IN HIS NAME, EXALTED

Jesus as Kalimat Allah

The Word of God
(peace be with him)

HAJJ MUHAMMAD LEGENHAUSEN

Abstract
In all probability, the Book of the Christians who were addressed by God in the
Qur‟an and described as “People of the Book” was of the genre of ancient biography,
and the divine book that is the revelation God sent to Jesus was never published as
a text of what God said to him. If the revelation given to Jesus was conveyed to his
followers through his life, in word and deed, this would explain the use of the term
Injil in the Qur‟an for both the divine revelation and for the gospels used by the
Christians. Both could be called Injil because the gospels tell the story of the life that
expressed the divine revelation given to Jesus. This would also help to explain why
Jesus is given a title, Word of God, that would otherwise seem to signify revelation.
Furthermore, it is consistent with the traditional interpretation of the exegetes of the
Qur‟an, according to which Jesus is the Word of God because his mother, Mary‫ع‬
became pregnant due to God‟s command which resulted in the virgin birth. It also
explains why the divine command by which Mary became pregnant is conveyed by
the angel of revelation, Gabriel. The divine word that became Jesus, on the
interpretation suggested here, is not merely a creative word, but also a word of
revelation.

Keywords
Jesus, Mary, Gospel, Injil, revelation, Gabriel, Allamah Tabataba‟i, al-Mizan.

In the Qur‟an, Jesus, peace be with him,1 is called Kalimat Allah, the “Word of
God,” or rather, to be more precise, he is referred to as kalimatin min Allah “a Word
from God.” Angels called out to Zachariah: „Allah gives you the good news of John,
as a confirmer of a Word from God, eminent and chaste, a prophet, among the
righteous.‟ (3:39). A few verses later comes the Islamic annunciation, when the
angels said:

„O Mary, Allah gives you the good news of a Word from Him, whose
name is Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, distinguished in the world and the
hereafter, and one of those brought near [to Allah]./ He will speak to

1
Muslims use the phrase „alayhi al-salam (peace be with him) after mentioning the names of the
prophets as a sign of reverence, in many books this salutation is printed in small letters as , and this
practice is followed in this article. A longer salutation is used when mentioning the name of
‫ص‬
Muhammad, may peace and blessings be with him and his household, abbreviated as .

1
 people in the cradle and in adulthood, and will be one of the righteous.‟/
She said, „My Lord! How shall I have a child seeing that no man has ever
touched me?‟ He said, „So it is that Allah creates whatever He wishes.
When He decides on a matter He just says “Be!” and it is./ And He will
teach him the book and wisdom, the Torah, and the Injil (gospel). (3:45-
48).2

The Christians are admonished against the deification of Jesus in another verse: The
Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only an apostle of Allah, and His Word that He cast
toward Mary and a spirit from Him. (4: 171). Jesus is also called a qawl al-Haqq, “a
saying of the Truth,” where al-Haqq, “the Truth” means God: That is Jesus, son of
Mary, a Saying of the Truth, concerning whom they are in doubt. (19:34)
The term used is kalimah, meaning “word”, derived from the root klm, from which
is also derived kallama (he spoke) and kalām (speech, speaking). All of these terms
are used with respect to divine speech in the Qur‟an. Although there is no reference to
Jesus in the Qur‟an that specifically uses the phrase the word of God (al-kalimah
Allah), we may be justified in the assertion that God calls Jesus the Word of God
in the Qur‟an because the expressions mentioned above, e.g., kalimatin min Allah (a
word from God) and kalimatuhu (His word), are used exclusively for Jesus among
all human beings. 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 the Word of God according to the Qur‟an. Nevertheless, the words of God
are many, and we can understand the designation given to Jesus better if we
consider other verses of the Qur‟an in which similar phrases are used. Sometimes
kalimah is used for the words spoken by God to Adam,3 Abraham,4 and other
“servants” of God,5 including Mary6 (peace be with all of them), and His prophets.7
Sometime what is meant by the word of God is more general, the command of God,
or the divine message: …He made the word of the faithless the lowest; and the word
of Allah is the highest… (9:40); and If all the trees on the earth were pens, and the

2
Notice the transparency of the angel for the Blessed Virgin. The angel conveys God‟s message to
her, and she answers the angel by directly addressing God.
3
(2:37).
4
(2:124).
5
(37:171).
6
(66:12).
7
(37:171).

2
sea replenished with seven more seas [were ink], the words of Allah would not be
spent. (31:27).
The exegetes (mufassirin) of the Qur‟an have disputed the question of why
Jesus is called “Word of God.” Generally, they agree (explicitly or implicitly) that
the term is not to be understood as the Logos in the Christian sense. However,
according to some exegetes, including „Allamah Tabataba‟i, there is an important
connection between the “Word of God” as a title for the Messiah, and the creative
word of God; not because Jesus as Logos plays any part in creation, but because Jesus
is directly created by the command of God without the mediation of a father. This
view is in agreement with most of the commentators, both Shi„i and Sunni, as well as
Western scholarship.8
In what follows, I will take the liberty of criticizing some of the views expressed
in Tabataba‟i‟s interpretation of the Qur‟an, Al-Mizan. Before doing so, a few words
may be permitted about this work and its author.

