In this post I am going to provide evidence that the Quran has been heavily influenced by, and even fashioned after the Christological debates which took place among Syriac speaking Christians. I will prove that the very language of the Quran has been shape by the theological vocabulary and expressions found within Syriac Christianity. As one Muslim scholar acknowledged:

It is unlikely that the canonical Christian scriptures or other Christian writings were translated into Arabic before the rise of Islam. Thus we should probably think in terms of an indirect knowledge of Christian sources based on hearsay or ad hoc translation rather than on literary borrowing. But what were these sources? In broad terms Syriac Christian literature seems a strong candidate for several reasons. First, Syriac accounts for a large proportion of the borrowed words in the Qur’an and for the Qur’anic spelling of many Biblical names. The peculiar spelling of ‘Īsā still remains something of an enigma but the most plausible explanation is that it is derived from Isho, the Syriac name for Jesus. (Neal Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity [State University of New York Press (SUNY), Albany, NY 1991, p. 17; bold emphasis mine)

SYRIAC BIBLE

As far as the Syriac versions of the Bible are concerned, we know that translations already existed long before the rise of Islam. As the late renowned biblical scholar and textual critic Dr. Bruce M. Metzger noted:

“The several Syriac versions that fall to be considered in the present chapter begin with the earliest translation of the Gospels. Whether this was Tatian’s Diatessaron, a harmony of the four Gospels prepared about A.D. 170, or the Old Syriac version of the separate Gospels, is a question that scholars have debated for many years without reaching any generally accepted solution. How much of the rest of the New Testament was included in the Old Syriac version is difficult to ascertain. In any case, toward the close of the fourth or at the beginning of the fifth century a version of twenty-two books of the New Testament was available in a translation which came to be called at a later date the Peshitta Syriac version…” (Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations [Oxford University Press Inc., 1977], p. 3; bold emphasis mine)

Metzger also commented on the Jacobite/Syriac Orthodox and Assyrian Church of the East split in 431 AD over Miaphysitism and Nestorian Christological stances, and how these groups both employed the Peshitta:

The word ‘Peshitta’² is a passive participle of the verb… (‘stretched out’) signifying, among other meanings, what is simple or clear. The word appears to have been employed for the first time in designating a version of the Scriptures by the Jacobite Moses bar Kepha (d. 903),³ who applied it to the Syriac version of the Old Testament made from the Hebrew, in opposition to the version made by Paul of Tella from the Septuagint and supplied with complicated references drawn from Origen’s Hexapla. In the case of the New Testament the same version would merit such an epithet in contrast to the Harclean version, which was furnished with a textual apparatus. Others interpret the word as meaning widely diffused or current. According to this interpretation the name ‘Peshitta’ is parallel to the Latin Vulgata.⁴

The Peshitta version antedates the division of Syrian Christianity into two rival communities, and hence it was accepted by the Nestorians as well as by the Jacobites. In its official form it includes twenty-two books of the New Testament, the four minor Catholic Epistles (2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude) and the Apocalypse being absent. It thus apparently reflects the canon according to the usage of the Church at Antioch in the fourth and fifth centuries. It does not include Luke xxii. 17-18 and the pericope de adultera (John vii. 53-viii. 11).

Syrian scribes devoted great care to the transcription of the Peshitta version. A remarkable accord exists among the manuscripts of every age, there being on the average scarcely more than one important variant per chapter.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Gregory¹ was able to enumerate more than 300 Peshitta manuscripts of the New Testament. Actually, however, the number is much larger, for Gregory did not include all the manuscripts that are in the libraries in the East. And since Gregory’s time other manuscripts have come to light, particularly in little-known collections in the West.² Among manuscripts that have been catalogued the following are noteworthy for one reason or another-usually by reason of age.³ (Ibid., pp. 48-49; bold emphasis mine)

Metzger mentions some of the most prominent and influential voices of these conflicting Christological understandings held by the Syriac speaking Christian communities before and during the rise of Islam:

One of the most influential leaders of the Monophysite branch of the Church at the beginning of the sixth century was Philoxenus (Mar Aksenaya’) of Mabbûg in eastern Syria, who, with his contemporary, Severus of Antioch, founded Jacobite Monophysitism. Despite acrimonious charges levelled against him by his theological opponents, his writings disclose him as an acute dialectician, a prolific author, a subtle theologian, and an uncompromising champion of the unity of the nature of Christ against what he regarded as the heresy of the two natures.^I

