The Islamic Christ

Jesus of the gaps: The evangelistic use of biblical reflexes in the Qur’an

“…Despite this positivity, the Qur’anic Jesus has a complicated reflexive relationship with the biblical Jesus. Reynolds’ (2015: 185) observation serves as a warning: “the history of Islamic thought on Christ is fundamentally independent from the study of the Bible and the tradition of Christological thought in the Church.” In part, this is because virtually none of his biblical biography has transferred to the Qur’an. The reader is told virtually nothing of his teaching, his movements, his ministry patterns, his character, or his interactions with ordinary people (Shumack, 2020: 9).…”

“…Durie (2016: 220) reports “Scholars—both Muslim and non-Muslim alike—have found it difficult to interpret the various uses of ruh in the Qur’an in a coherent way.” While ruah in Hebrew can mean wind, breath, or spirit, ruh in Arabic primarily means blowing and not breathing, and excludes the concept of the “breath of life” (Durie, 2016: 220–22). The Qur’an mentions the Holy Spirit ( ruh al-qudus ) on four occasions; three of these (Q2:87, 153; 5:110) involve Jesus (Reynolds, 2015: 186). However, the ruh al-qudus sometimes refers to the angel Jibril (Durie, 2016: 226).…”

“…Ibn Kathir (n.d.) clarifies that to say something is “of God” is merely to honor it, such as the she-camel “of God” (Q7:73), not divinize it. Others see the term as a reference to Jesus’ celibacy because the identification of Jesus with spirit “must have contributed to the idea that he favoured the spirit over the body” (Reynolds, 2015: 192). Yet others view the conjunction of kalimah and ruh to indicate Jesus’ virgin-birth.…”