„Allamah Tabataba‟i (1904-1981)

Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba‟i was born in a village near Tabriz in 1904. 9
He came to Qom in 1946 after the Soviets invaded Azerbaijan. He had already begun
work on exegesis of the Qur‟an, which, he reports, the clerics of Qom considered
unworthy of the efforts of anyone capable of the study of Islamic law. Nevertheless,
he began teaching the exegesis of the Qur‟an soon after his arrival in Qom. While in
Qom, he also taught philosophy and authored several books and articles on the
subject. He was also deeply involved in practical and theoretical mysticism.10 Islamic
mysticism is usually known as Sufism, and one enters into its study, as a rule, under
the direction of a guide who is linked by a succession of teachers that starts with the
Prophet‫ ص‬and his son-in-law, „Ali. Directed training in the spiritual path is often
organized into specific Sufi orders. Sometimes instead of the term tasawwuf (Sufism),
„irfan (gnosis) is used. Some authors use tasawwuf for practical mysticism and „irfan
for theoretical mysticism. In the case of „Allamah Tabataba‟i, we can find more
influence of the Sufi tradition in his philosophical work11 than in his exegesis of the

8
This interpretation is also given by Tabari, Ibn Kathir, and Tabarsi, according to Ayoub (1992),
131-135; and Zamakshari, as reported in Gätje (1976), 126f.; also this interpretation is given by the
8th/14th century Sufi Shi„ite exegete, Sayyid Haydar Amuli; see Amuli (1385/2007), Vol. 6, 228. For
Western scholarship, see Robinson (1991), 11; and Zahniser (1991).
9
For a more complete biography, see Algar (2006).
10
See Tihrani (2003).
11
See Legenhausen (2008).

3
Qur‟an. He also studied the esoteric sciences of numerology and He is called
„Allamah, which is a title of respect derived from „ilm, “knowledge”, and indicating
great learning.
He was reputed for his simple living, his deep piety, his mysticism, and for his
work in Islamic philosophy and, of course, the exegesis of the Qur‟an. Many of his
students have become famous scholars in their own right, and his stamp on the
understanding of Islam in the Shi„ite world today is indelible. He may be considered
the father of contemporary Islamic philosophy, and the reviver of the science of
exegesis of his day. Whatever criticism of his views is expressed here should be taken
as tribute rather than complaint.

Al-Mizan
The name al-Mizan, means “the scale” and the full title of the work is Al-Mizan fi
Tafsir al-Qur‟an, “The Scale in Exegesis of the Qur‟an”. It was begun in 1954 and
was completed in 1972. Since „Allamah was not teaching and studying Islamic law,
he was not receiving the stipend that is normally given to those who study in Qom;
and, as a result, he lived in poverty. He was paid a small amount for each volume of
Al-Mizan as it appeared, and otherwise lived on money from the sale of a small plot of
land. A former student reports12 that he said he preferred the small amount he earned
to asking for the stipend. He wrote out the first draft of each section of the
commentary without the dots of the Arabic script, and so, in a kind of shorthand. Then
he would go back over it, make slight revisions and add the dots. When asked why he
used this method, he said that in this manner he could write eleven pages in the time it
would otherwise take to write ten.
Once he was visited by someone who claimed to have the ability to contact the
spirits of the dead, who was directed to „Allamah by the spirit of Aristotle, who
advised the medium to study the Asfar of Mulla Sadra with „Allamah. The students
present asked the medium to contact other famous scholars to ask about difficult
points in their books and were impressed by the answers they were given. „Allamah
asked the medium to try to contact his father and ask whether he was satisfied with his
son. The medium told „Allamah that his father‟s only complaint was that he did not
share in the blessings due for writing Al-Mizan. „Allamah said that he had not thought

12
The information from this and the next paragraph was reported by Ayatullah Muhammad Taqi
Misbah Yazdi in conversation, 3 December 2007.

4
that the work merited any blessings but that he would offer half of them for his father
and the other half for his mother. After that it was reported that his father was
completely satisfied with him.
Al-Mizan was written, in part, as a rebuttal to the sort of modernism espoused by
Muhammad „Abduh and Rashid Rida in their Al-Manar;13 but „Allamah does not
advocate a return to tradition. Traditional exegesis often consisted in the collection of
narrations pertinent to each verse of the Qur‟an, some of which went so far as to
exclude any intrusion of the compiler‟s own words. Other interpretations were written
that reflected a particular position in kalam (scholastic theology), or the orientation of
the Sufis. Instead of interpreting the Qur‟an through the lens of some particular
theological position, or letting narrations stand in place of interpretation, „Allamah
proposes that cross references in the Qur‟an should be the key to interpretation.
However, in addition to the formal exegesis of each verse, or rather, ayah (sign) of the
Qur‟an, or group thereof, the relevant narrations attributed to the Prophet and Imams
are given, followed by discussions of philosophical, social, or historical questions
pertinent to this section of the Qur‟an.

Interpretations of the “Word of God”

Tabataba‟i considers four interpretations that might be given for “Word of God”
in (3:45). He rejects the first three and accepts the fourth. The reasons given by
Tabataba‟i in this regard are worth further critical examination.