The work of translating the New Testament was performed in 507-8, when the prestige of Philoxenus was at its height. Inasmuch as Philoxenus did not know Greek, he commissioned Polycarp, chorepiscopus in the diocese of Mabbûg, to revise the Peshitta version in accordance with Greek manuscripts. Polycarp sometimes replaced Syriac words with synonyms, sometimes used different prepositions, and generally gave preference to the independent possessive pronoun over against the suffixes. It appears that Polycarp sought to make a more theologically accurate rendering of the Greek than the current Peshitta rendering. In addition to the books included in the earlier translation, the Philoxenian included (seemingly for the first time in Syriac) 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and the Book of Revelation. Since the Philoxenian version was made and sponsored by Jacobite ecclesiastics, it was used only by the Monophysite branch of Syriac-speaking Christendom. (Ibid., pp. 65-66; bold emphasis mine)

And here’s what Metzger wrote in regards to Syriac versions of the Holy Bible produced during the time that Muhammad allegedly lived:

A later translation was produced by Thomas of Harkel around 616, which is known as the Harclean version:

“The chief characteristic of the Harclean version is its slavish adaptation to the Greek, to the extent that even clarity is sacrificed… As compared with the Peshitta, the Harclean not infrequently uses a Greek loan-word instead of a native Syriac one.² This preference for transliteration shows itself even in the case of Semitic proper names, when, instead of allowing them to display their Semitic etymology, the reviser represents the Greek orthography… In short, the edition of the New Testament produced by Thomas appears to be a suitable counterpart to Paul of Tella’s Syro-Hexaplar-a painfully exact imitation of Greek idiom, even in the order of words, often in violation of Syriac idiom. As a result the modern scholar is hardly ever in doubt as to the Greek text intended by the translator.^I” (Ibid., pp. 69-70)

With the foregoing in perspective, I am now going to show how Syriac Christianity and its various Christological formulations, theological expressions, etc., have found their way into the text of the Arabic Quran. This should not come as a surprise seeing that Syriac and Arabic are cognate languages, with the Arabic script developing and evolving from Nabataean Aramaic, of which Syriac is an offshoot.  

AHAD & SAMAD: SYRIAC TERMS?

The 112^th surah proclaims that Allah is ahad and that he is also al-samad, the latter term being understood by specific Muslim expositors to be an affirmation of the Islamic deity be solid, not hollow:

Say, “He is Allah, Ahad (One). Allah, Al-Samad (The Absolute). Neither (He) begets nor (He) was born. And there was not for Him equivalent One.” S. 112:1-4 (Samy Mahdy https://www.islamawakened.com/quran/112/st87.htm)

God is Solid (al-samadu) (and does not need anyone’s help). S. 112:2 (Bijan Moeinian https://www.islamawakened.com/quran/112/st11.htm)  

“Allah is Samad.” (Absolute Self-Sufficient One beyond any need or defect, free from the concept of multiplicity, and far from conceptualization and limitation. The one into whom nothing can enter, and the One from whom no other form of existence can come out!) (Ahmed Hulusi https://www.islamawakened.com/quran/112/st63.htm)

Suffice it to say, these expressions can be found in the literature of the Christians before Muhammad’s time.

For instance. Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451–521) wrote a letter consoling the Najrani Christians for undergoing persecution for their beliefs. The Syriac terms employed echo those found in the aforementioned surah:

You have learned the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (ʾabā wa-brā w-ruḥā d-qudšā ilepton). And besides these three names, who are one and as one are three (w-ʿam hālēn tlātā šemhin d-itayhon ḥad w-ḥad tlātā), you accept no other name and number (šmā w-menyānā ḥrinā lā mqabbli-tton). (G. Olinder, Iacobi Sarugensis epistulae quotquot supersunt. (Syr. 57. = Syr. II, 45 [Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium]) [Peeters, Leuven 1937], p. 95 (1-4); bold emphasis mine)

And:

One is the Son, begotten of the Father before all the worlds (ḥad brā da-ylid men ʾabā meddem kull-hon ʿālmē).

One is who is the likeness of the Father in everything (ḥad da-dmā l-abu b-kull).

One is the only-begotten, who takes no other order and number like him (ḥad ʾiḥidāyā d-lā mqabbel ʿammeh sedra w-menyānā ḥrinā).

