CHRISTIANITY AND THE QUR'AN

Christian influences on the birth of Islam.

Historian Reynolds provides a sedate look into the Christian milieu of Arabia at the time of Muhammad. Though his work is densely researched and replete with academic sources, it still manages to be brief and straightforward. Reynolds explores the question of just how much influence Christianity had on Muhammad and on the formation of the Qur’an. He argues that the Christian connection is deeper and more influential than many have previously understood. Earlier scholars believed that Muhammad was exposed only to a heretical form of Christianity, but Reynolds argues this was not the case. Instead, he believes that orthodox Christianity had a strong presence in Arabia and heavily influenced the Qur’an, which is “in substance, both in its form and its content, related to the Bible and biblical traditions.” An obvious and key connection to Christianity is, of course, the presence of Jesus as a prophet within the Qur’an. In Reynolds’ view, Jesus “acts as a spokesman for the Qur’an’s theology.” Yet while Jesus is voicing a new theological viewpoint, the Qur’an also appropriates a variety of New Testament sayings and phrases, while changing their context. All of this displays the depth of influence that Christian teaching and scripture had on the Qur’an. Similarly, pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions have shown a strong monotheistic influence prior to Muhammad. The Qur’anic text itself bears further witness to the presence of Christians in the midst of the earliest Muslims. “Christianity is nowhere and everywhere in the Qur’an,” according to Reynolds. In other words, he concludes, the Qur’an can be seen as a response to Christianity in a theological sense. Readers would do well to compare this work with The Islamic Jesus by Mustafa Akyol (2017).

Reynolds assumes a certain level of knowledge in his readers, but he presents an interesting study.