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
fulfillment of God‟s promise. Tabataba‟i rejects this interpretation rather quickly.
First, he claims that although this interpretation is supported by the Bible, it is not
supported by the Qur‟an. This implies that the support of the Bible is not sufficient to
confirm the interpretation. It is not clear why this should be so, for even given the
doctrine that the Bible has been corrupted (tahrif), there should be a presumption that
Biblical evidence is sound unless it conflicts with the Qur‟an or well founded hadiths.
Furthermore, if the Biblical promise of the Messiah is taken to be derived from those
parts of the Bible that have been corrupted, it would mean that almost the entire Bible
should be rejected, and this is inconsistent with the reliance on the Bible for evidence

13
See „Abduh and Rida (1927-1936).

5
that is found in various Islamic narrations. „Allamah himself, when considering the
different meanings that have been given for the word Messiah rejects some of those
commonly given by other exegetes, e.g., that he was wiped clean from sin, or that
Gabriel wiped him with his wings, in favor of the view that it means one anointed
with oil to be king, in accordance with the prophecies of the Old Testament, and he
sites the gospel of Luke (1:28-33) in support. If we are willing to use this passage to
provide a proper understanding of the word masih (Messiah) as it occurs in the
Qur‟an, we can also refer to it‟s mentioning that Jesus would be given the throne
of David and rule over the house of Jacob as a reference to his being a fulfillment of
the prophecies.
Tabataba‟i claims that according to the Qur‟an (61:6), Jesus brought the good
news of a prophet who would come after him and “he was not the one whose good
news was given by the others.” However, the good news of the coming of Jesus was
given to Imran, according to the Qur‟an, albeit implicitly. According to narrations of
the Ahl al-Bayt,14 Imran was given the good news of the coming of a boy, which led
to the surprise reported in the Qur‟an at the birth of Mary (3:36). So, with all due
respect, it seems that the fact that Jesus brought the good news of Ahmad‫ ص‬is in no
way inconsistent with the Biblical claim that others also brought the good news of his
coming, but rather the fact that at least some were given the good news of the coming
of Jesus is confirmed by the Qur‟an.
Tabataba‟i also mentions another argument against this interpretation, that
Jesus is the Word of God in the sense of being His promise. According to this
interpretation, the “Word of God” means His promise, while it is Jesus himself
who is called the “Word of God” and not merely the fact of his coming. This begs the
question against the interpretation, which claims that by a figure of speech the term
used for the promise of his coming is applied to the person of whom it was promised
that he would come. Despite these criticisms, it seems that Jesus is not called the
“Word of God” because he is the fulfillment of God‟s promise, for other prophets
were also promised by God and yet are not given this title. It the Qur‟an meant to
single out Jesus as being the fulfillment of a divine promise in an especially
pronounced manner, we should expect mention of this feature to figure in the Qur‟an
more saliently than it does. However, this does not mean that the term “Word of God”
lacks the sense, as one meaning among others, of being what was promised. Similarly,

14
Bihar, 14, 199, 8. See Muntazir Qa‟im (2005), 66.

6
if several people in a tribe have an aquiline nose, one of them might be called “the
eagle” because of his keen eyesight, but in conjunction with the shape of the nose, so
that both associations are called forth when the term is applied. In some cases, the
associations may both be so strong that the person would not have been given the
appellation if either of them were absent; but in other cases one of the associations
might be weaker. I would venture to guess that in the case of Jesus, the association
with the divine promise is part of the meaning of “Word of God”, although the
association is not so strong that he would not have been given the title if his coming
had not been prophesied.
The second interpretation considered by Tabataba‟i is that Jesus was called the
“Word of God” because he explained the Torah, giving it the meaning intended by
God, and clarifying the religious matters about which there were differences among
the Jewish scholars. Tabataba‟i rejects this interpretation with the remark that it is
simply not supported by the Qur‟an. Nevertheless, he himself cites the following
ayah: When Jesus brought the clarifications, he said, „I have surely brought you
wisdom, and to clarify for you some of the things about which you differ. So be wary
of God and obey me.‟ (43:63). So, why is Jesus not the Word of God in the sense
of being the bringer of God‟s revelations? One reason is that all the prophets brought
revelations, and yet the term “Word of God” is only applied to Jesus. As argued
above, the fact that a term could be used in a certain sense for several people but is
used for only one of them does not imply that this common meaning is not part of the
intended meaning. Of course, there should still be some reason for the distinction.
Later, I will suggest a possibility for such distinction. Perhaps a reason Tabataba‟i
says that this interpretation is not supported by the Qur‟an is that in the places in
which Jesus is called God‟s Word, special attention is given to affirm that Jesus
was a humble servant of God and should not be deified. The points that the Qur‟an
seems to emphasize are that Jesus works miracles by the permission of God, his
birth was miraculous by God‟s will, and that he was rejected by the people to whom
God sent him just as other prophets were rejected. Furthermore, the creative word
“Be” pronounced by God to bring about the conception of Jesus is found repeatedly.
All of this might seem to show that the textual support of the Qur‟an favors the view
that Jesus is called the “Word of God” because he is brought into being directly by
the divine command and is born of a virgin. Nevertheless, the considerations that
favor interpreting “Word of God” to mean God‟s creative word only rule out the

