtime? She said she had been told the Bible was changed. He said he had heard that too, and asked her when she thought it happened; she was not sure. He said he would bring a Bible and she could see the chapter for herself, and that he had questions about the Quran he would like her to answer the same way. They read Mark 2 the following week. She stopped at the paralysed man and said, only God forgives sins. He said, that is exactly what the scribes said.

What worked

He asked first and meant it. He did not defend the Bible in the abstract; he put a chapter in front of her. He let the text raise the question of Jesus' identity instead of asserting it. He offered reciprocity, which made it a friendship and not a pitch.

What to avoid

Opening with the Trinity. Arguing about Muhammad. Quoting the Quran at her from memory; she knows it better than you do and will hear every slip.

Scripture used: Mark 2:1-12, Matthew 4:1-4, John 1:1-14

The neighbour who said the cross never happened

Two families who share a fence. The Muslim neighbour raises the crucifixion himself, having seen a cross on the Christian's wall.

The neighbour said, kindly, that Christians had been misled: God would never allow such a thing to happen to Jesus; he was taken up alive. The Christian did not argue the history first. He asked what the neighbour thought Jesus came to do. The neighbour said, to call people back to God. The Christian said he agreed, and that he believed Jesus also came to pay for what people had done, which is what Isaiah 53 says about the servant who is pierced for our transgressions. He asked whether he could read it aloud. He read it, then said the earliest Christian statement, written within twenty years and naming people still alive, says Jesus died, was buried, and was seen; those people were in a position to know. The neighbour said the Quran says it only appeared so. The Christian said he understood that, and that the two books could not both be right about this, and that he would rather be honest about that than pretend the difference was small. He asked if they could keep talking. They did, for two years.

What worked

He went to purpose before proof, so the cross made sense before it was defended. He read Scripture aloud rather than describing it. He named the disagreement plainly and stayed warm. He measured the relationship in years.

What to avoid

Calling the Quran's account a lie. Winning the exchange and losing the neighbour. Treating one conversation as the whole conversation.

Scripture used: Isaiah 53:1-12, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, Luke 24:25-27, Romans 5:6-8

Nothing on this page quotes another tradition's scripture; beliefs are described in our own words and cited by reference so you can read the sources yourself. This page was checked for accuracy and fairness against those sources, and where a point is disputed it says so. If you belong to this tradition and we have described you unfairly, we want to know and will fix it. All conversations