This one is the Son and the Lord and of the same nature as the Father (hu hānā brā wa-māryā wa-bar kyānā d-abu).

This one is from the Father and with the Father (hānā d-itaw men ʾabā w-ʿam ʾabā). (Olinder, p. 95 (14-19); bold emphasis mine)

In another letter, Jacob describes God fashioning a solid, hard body for Adam, using the Syriac phrase s’mad:

“He fashioned him and gave him form (ṣāreh), He made him into a solid and hard body (ṣmad ḥāṣeh).” (Jacques de Saroug: Quatre homélies métriques sur la création (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 508-509, Scriptores Syri 214-215), translated by Khalil Alwan [Peeters, Leuven 1989], Volume 2, p. 175)

What makes Jacob’s use of the term s’mad for Adam rather interesting is that Islamic tradition records a fable of Satan (called Iblis) looking at Adam’s lifeless body and arguing that this could not be Allah since the latter is solid, whereas the former is hollow who has holes which Satan could and did enter through!

According to Abu Kurayb–`Uthman b. Said-Bishr b. ‘Umarah–Abu Rawq–Dahhak–Ibn ‘Abbas: God commanded to lift up the soil from which Adam was to be made. He created Adam from sticky clay from stinking slime. He continued. It became stinking slime only after (having been compact) soil.⁵⁹³ He continued.

He created Adam from it with His own hand. He continued. It remained lying around as a body (jasad) for forty nights. Iblis used to come to it and kick it with his foot, whereupon it made sounds. He continued. This is (meant by) God’s word: “From salsal like potter’s clay.”⁵⁹⁴ He means: like something separated that is not compact. He continued. Then (Iblis) entered Adam’s mouth and left from his posterior, and he entered his posterior and left from his mouth. Then he said: You are not something for making sounds (salsalah). What, then, were you created for? If I am given authority over you, I shall ruin you, and if you are given authority over me, I shall disobey you.⁵⁹⁵

According to Masi b. Harun–Amr b. Hammad–Asbat–al-Suddi–Abu Malik and Abu Salih–Ibn ‘Abbas. Also (al-Suddi) Murrah al-Hamdini–Ibn Masud and some (other) companions of the Prophet: God said to the angels: “I am creating a human being from clay. When I have fashioned him and blown some of My spirit into him, fall down in prostration before him!”⁵⁹⁶ God created him with His own hands, lest Iblis become overbearing toward (Adam), so that (God) could say to (Iblis): You are overbearing toward something I have made with My own hand(s), which I Myself was not too haughty to make!? So God created Adam as a human being. He was a body of clay for forty years the extent of Friday(?)⁵⁹⁷ When the angels passed by him, they were frightened by what they saw. The angel most frightened was Iblis. He would pass by him, kick him, and thus make the body produce a sound as potter’s clay does. That is (meant) where God says: “From salsal like potter’s clay.”⁵⁹⁸ Then he would say: What were you created for? He entered his mouth and left from his posterior. Then he said to the angels: Don’t be afraid of that one, for your Lord is solid, whereas this one is hollow. When I am given authority over him, I shall ruin him.⁶⁰⁰ (History of Al-Tabari-General Introduction and From the Creation to the Flood, translated by Franz Rosenthal [State University of New York Press (SUNY), Albany, NY 1989], Volume 1, pp. 261-262; bold emphasis mine)

Elsewhere, Jacob wrote the following in respect to the Trinity:

God is one (ḥad alāhā), and he has a word (it leh melltā) and a spirit (it leh ruḥā). The Lord is one (māryā ḥad-u) and his word (w-mellteh) and his spirit (w-ruḥeh) are (one) with him (ʿammeh-ennon). Three persons (qnomē tlātā), one God (ḥad alāhā), limitless (d-lā mestayyak). The Trinity (tlitāyutā), one power (ḥdā mārutā), which is not commanded (d-lā metpaqdā). (F. Jacques de Graffin, Saroug: Homélies contre les Juifs. [Brepols, Turnhout, 1976], p. 50 (93-94); bold emphasis mine)

Ironically, the Quran echoes this Trinitarian belief within the same context of decrying the excesses of Christian devotion to Jesus:

People of the Book, go not beyond the bounds in your religion, and say not as to God but the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God, and His Word (wa-kalimatuhu) that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him (wa’ruhun minhu). So believe in God and His Messengers, and say not, ‘Three’ (thalathatun). Refrain; better is it for you. God is only One God (wahidun). Glory be to Him — That He should have a son! To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and in the earth; God suffices for a guardian. S. 4:171 Arberry