7
interpretation of “Word of God” as meaning one who brings revelation if the two are
incompatible. We can go further to agree with Tabataba‟i that if the creative and
revelatory meanings are incompatible, a stronger case can be made for the former on
the basis of the text of the Qur‟an itself. As mentioned, we will have to examine this
sort of interpretation more closely later.
The third interpretation mentioned by „Allamah is that the Word of God is the
promise given by God to Mary in the annunciation. It is clear, however, Jesus is
not the annunciation, and so Tabataba‟i rejects this interpretation as obviously
incorrect. However, the third interpretation might be interpreted metaphorically in the
manner of the first proposed interpretation. Jesus could be understood to be God‟s
word in the sense of being what was promised through revelation to the Hebrew
prophets, „Imran, and to Mary in the annunciation. In that case, the third interpretation
should be considered to be included in the first.
There is no reason based on the text of the Qur‟an to think that Jesus might be
called the “Word of God” in the sense of the annunciation to the exclusion of the
divine promise of his advent given to others, but the sense of the annunciation can be
included in the more general meaning of being what was promised by God. Hence
there are three main interpretations reviewed by Tabataba‟i that might be called
promissory, revelatory, and creative. „Allamah argues in favor of the creative
interpretation and rejects the others. To the contrary, I would suggest that all three are
consistent.
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 His Word which He communicated to Maryam (4:171). It gets support
from the verse 3:59, coming at the end: Surely the likeness of Jesus is with
Allah as the likeness of Adam; He created him from dust, then said to him,
“Be”, and he was.15

15
Tabataba‟i (1986), Vol. 6, 14.

8
 Further support could be found for „Allamah‟s view if he referred again to the
gospel of Luke (1:34-35):

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” /The
angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of
the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be
called the Son of God.” (NIV)

Now, the Qur‟an emphatically rejects the appellation “Son of God” which is
associated with the deification of Jesus and condemned as polytheism. However, it
is here that the Qur‟an would replace the term “Son of God” by “Word from God”
where Mary is reported in the Bible as asking how she can have a baby while being a
virgin. The Biblical answer is that the baby needs no father, for he will be the son of
God. This is the apparent meaning of the Biblical verse, without the superimposition
of any other theological doctrines that would be associated with the term “Son of
God”. The Qur‟an rejects the imagery of paternity, but allows that Mary becomes
pregnant when God‟s spirit is breathed into Mary: And (remember) her who guarded
her chastity; We breathed into her of Our spirit, and We made her and her son a sign
for all peoples. (21:91).16 So, since the Qur‟an uses the expression “Word of God”
where the Bible uses “Son of God” and the Biblical term is used to explain the virgin
birth, we could consider the phrase of the Qur‟an as having a similar significance
minus the idea of divine fathering to which the Qur‟an objects. It would follow that
Jesus is called the word of God in the Qur‟an because he was brought into
existence by God without a father, but by direct divine decree, in accordance with the
interpretation of most of the exegetes (mufassirin).
Needless to say, the exegetical methodology suggested above would not be
acceptable to the mufassirin because it requires us to make use of a verse of the Bible
that conflicts with the Qur‟an in order to support an interpretation of the Qur‟an!
However, the suggestion here is that it should be acceptable to consider how the Bible
verse would have to be rewritten to accord with the Qur‟an, and that the functional
role of the replaced phrases may shed some light on the meaning of those that would
have to replace them. Of course, this would be highly speculative, and such an
interpretive methodology could not be considered religiously authoritative; but it
should not be dismissed, because familiarity with the Biblical text could have been

16
Cf. (19:16-22), (66:12), (4:171).

9
expected on the part of at least some of those who heard the Qur‟an from the Prophet
Muhammad‫ص‬, and such expectations would surely be taken into consideration by the
divine author of the revelation.

Regardless of whether one accepts this sort of methodology or not, there remain a
few questions about the favored interpretation, that Jesus is called God‟s word
because, as „Allamah says, “he became the “Word” itself.” Since there was no Jesus
to become the word prior to God‟s creative command, it seems that it would have
been better to say that the word became Jesus, or as the Gospel of John puts it, “and
the word was made flesh.”17 It is precisely at this point that Christian theology brings
in discussions of the Incarnation, and the standard Muslim interpretation also seems to
say that something became incarnate, if not divinity itself, then, at least the divine
word. „Allamah, however, cautions against such a literal reading. It is not the case that
God‟s word “Be” (kun) formed from the two Arabic letters kaf and nun somehow
were transformed into the flesh and blood of Jesus. What is meant is no more and
no less than that Jesus came into being as a result of the direct command of God,
where by direct is meant without a father. There is no more incarnation here than
there is in the case of Adam.
Commenting on another verse of the Qur‟an, „Allamah writes:

It is known that when He intends a thing and says to it: „Be‟ and it comes
into being, no word passes from the Creator to the thing created; there is in
fact only the existence of the thing, and nothing else. Therefore, that is the
thing created, and also it, in itself, is the word „Be‟. In short, His saying, in
matters of creation, is the creation itself, it is nothing separate from it.18

According to a narration reported by Kulayni, when Imam Sadiq was asked

about (4:171), he said, “It is a created spirit. God created it in Adam and Jesus.”
Shaykh Saduq says that Imam Baqir said that they were two created spirits, each
selected and chosen as the spirit of Adam and the spirit of Jesus.”19 The emphasis
here is on the fact that the spirit of God that became Jesus is a created spirit.
Jesus is not the Creator, but is, rather, a creature. If it may be said that the spirit of

17
John 1:14.
18
Tabataba‟i (1986), Vol. 4, 138.
19
Kashani, (1402/1982), Vol. 1, 524.

10
God became incarnate in Jesus, it must be made explicit that what became
incarnate is not God, but the created spirit of God.

