Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

26 t CHAPTER ONE
gross distinctions are correct—that these suras were delivered
early on, or somewhat later, at Mecca, and these at Medina—we
can attempt to put the quranic references to Christians somewhere
along the time line of Muhammad’s life.
Christians and things Christian—Christian dogma, institutions,
and personages—are often referred to in the Quran. The Quran’s
Christianity is, of course, a construct, but unlike the later Christians’
construct of Islam, this one bears for Muslims a divine patent:
it is God’s construct and so, by definition, undeconstructible.
And what is it? Christianity, what is professed by Christians, is, in
some very large areas, sheer falsehood. As the Quran explains,
Jesus was not the son of God, although the Christians think so,
and the Trinity does not express divine unity but tritheism, although
the Christians deny it. This is theology at loggerheads, and,
as has recently been observed, there is probably no more to be said
about it.
In one area at least, theology leads back into history. The Quran
denies the central Christian dogma of redemption, not explicitly,
but implicitly, by its apparent denial of Jesus’ death on the cross. It
occurs in the already cited difficult passage that occurs in the Medina
sura 4 (154–159). It is the Jews who are being referred to:
For their [the Jews’] not fulfilling their covenant, for their unbelief
in the signs of God, for their slaying the prophets unjustly, for their
saying “Our hearts are uncircumcised”—nay, God has put a seal
upon them for their unbelief, so that they believe not, save a few.
And because of their disbelief—and because of their terrible calumny
against Mary and because of their saying that they killed the
Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary—they did not kill him nor did they
crucify him but he was counterfeited for them [or it just seemed so
to them]. Those who differ in regard to him are in doubt for that
reason. They have no knowledge thereof beyond following their
own opinion. They did not kill him certainly; rather, God raised
him to Himself. God was mighty and wise. There shall not be any
of the People of the Book but shall believe in him before his death.
Overwhelmingly the medieval Muslim commentators read these
lines as a denial not merely of Jesus’ crucifixion by the Jews, but of