In this next citation, Jacob blasts the so-called Nestorians for denying that Mary birthed God:

ܒܒܬܘܠܘܬܗ܀ ܘܛܢܬ ܟܠܬܐ ܒܪܬ ܐܝܡܡܐ ܕܡܟܝܪܐ ܠܗ: ܘܐܨܪܚܬ ܗܘܬ ܒܗ ܒܣܪܬܗ ܣܢܬܗ ܣܚܦܬܗ ܘܢܦܠ܀ ܒܓܠܝܐ ܢܐܡܪ: ܕܠܘ ܐܠܗܐ ܗܘ ܒܪ ܐܠ ܗܐ ܕܡܟܝܪܐ ܠܗ܀ ܐܡܪܚ ܒܙܒܢ ܗܘ ܕܐܫܬܢܝ ܕܢܐܡܪ ܗܟܢ: ܕܠܘ ܐܠܗܐ ܗܘ ܝܠܕܬ ܡܪܝܡ

ܘܡܢܘ ܡܡܪܚ ܕܩܕܡ ܟܠܬܐ

That one who had gone insane was so insolent at one point that he spoke as follows:

“It was not God that Mary bore in her virginity.”

The bride, the daughter of the day, who was married to him, grew envious. She railed against him, scorned him, despised him, knocked him down, and he fell. (Paulus Bedjan, Homiliae selectae Mar-Jacobi Sarugensis [Harrassowitz, Paris 1907], “Holy on the Faith”, Volume 3, p. 603, 21, p. 604, 3 https://archive.org/details/BedjanJacobOfSarugVol3; bold emphasis mine)⁽¹⁾  

64 Nestorios of Constantinople, Apology (Loofs, Nestoriana, 205): “Mary did not bear, O dear friend, the divinity, but she bore a human, [who was] an inseparable instrument of the divinity” (non peperit, optime, Maria deitatem, sed peperit hominem, divinitatis inseparabile instrumentum); Sermon 27 (ibid., 337; Ford Lewis Battles, trans., The Sermons of Nestorius [Pittsburgh, 1973], 114): “At once the pagan, receiving the reproach that God was born of Mary, moves forward against Christianity” (statim enim paganus cum reprehensione accipiens, quia de Maria deus natus est, infert adversus Christianum).

The Nestorians’ repudiation of God being born or begotten seems to be the very thing that the Quran is stating, but for a totally different reason–unless, of course, we assume a Syriac proto-Quran, which was later bastardized when it was rendered into Arabic. 

The Nestorians meant that God as God could never be born, since he is ever living and can never cease to be. Instead, God united or took to himself a human nature, which was produced in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit.

In that regard, it wasn’t God who was born but rather the Man Christ Jesus who was begotten of Mary, a human being who had been inseparably united to the divine Word or Logos from the very moment the human nature had been conceived.

The problem with such terminology is that it can easily lend itself to the charge that there are two subjects or Persons in this union. It is not hard to see why Nestorians were accused of positing a divine Person/Hypostasis known as the Logos and a human subject who came into being at conception in Mary’s womb, whom the Logos united to Himself.  

This leads me to my next point.

ADOPT OR UNITE: THAT IS THE QUESTION!

The Quran decries the notion that Allah has or would adopt or take on a son:

And they say: The Beneficent hath taken (ittakhadha) unto Himself a son (waladan). Assuredly ye utter a disastrous thing Whereby almost the heavens are torn, and the earth is split asunder and the mountains fall in ruins, That ye ascribe unto the Beneficent a son (waladan), When it is not meet for (the Majesty of) the Beneficent that He should choose a son (yattakhidha waladan). There is none in the heavens and the earth but cometh unto the Beneficent as a slave. S. 19:88-93 Pickthall

Had God wished to take (yattakhidha) to Himself a son (waladan), He could have chosen whom He pleased out of those whom He doth create: but Glory be to Him! (He is above such things.) He is God, the One, the Irresistible. S. 39:4 A. Yusuf Ali

And (we believe) that He – exalted be the glory of our Lord! – hath taken (ittakhadha) neither wife nor son (waladan), S. 72:3 Pickthall

The Arabic akhadha is used elsewhere with the connotation of adoption:

And he (the man) from Egypt who bought him, said to his wife: “Make his stay comfortable, may be he will profit us or we shall adopt him as a son (nattakhidhahu waladan).” Thus did We establish Yusuf (Joseph) in the land, that We might teach him the interpretation of events. And Allah has full power and control over His Affairs, but most of men know not. S. 12:21 Hilali-Khan

What makes this rather interesting is that akhadha without the diacritical marks (taskhil) can also be read as ahada (“to unite”).