The Angel Gabriel

There is no inconsistency between the promissory, revelatory and creative senses

in which Jesus may be called “the Word of God.” The first link between these
senses is the angel Gabriel. Gabriel was the angel who conveyed revelation to all the
prophets, and it is Gabriel who conveyed God‟s creative word to Mary in the
annunciation. In the Qur‟an‟s treatment of the annunciation, Gabriel does not merely
report to Mary that she will have a child, but he conveys to her the divine spirit.20
Hence, the angel of revelation and the angel by which the creative command of God
are conveyed to Mary are one. It is consistent with this that the word of revelation and
the word of the divine creative command should also be linked in the person of
Jesus.
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

Certainly We gave Moses the book so that they might be guided/ and We
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. The virgin birth is not compared to the proof miracles brought by Moses
against the Pharaoh‟s sorcerers, but with the book. This suggests that Jesus and his
mother were a revelatory sign, rather than just a miracle. This point is underscored by
the manner in which Mary, peace be with her, answers those who tried to slander her.

Kalàm

In order to understand why Jesus as the word of God or any other word of God,
such as the Torah or even the Glorious Qur‟an, cannot be considered as the logos in
the Christian sense, we should consider the controversy over divine speech among the
Muslim theologians. In Shi„i theology, the divine attributes are divided into attributes

20
Qur‟an (19:17).
21
See the discussion in Shomali (2007).

11
of essence and attributes of action. The attributes of essence include life, power and
knowledge. Speech is considered an attribute of action, like creation, because God
cannot be considered a speaker until He creates speech, just as He cannot be
considered a Creator until He creates. This is an oversimplification. Since God is not
in time, there is no before or after, so that God can be considered to be a creator after
some date but not before that date; however, the creation itself is temporal and is
causally subsequent to God. Hence we can say that the attributes of action depend on
the causal relations between God and His creatures, or more simply, on His actions,
while the attributes of essence require no consideration of anything other than God.
God is powerful regardless of His action, and regardless of how His power is
exercised, so His power is considered to be an attribute of essence. On the other hand,
God may be considered as a speaker only in consideration of His communication to
another being, a creature. Hence, the attribute of speaking is a divine attribute of
action.
Some of the early Muslim theologians, the Ash„arites, held the view that God can
be considered a speaker even if He does not communicate to anyone else because He
can have an internal speech (kalàm al-nafsí), a knowledge of the meanings He intends
to convey in the appropriate circumstances. On this basis, the Ash„arites held the view
that the Qur‟an is eternal, since it always existed, as it were, in the mind of God, and
that the attribute of speaking is one of God‟s attributes of essence. For the Mu„tazilite
and Shi„i theologians, however, there is no internal speech of God, for God has no
need of discursive thought. Indeed, for those theologians who take a philosophical
stance as well as the Sufi theologians, God is considered as pure simple existence.
Any logos or meaning would have to be an abstraction in the understanding of human
(or angelic) intellects, not a characteristic of divinity itself.22 Hence, for the Shi„ah,
the attribute of speaking is one of God‟s attributes of action.
The dispute over the speech of God and the eternality of the Qur‟an led to a
bloody dispute during the Abbasid dynasty, masterfully described by van Ess in
scholarly detail.23 What is important for our discussion, however, is to see that
however much room there might be to find an analogue to the Christian idea of an
eternal logos in the meaning of revelation in the mind of God as affirmed by the
Ash„arites, in the philosophical views of God and His attributes that have come to

22
For a discussion of God‟s attributes according to what may be considered classical Shi„i
theology, see McDermott (1978). For a more modern discussion see Misbah Yazdi (1374/1995), vol. 1.
23
See van Ess (1992), 446ff.

12
dominate contemporary Shi„ite theology, such a view would be considered anathema
and inconsistent with the simplicity and unity of God.

Gospel
One of the exegetical problems that occurs with regard to the issue of Jesus in
the Qur‟an pertains to the Injil (Gospel). The Qur‟an refers to this, in the singular, as
the revelation given to Jesus. However, what the Christians know as the gospels
are not collections of words from God revealed to Jesus. Hence, when the Qur‟an
refers to the Injil, it should not be taken to mean the New Testament, or its four
gospels, for the gospels were not revealed to Jesus. Elsewhere, I have argued that
this puzzle may be solved if the book revealed to Jesus was considered to be
expressed in his life instead of in a formal text.24 The revelation of God to Jesus,
Gospel (Injil), is made manifest in his life, and so the four gospels may be called
gospels (anajil) because they report the events in the life of Christ.

