Frequently asked questions

Yes - it is not possible to be a Muslim without believing in Jesus (peace be upon him). Muslims believe he was the Messiah, born miraculously of the Virgin Mary, that he performed miracles by God's permission, that he was raised alive to God, and that he will return before the end of time. He is mentioned by name 25 times in the Quran, and his mother Mary has an entire chapter named after her.

What Muslims do not believe is that he is God, the son of God, or part of a Trinity. We hold that he never claimed this and that the Gospels themselves bear this out.

Because Islam is not a different religion from the one Jesus practised - it is that religion. Jesus prayed to the One God, prostrated on his face, fasted, gave charity, said 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord', and taught that entering the kingdom depends on doing the will of God (Matthew 7:21). A Muslim does exactly that.

What Christianity added later - the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, original sin, salvation through his blood alone - was formulated by councils and theologians centuries after Jesus. Islam invites you back to what he actually said.

'Allah' is simply the Arabic word for 'God' - the same word used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews, and the word used in Arabic Bibles. It is related to the Aramaic 'Alaha', the very word Jesus himself would have used. The God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus is the God Muslims worship.

The same way they were forgiven before the cross: by sincere repentance to a merciful God. Jesus taught this in the parable of the tax collector (Luke 18:13-14) and the prodigal son (Luke 15), where the father forgives on sight - no sacrifice required. Ezekiel 18:20-22 states clearly that no one bears another's sin and that the one who repents 'shall surely live'. Psalm 51:16-17 says God does not desire sacrifice but 'a broken and a contrite heart'.

God says in the Quran: 'O My servants who have transgressed against themselves [by sinning], do not despair of the mercy of Allāh. Indeed, Allāh forgives all sins' (39:53). There is no original sin in Islam: every child is born pure, and each person is responsible for their own deeds.

Muslims believe that God saved Jesus from his enemies and raised him to Himself (Quran 4:157-158). Jesus prayed in Gethsemane to be delivered 'from death', and Hebrews 5:7 says he 'was heard'. Psalm 91:11-12, cited in the Gospels about Jesus, promises that the angels would keep him from harm.

Even setting that aside: the idea that an innocent must be punished for the guilty contradicts justice as taught in the Bible itself (Deuteronomy 24:16, Ezekiel 18:20). God, who forgave David, Nineveh, and the prodigal son freely, does not need blood to forgive.

As a sign - the Quran calls him and his mother 'a sign for the worlds' (21:91). But a miraculous birth does not imply divinity: Adam was created with neither father nor mother, Eve from no mother, and Melchizedek is described as 'without father, without mother' (Hebrews 7:3). 'Indeed, the example of Jesus to Allāh is like that of Adam. He created him from dust; then He said to him, "Be," and he was' (Quran 3:59).

Muhammad (peace be upon him, 570-632 CE) was the final prophet in the same line as Abraham, Moses and Jesus. He did not found a new religion; he restored the religion of all the prophets and brought its final, preserved scripture - the Quran - which confirms the truth in previous books and corrects what was altered.

Jesus himself promised one who would come after him and 'guide you into all truth' (John 16:13), and Moses foretold a prophet 'like unto me' from the brethren of Israel (Deuteronomy 18:18). Jesus also said: 'I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now' (John 16:12). To follow Jesus fully is to accept the one he foretold - just as following Moses meant accepting Jesus.

The Bible as we have it was written decades after Jesus, in Greek rather than his language, by authors whose identities are debated. We have no original manuscripts; the earliest complete copies differ in thousands of places. Passages such as 1 John 5:7 and the ending of Mark (16:9-20) are acknowledged by Christian scholars as later additions. Jeremiah 8:8 itself warns: 'the pen of the scribes is in vain'.

The Quran was memorised in full by hundreds of companions during Muhammad's lifetime, written down under his supervision, and compiled into a single standard text within two decades of his death. Manuscripts from the first Islamic century (such as the Birmingham and Sanaa manuscripts) match the Quran recited today. Millions of Muslims today have it memorised word for word - something true of no other book.

The Quran warns against worshipping anyone besides God - including Jesus - because that is the one sin God says He will not forgive if a person dies upon it (4:48). But it also says: 'you will find the nearest of them in affection to the believers those who say, "We are Christians"' (5:82), and 'There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion' (2:256). The Quran does not condemn a people; it calls each person, individually and sincerely, to the worship of the One God.

The Quran mentions the 'Holy Spirit' (Ruh al-Qudus) as the angel Gabriel, the one who brought revelation to the prophets and who strengthened Jesus (2:87, 2:253, 16:102). In the Bible, too, the Spirit comes upon prophets, kings and ordinary believers; it is never prayed to, never called 'God' by Jesus, and was not declared a 'person of the Godhead' until 381 CE.

No. Not once, in any Gospel. He said: 'Worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve' (Matthew 4:10); 'I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God' (John 20:17); 'My Father is greater than I' (John 14:28); 'Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God' (Mark 10:18). The burden of proof lies on those who claim he taught the opposite.

'Islam' means submission to God, and peace through that submission. A 'Muslim' is anyone who submits to the will of God. By this definition - the definition of the Quran - Abraham, Moses, Jesus and his disciples were all Muslims (Quran 3:52, 3:67). When Jesus prayed 'not my will, but thine, be done' (Luke 22:42), he was expressing Islam perfectly.

Nothing of what Jesus taught. You keep the One God, the prophets, the virgin birth, the Messiah, the miracles, the second coming, the Ten Commandments, prayer, fasting, charity, modesty, and the love of neighbour. What you leave behind are the doctrines no prophet ever taught: that God is three, that God became a man, that an innocent had to be tortured so the guilty could be forgiven, and that you are born condemned.

Every Bible verse on this site is from the King James Version and can be checked in any printed Bible. Every Quran verse carries its chapter and verse number and can be read in several translations at quran.com. We encourage you to read everything in context and to pray sincerely to God - not to any created being - asking Him to guide you to the truth.