“And they say: The All-Merciful has united (ittahada) a son… When it does not befit the All-Merciful that He should unite (yattahida)a son.” S. 19:88, 93

“Had God wished to unite(yattahida) a son…” S. 39:3

If this is was what the Quran intended to convey then this again supports the view of many scholars that the Islamic text was actually a collection of Christian hymns/sermons, which were originally in Syriac. At the very least, this would mean that the Quran came to criticize specific Christologies in order to affirm other particular Christological formulations.

For instance, the Quran may be condemning the view of “Nestorians” such as Babai the Great who taught that God the Word united to himself the manhood common to all human beings, in order to make that humanity one Son of God. Babai even employs the Syriac term which corresponds to the Arabic word ahada:

ii.6 Sixth Chapter: On why there was not a union of the Father, or of the Holy Spirit, or of the whole Trinity with the nature of our manhood, which was assumed by the parsopa of this worshipful dispensation, but by one of the qnome of the Trinity, that is, by God the Word, while the nature of the Godhead is one and co-essential with him.

[1] First, let us ask them: Why was there not a union of the Father, or of the Holy Spirit, or of the whole Trinity with the nature of our manhood, which was exalted and assumed for the parsopa of this worshipful dispensation, which was through our Lord Jesus Christ for the renewal and salvation of all, but by one of the qnome of the Holy Trinity, that is, by God the Word? That there was a union we have accepted and confess; and that God the Word was united (ethayyad) parsopicallyto our manhood and made it one Son with himself in one honor and authority we have believed and we hold without hesitation, without question. Again, concerning the manner¹ [of this taking], it is not for us to investigate or search out, for we have learned from the blessed Paul that the riches of Christ are unsearchable,² but that we should believe in the heart and confess with the mouth that we may be saved and justified.³ For we are children of believing Abraham through faith, concerning whom it was said, “Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.”⁴

[2] Without question this was committed to us by the Son of Thunder, who proclaimed this to the heavenly and to the earthly, and they accepted [it] without doubting: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”⁵ And after other things he said, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”⁶ How is the mind able to judge, or to investigate, or to grasp, or to interpret here, tell me? In the beginning God was with God— the Effulgence of the Father, the Image of his qnoma, Infinite from Infinite; but [also] Light from Light, God from God, Living from Living, Eternal from Eternal; the Father, utterly all of him, infinitely, and the infinite Son; and the Son, utterly all of him, in his divine nature, begotten of the Father eternally, and his Begetter not prior to him, and from the infinite Father and begotten of him and existing in him. The Father begets but is in his Son: “My Father is in me and I am in my Father.”⁷ How is his Begotten in him? How is the Father of his own Begotten in the Son? How is he with him, and eternal, and in the beginning? How is it the Son is not after his Cause qnomically, or the Father, who is the head, not qnomically before the Begotten who is from him?

[3] In the same way too what concerns the Holy Spirit moves quickly, incomprehensibly before all small minds: “He proceeds from the Father,”⁸ Infinite from Infinite, all of him in the Father, utterly all of him in the infinite Son, but they do not precede, as also they do not follow one another. And whenever the thinking of him who ventures to investigate is lifted up and hastens to understand the Father, at the same moment that he finds the Father, who was in the beginning in his eternal qnoma and in his Godhead in which there is no beginning, [he] likewise [finds] the Son, who was in the beginning with the Father eternally, like the example of radiance to a sphere, or a word to a soul, though not beginning and not ending, and the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father eternally, but does not begin in his procession, as also he does not end, the same who searches the depths of the Godhead. There is no space which separates; there is no interval which follows or precedes, and no bodily form, for God is Spirit. How is the bodiless and infinite the Begetter, Begotten, and Proceeding, but the Begetter is not the Begotten or the Proceeding, and the Begotten is not the Begetter or the Proceeding, and the Proceeding is not the Begetter or the Begotten, and these properties are not exchanged with one another, but while they are united they are distinct, and while they are distinct they are united in infinitude, not preceding one another and not following one another? If, then, these things lead to an investigation [of] their manner [of existence], how indeed can we search out the things of this dispensation without faith? For lo, all his works are indeed by faith, because not even his works are searchable, since they⁹ are from nothing, in all these different varieties which surpass numbering, along with others which have been or are to come. Why was the world not created prior to six thousand years, and why has it continued all this time and then is to be renewed? All these things we should leave to their Maker, and we should believe and stand firm as we have been commanded, and keep the commandments, so that we might be exalted in tranquil thought, without comprehension, in assurance of the hope higher than all comprehensible things. (The Book of Union of Babai the Great English Translation with Edited Syriac Text (Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity), edited by Mar Awa iii Royel, translated by Michael J. Birnie [Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2024], iv.12 Twelfth Chapter: That the “anointing” is doubly spoken of concerning the manhood of our Lord, Volume 32, pp. 71, 73; bold emphasis mine)