The term “gospel” (euvagge,lion euaggelion) occurs in the Bible in such

phrases as “the gospel of Christ”, “the gospel of God”, and “the gospel of the
kingdom.” The word means a reward for good tidings, or the good tidings themselves,
and is used to indicate the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, a kingdom that is not
to be sought in the distant future, but is near at hand,25 a kingdom that is “not of this
world”.26 Christians generally interpret the gospel to be the teaching of the good news
of salvation through faith in Christ‟s redemption. Muslims, however, reject the
doctrine of the crucifixion on which the doctrine of Christian redemption is based,
because of the explicit statement of the Qur‟an: and they did not kill him, and they
did not crucify him (4:157). Hence the Injil of the Qur‟an cannot be understood to be
the good news of Christ‟s redemptive suffering on the cross as taught by Christians.27
If we look at the use of the word Injil in the Qur‟an, we find it employed to mean
the teachings given by Jesus to his followers: and we followed [the previous
prophets] with Jesus son of Mary, and We gave him the Injil and We put in the hearts

24
Legenhausen (2006).
25
Mark 1:15.
26
John 18:36.
27
It should be noted, however, that some Muslims have proposed a non-literal understanding of
the statements of the Qur‟an or of the gospels in order to attempt to reconcile the apparent
contradiction. For discussion of this see Leirvik (1999), 72-73, 78-80, 100-101; and Legenhausen
(1999), 117-154.

13
of those who followed him kindness and mercy. (57:27). And We followed them
with Jesus son of Mary, to confirm that which was before him of the Torah, and We
gave him the Injil containing guidance and light, confirming what was before it of the
Torah, and as guidance and advice for the Godwary./ Let the people of the Injil judge
by what Allah has sent down in it. (5: 46-47)28
In these ayat we find that God sent down the Injil to Jesus, so that the Injil is the
divine revelation given to Jesus. At the same time, the Christians are said to be the
people of the Injil and they are to judge by what Allah has sent down in it, which
suggests that the Injil is a book according to which they can judge. Yet the Christians
did not possess any book purporting to contain the words that God revealed to
Jesus. One way of consistently reconciling these seemingly distinct uses of the
term Injil in the Qur‟an, one for the revelation, and the other for the text possessed by
the Christians, that is, the gospels, is to take the revelation given to Jesus to be
expressed through his words, deeds, and life as described in the gospels (with the
exception of those parts that, according to the Qur‟an, are corrupt, including the
doctrine of the crucifixion). Following „Allamah Tabataba‟i, our attempt here is only
to reconcile the verses of the Qur‟an with one another, and like „Allamah, we may be
allowed to appeal to what is in the Bible to help elucidate the meaning of such terms
as Messiah and Injil.
„Allamah Tabataba‟i notices that with regard to the Torah and the Qur‟an, there
are specific references in the Qur‟an about how these books were revealed, being
written on tablets and descending in plain Arabic language, respectively. With regard
to the Injil, however, there is no such description. Nevertheless, since the revelation of
the Injil to Jesus is repeatedly mentioned side by side with the revelation of the
Torah and the Qur‟an, „Allamah takes it that the Injil must be considered to be “a
book like the other two.”29 To the contrary, it seems that it may be considered “a
book” only in two ways: first, in the sense of being God‟s message of good news
revealed to Jesus and conveyed to the people through his words and deeds; and
second, in the sense that this divine message expressed through the life of Jesus
has been reported in the book (the New Testament) of the Christians.
„Allamah is well aware of the difficulty for the exegesis of the Qur‟an posed by
the use of the term “Injil”:

28
Also see Qur‟an (7: 157).
29
Tabataba‟i (1986), Vol. 10, 186.

14
 The Qur‟an insists on naming the book of Jesus as Injil (Gospel, in the
singular) and on saying that it was sent down from Allah. It is in spite of
the fact that there are several Gospels, and the four attributed to Mathew,
Mark, Luke and John existed since before the revelation of the Qur‟an and
were well-known at that time.30

„Allamah takes this to mean that there must have been a single book revealed to
Jesus, a book just like the Torah and the Qur‟an, but that it “was later altered and
deleted.” However, the statements of the Qur‟an and hadiths that refer to the judgment
of the Christians in accordance with the Injil, and that fact that they were called
“People of the Book” because of their use of the Bible, suggests that what is meant by
the Injil is the book read by the Christians.
One of the difficulties that arises in any attempt to consider the gospels contained
in the Bible to be a corruption of an earlier text of revelation to Jesus is the
problem of genre. The gospels do not purport to be a book of divinely revealed laws
or other propositions revealed to Jesus, but rather report the events of his life, his
teachings in word and deed. While the Torah is a collection of revealed sacred history
and law, the Gospels are of a different genre, that of ancient biography. In his
introduction to the life of Alexander the Great, Plutarch wrote, “I am writing not
histories, but lives.”31 Hence, the book revealed to Jesus and the book in the
possession of the Christians are of two different genres: the former is the revelation
given to Jesus, while the latter is biography. At the same time, the uses of the term
Injil in the Qur‟an should not be taken to be merely homonymous, for there is no
indication to support the idea that a change of meaning is involved.
The puzzle of the shift in genre of the Injil from a book of revelation to an ancient
biography can be solved, however, if we consider the ancient biographies of Jesus
to report what was revealed to Jesus. Plutarch‟s famous line about writing lives
rather than histories provides a clue, because “life” (Greek, bios) can also be used to
mean the course a person takes from birth to death or a biography. If God‟s revelation
to Jesus was the good news of the kingdom that is not of this world as expressed in
the words and deeds of Jesus through his life, then a biography of Jesus that
focused on his mission of conveying what was revealed to him could also be
considered a divine book, not because the biography contains a text revealed by God