1 ܐܬ熏ܝܢܟܝܐ

2 Cf. Rom. 11:33.

3 Rom. 10:10.

4 Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3.

5 Jn. 1:1.

6 Jn. 1:14.

7 Jn. 14:10.

8 Jn. 15:27.

9 I.e., his works. (Ibid., pp. 70, 72)

ALLAH IS NOT THE MESSIAH: A NESTORIAN CRITICISM?

At the same time, there are places in which the Quran seems to be upholding the Christological beliefs of the so-called Nestorians.

For instance, the Muslim scripture decries those who would argue that Allah is the Messiah the son of Mary:

They are unbelievers (kafara) who say, ‘God is the Messiah, Mary’s son (Allaha huwa almaseehu ibnu maryama).’ Say: ‘Who then shall overrule God in any way if He desires to destroy the Messiah, Mary’s son, and his mother, and all those who are on earth?’ For to God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth, and all that is between them, creating what He will. God is powerful over everything. S. 5:17 Arberry

They are unbelievers (kafara) who say, ‘God is the Messiah, Mary’s son (Allaha huwa al-maseehu ibnu maryama).’ For the Messiah said, ‘Children of Israel, serve God, my Lord and your Lord. Verily whoso associates with God anything, God shall prohibit him entrance to Paradise, and his refuge shall be the Fire; and wrongdoers shall have no helpers.’ S. 5:73 Arberry

Ironically, this formulation echoes the very same criticism levelled by the “Nestorians” against Cyril of Alexandria and Chalcedonian Christians:

[4] Therefore we have made the matter clear here because of heretics who, through two arch-heresies²⁶, have spoken impiously, and have been far from the truth and from each other: The Paulinians and Photinians, the children of Jewish vipers, say impiously, “When the Holy Spirit descended upon him in baptism he acquired the anointing and Sonship like the other ‘anointed ones’ of old, and he did not possess an anointing from the union within the womb which made him Son and Lord with God the Word,” by which this one denies the Godhead of the Son. So in the same way they spoke impiously as well who ascribe suffering to God the Word, for they also breathed out destruction in two arch-vipers, belching forth their destructive impiety in open rejection and wicked blasphemy in order to deny the taking of the Head of our race who was exalted in the union. The impious Cyril and the accursed Ḥenana, the spewer of all heresies, impiously spoke in the same way, that “‘Anointed’ is said because he came to human circumstances,” and, | “The finite was from the Infinite,” {138} and “He subjected himself to a measurable state.” These [in the one group] are the fathers of those [in the other], and it is the same clear denial (kpurya)—“The Anointed One is God” and “God is the Anointed One (Alaha huyu Meshicha),” and, “These designations do not indicate anything distinctive,” and, “As there is no distinction between the Only-begotten and the First-born,” and, “The two of them designate the same thing.” Therefore these impious ones all clearly rise up against the Holy Scriptures, and bring to nought each other and perish. But the truth is preserved in holy Church, that the name “Christ” is indicative of the parsopa of the union: “From whom is Christ in the flesh, who is God over all.”²⁷ But this name also indicates that by which²⁸ he is the Head of the Church through Baptism, and the First-born from the dead, for through him also the Church obtains the name of “Christianity”²⁹, which is [the state of] “anointedness”³⁰. So too are “Only-begotten” and “First-born” together with the designations: the sense of the two designations allows for a distinction, as we have shown in the things which preceded through the strength of Christ, to whom, and to whose Father, and to the Holy Spirit belong glory, honor, worship, and exaltation for ever and ever. Amen. (Birnie, The Book of Union of Babai the Great, p. 207; bold emphasis mine)