30
Tabataba‟i (1986), Vol. 5, 11.
31
Plutarch, Alexander, Ch. 1; cited in Ehrman (2008), 72.

15
to Jesus, but because it describes the life in which Jesus manifested to others
God‟s revelation to him.
Perhaps it will be objected that there may have been a book in the form of a text
given by God to Jesus that was called the Gospel (Injil), but that it was lost.
However, even a cursory review of early Christian writings makes this hypothesis
seem exceedingly implausible. Given an alternative hypothesis that is consistent with
the Qur‟an and hadiths and is more likely given the historical record, we should reject
the view that there was ever a book in the possession of the Christians that contained
the text of the divine revelation to Jesus and that was corrupted in such a manner
as to result in the Christian gospels.
Indeed, there were Christian gospels other than those that became canonical in the
New Testament, but none of them has the form of a book in which Jesus reports
revelations that he claims were given to him by God. Most of the non-canonical
gospels, like the canonical ones, are biographies, and most of them are believed to
have been written later than the synoptic gospels of the New Testament. There are,
however, two important exceptions: the Gospel of Thomas and the hypothetical
source used by Matthew and Luke that scholars call Q. The Gospel of Thomas is not a
biography, but a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus. Some scholars believe
that the Gospel of Thomas predates the canonical gospels. It is also believed that Q
was a collection of such sayings. So, Muslims might be disposed to hypothesize that
the Injil mentioned in the Qur‟an is some such original gospel containing the
revelations given to Jesus, just as the Torah and the Qur‟an are taken to contain
text revealed to Moses and Muhammad‫ ص‬respectively. Furthermore, it might be
thought that since the genre of the gospel can be supposed to have changed form
collections of sayings to biography (under the assumption that the Gospel of Thomas
and Q predate the synoptic gospels), this shows how an original text of revelation may
have been corrupted to take a different form in the genre of biography. This sort of
hypothesis, however, is not plausible, for several reasons. First, the sort of sayings
that are collected in the Gospel of Thomas, like those that are believed to have made
up Q, do not purport to be reports of divine revelation. What we find is a list of
sayings each of which is prefaced by, “Jesus said.” Nowhere to we find in the early
Christian literature any book that purports to contain what God said to Jesus.

16
Second, there is no evidence that any such book was in the possession of the
Christians who are mentioned in the Qur‟an.32
If some Christian gospels, whether canonical or not, are to be considered
corrupted forms of an original text of divine revelation to Jesus, this should be
determined by inconsistencies between such gospels and what is taken to be
authoritative by Muslims in the text of the Qur‟an and reliable hadiths, not by
suggesting that the gospels of the Christians were so drastically altered that the genre
changed from a report of the text revealed by God to a report of the sayings, life and
teachings of Jesus.

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 the Torah was revealed in Hebrew, the
Qur‟an in Arabic, but the Gospel is revealed in deeds as well as words. All three
“books” were originally revealed in all their detail by God, and so, all three are called
the word of God. Since, however, the form in which the divine revelation was
manifest to the prophets in the cases of Moses and Muhammad‫ ص‬was textual, while
in the case of the Gospel it was made manifest in the life of Jesus, Jesus himself
is to be considered the word of God, just as the Torah and the Glorious Qur‟an are
considered the word of God.

The Good News and the Kingdom in the Qur‟an

If we are to understand the gospel of Jesus from the perspective opened by the
Qur‟an, there are several principles that can be used. First, the gospel is the “good
news” brought by Jesus. Second, the content of this good news is concerned with
the kingdom of God. These two principles can be derived from an examination of
how the term “gospel” (euvagge,lion euaggelion) was understood by the earliest
Christians, and continued to be understood by many Christians in the succeeding
centuries, even if there were later elaborations that added the doctrine of redemption.
Third, the Qur‟an purports to reaffirm the basic message of the earlier revelations.
Hence, in order to understand the perspective taken in the Qur‟an of the gospel, we

32
For a discussion of the Christian literature that may have been current in Arabia at the time of
the advent of Islam, see Leirvik (1999), 22-41, and Robinson (1991), 15-22.