26 ? for ܐܬ熏ܫܝܒ營ܫܪ 

27 Cf. Rom. 9:5.

28 That is, by the “anointing”…

29 ܐܬ熏ܢܝܛܣ犯ܟ

30 ܐܬ熏ܚܝܫܡ (Ibid., 206)

Babai condemns anyone who thinks that the statements “The Anointed One is God” and “God is the Anointed One” are reciprocal, and convey the same meaning. As a “Nestorian,” he would only affirm the first proposition, namely, that Christ is God, while rejecting the latter as unbiblical and contrary to a sound, proper Trinitarian theology.  

The Quran only condemns the latter part, not the former, as Muslim author Neal Robinson noted when commenting on an ancient Nestorian Christian reference dated to 550 AD:

“… The text which dates from around 550 CE. concludes a discussion of the Trinity with the words ‘The Messiah is God but God is not the Messiah’. The Qur’an echoes ONLY the latter half of the statement. C. Schedl, Muhammad and Jesus (Vienna: Herder, 1978), p. 531.” (Neal Robinson, Christ In Islam and Christianity [State University of New York Press, Albany 1991], p. 197; bold emphasis mine)

As even one noted scholar of Islam stated:

Islamic scholar George Parrinder concurs:

“To say that God is Christ is a statement not found anywhere in the New Testament or in the Christian creeds. ‘God was in Christ’, said Paul, ‘reconciling the world to himself’. (2 Cor. 5, 19) But this reconciliation through Christ is quite different from saying that God is Christ. ‘You belong to Christ, and Christ to God’, said Paul again, putting the relationship into perspective. (1 Cor. 3:23)

“But in the early Church centuries there arose heresies, such as that of Patripassianism, which so identified Christ and God as to suggest that God the Father had suffered on the cross. About A.D. 200 Noetus had taught that Christ was God the Father, and therefore that the Father himself was born and suffered and died. These views were taken to Rome by Praxeas, of whom Tertullian said that ‘he drove out prophecy and brought in heresy, he put to flight the Comforter and crucified the Father’. The orthodox teaching of the Logos, the Word or ‘Son’ of God, was a defence against such heretical teaching, though it must be admitted that writers in later ages were not always careful enough in their use of these titles.” (Geoffrey Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān [OneWorld Publishers, Oxford England, Reprinted 1996], 14. Trinity, pp. 133-134; bold emphasis mine)

It is also interesting that Babai employs the very Syriac cognate of the Arabic term kafara, namely kpurya, in describing any individual who would say that God is the Messiah.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE MUSLIMS?

As if the Syriac Christian influence upon the Quran couldn’t be any more obvious, the very expression that is used to describe a submitter to Allah, namely Muslim, can also be traced to Syriac origins!

In the Peshitta, the Syriac cognate mashlemana is employed with various shades of meaning:

“And the Pharisees and the Scribes who were from Jerusalem came unto Yeshua and they were saying: ‘Why do your disciples violate the tradition of the Elders (ayk mashlemanuta d-qashishe)? They do not wash their hands whenever they eat bread.’” Matthew 15:1-2 (https://biblehub.com/hpbt/matthew/15.htm)

“Yehuda the traitor (mashlemana – ‘the one who would surrender him’) answered and he said, “It is I, Rabbi?” Yeshua said to him, “You have said.”” Matthew 26:25 (https://biblehub.com/hpbt/matthew/26.htm)

Clearly, the theology and Christological language of Syriac Christianity have left an indelible mark on the Quran and Islamic beliefs.

FURTHER READING

Does the Quran Reject Christ’s Eternal Generation? Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3

THE PAGAN GODS ALLAH AND AHAD

AHAD: A PRE-ISLAMIC PAGAN DEITY?

“ALLAH ONE OF”: REVISITING THE ISSUE OF AHAD

ENDNOTES

(1) This quote is cited by Philip Michael Forness in Preaching and Religious Debate: Jacob of Serugh and the Promotion of his Christology in the Roman Near East (Full Text), p. 231, which can be accessed here: https://www.academia.edu/24899036/Preaching_and_Religious_Debate_Jacob_of_Serugh_and_the_Promotion_of_his_Christology_in_the_Roman_Near_East_Full_Text_.

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