17
should examine how the Qur‟an deals with the issues of God‟s kingdom and the good
news of it.
It is repeated in the Qur‟an that to God belongs the Kingdom of the heavens and
the earth.33 This reaffirms the gospel teaching that the expected kingdom is not to be
sought in an earthly ruler, but in divine sovereignty. The second point that is common
between the teachings of the gospels and the Qur‟an about the Kingdom, is that it is
near. About the Day of Judgment, God says in the Qur‟an: The true Kingdom, on
that day, will belong to the Beneficent (25:26).34 So, the true Kingdom is God‟s and
it will be realized or made manifest at the end of the world. Here we find a common
ambiguity in gospel teachings and in the Qur‟an: both speak of the Kingdom as the
actual fact of God‟s sovereignty, and as that which is near and will be manifest at the
end of the world. Although it seems as if there were two senses of the divine kingdom,
one for the kingdom that exists here and now and another for what is to be expected,
the appearance of contradiction is removed if one holds that there is one kingdom,
which is divine rule over all things, and that the kingdom to be expected is not another
kingdom, but simply the complete manifestation of this divine sovereignty. In order to
understand the relation between the understanding of the Kingdom in the gospels and
in the Qur‟an, what is more important than how to reconcile descriptions of the
kingdom as already established and yet coming, is that both senses are present in both
the gospels and in the Qur‟an. In both, there is a contrast between the outward
phenomena (zahir) and an inward meaning (batin), and both Jesus and
Muhammad‫ ص‬invite people to turn from their preoccupations with the outward in
favor of the spiritual or inward life.
The term for bearing good tidings (bashshara) is derived from the same root as
that used for human being (basher): b sh r. In the Qur‟an, The Prophet Muhammad‫ص‬
is repeatedly called a bearer of good tidings (bashir) and a warner (nadhir). If the
message he brings is really a confirmation of the good news brought by the earlier
prophets, we should expect to find mention of the kingdom in verses that refer to the
good tidings he brings. We should also expect some explication of how the teachings
he brought about the kingdom differ from how this was currently understood among
the Christians.

33
(2:107), (3:189), (5:17), (5:18), (5:40), (5:120), (9:116), (24:42), (42:49), (45:27), (48:14).
34
See also (40:16).

18
 The Jews and the Christians say, „We are Allah‟s children and His
beloved ones.‟ Say, „Then why does He punish you for your sins?‟ Rather
you are humans from among His creatures. He forgives whomever He
wishes, and punishes whomever He wishes, and to Allah belongs the
kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and whatever is between them, and
toward Him is the return. / O People of the Book! Certainly Our Apostle
has come to you, clarifying for you after a gap in the apostles, lest you
should say, „There did not come to us any bearer of good news nor any
warner.‟ Certainly there has come to you a bearer of good news and a
warner. And Allah has power over all things. (5:18-19)

The message here is an essentially moral one: we will all be punished for our sins
and rewarded for our good deeds regardless of our religious affiliations. It is for God
to decide and not for man. His sovereignty is over all things and all peoples. The
Prophet‫ ص‬brings the good news of God‟s kingdom from which none are excluded and
in which all are subject to being punished or rewarded in accordance with how they
live. The law that God sets for man is to establish a harmonious community of peace
and love.
In the last sections of his “The Spirit of Christianity”, Hegel describes the
Kingdom of God.

What Jesus calls the “Kingdom of God” is the living harmony of men,
their fellowship in God; it is the development of the divine among men, …
they make up not a collection but a communion, since they are unified not
in a universal, a concept (e.g., as believers), but through life and through
love.35

He concludes his essay on a rather remorseful note:

Between these extremes of the multiple or diminished consciousness of

friendship, hate, or indifference toward the world, between these extremes
which occur within the opposition between God and the world, between
the divine and life, the Christian church has oscillated to and fro, but it is
contrary to its essential character to find peace in a nonpersonal living

35
Hegel (1996), 277-278.

19
 beauty. And it is its fate that church and state, worship and life, piety and
virtue, spiritual and worldly action, can never dissolve into one..36

The essential character of a Kingdom of God whose subjects live in fraternal

harmony is also the ideal to which we are invited by the Qur‟an: O People of the
Book! Certainly Our Apostle has come to you, clarifying for you much of what you
used to hide of the Book, and excusing many. Certainly there has come to you a light
from Allah, and a manifest Book. / With it Allah guides those who follow His
pleasure to the ways of peace, and bring them out from darkness into light by His will,
and guides them to a straight path. (5: 15-16).

Conclusion
In all probability, the Book of the Christians who were addressed by God in the
Qur‟an and described as “People of the Book” was of the genre of ancient biography,
and the divine book that is the revelation God sent to Jesus was never published as
a text of what God said to him. If the revelation given to Jesus was conveyed to his
followers through his life, in word and deed, this would explain the use of the term
Injil in the Qur‟an for both the divine revelation and for the gospels used by the
Christians. Both could be called Injil because the gospels tell the story of the life that
expressed the divine revelation given to Jesus. This would also help to explain why
Jesus is given a title, Word of God, that would otherwise seem to signify revelation.
Furthermore, it is consistent with the traditional interpretation of the exegetes of the
Qur‟an, according to which Jesus is the Word of God because his mother, Mary‫ع‬
became pregnant due to God‟s command which resulted in the virgin birth. It also
explains why the divine command by which Mary became pregnant is conveyed by
the angel of revelation, Gabriel. The divine word that became Jesus, on the
interpretation suggested here, is not merely a creative word, but also a word of
revelation.
Of course, the suggestions here are of a speculative nature, and do not carry any
authoritative weight as dogma. This essay may be considered an exercise in Islamic
speculative theology. It is hoped that it may promote greater mutual understanding
and communion among all who accept the divine mission of Jesus Christ. As for
the truth of these matters and the success of the effort, Allah knows best.

36
Hegel (1996), 301.

20
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