Answering Christianity: Qur'an 10:94

May God guide us as we investigate this verse. I begin with a sincere intention for the sake of Allah (may He be glorified and exalted).

Let me set the scope of the question. The “previous scriptures” mentioned in 10:94 are the Torah and the Gospel, both part of the Christian Bible. The verse tells Muslims in doubt to refer to those previous scriptures for verification — so the question being asked is: since those scriptures are part of the Bible, does referring to them mean Muslims must acknowledge the divinity of Jesus, since that is what the church teaches the Bible says?

Jesus plays a pivotal role in both religions, and the core difference can be summarized simply: Trinitarian Christians believe Jesus is God and part of a Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal and one in essence. Muslims regard Jesus as a prophet, reject his divinity and the concept of a Triune God, and hold to pure monotheism, the absolute oneness of God.

We can address the question through three sub-questions: was Jesus referred to as a prophet in the Bible? Did Jesus ever claim in the Bible to be God? And did Jesus teach the absolute oneness of God, or a triune nature?

Was Jesus called a prophet in the Bible?

Yes — repeatedly, and without correction from him:

λέγει αὐτῶ ἡ γυνή, κύριε, θεωρῶ ὅτι προφήτης εἶ σύ.

“The woman said to Him, 'Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.' Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship...”

οἱ δὲ ὄχλοι ἔλεγον, οὖτός ἐστιν ὁ προφήτης ἰησοῦς ὁ ἀπὸ ναζαρὲθ τῆς γαλιλαίας.

“And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, 'Who is this?' So the multitudes said, 'This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.'”

Further instances appear in Matthew 21:11, Luke 7:16, 7:39, and 24:19, and John 6:14, 7:40, and 9:17. And when someone called Jesus “good,” he pointedly declined the title, reserving it for God alone — implying he is not God:

ὁ δὲ ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῶ, τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν; οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ θεός.

“So Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.'”

This is also recorded in Luke 18:19.

Did Jesus ever claim to be God?

There is no verse where Jesus explicitly says he is God. Some point to John 8:58’s “I am” as an echo of God’s self-naming in Exodus 3:14 — but this is not explicit, depends heavily on translation, and doesn’t sit well with Jesus’s other explicit teaching on the nature of God (below). Notably, the same Greek phrase (ἐγὼ εἰμί, “I am”) is used by the blind man in John 9:8-9, translated there as merely “I am the man” — if the translation were applied consistently, the blind man’s statement would carry the same weight, which no one suggests.

In fact, Jesus explicitly preached the absolute oneness of God:

αὕτη δέ ἐστιν ἡ αἰώνιος ζωή, ἵνα γινώσκωσιν σὲ τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν θεὸν καὶ ὃν ἀπέστειλας ἰησοῦν χριστόν.

“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Some argue this was simply Jesus humbling himself before the Father rather than a literal statement — but that requires assuming the plain statement is false, which is a large assumption to rest a doctrine on, and it still requires separate proof that Jesus elsewhere claimed to be God and that the Father is not the only true God. When Jesus was directly asked for the most important commandment, he had every opportunity to teach the Trinity to an educated scribe — and didn’t:

Ἄκουε, Ἰσραήλ, κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν κύριος εἷς ἐστιν

“Jesus answered, 'The most important is: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one... There is no other commandment greater than these.' And the scribe said to him, 'You are right, Teacher... he is one, and there is no other besides him.'”

This is not what we’d expect if Jesus intended to correct a monotheistic Jew’s understanding of God — on the contrary, it supports the Qur’an’s claim that he taught the absolute oneness of God. The Old Testament itself is full of the same claim, which is why it remains the belief of the Jews to this day:

אָֽנֹכִ֖י֙ יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֑֔יךָ אֲשֶׁ֧ר הוֹצֵאתִ֛יךָ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods upon My Face.”

שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה׀ אֶחָֽד׃

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

אֲנִ֤י יְהוָה֙ וְאֵ֣ין ע֔וֹד זוּלָתִ֖י אֵ֣ין אֱלֹהִ֑ים

“I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me.”

So does referring to the previous scriptures support the Trinity?

The context of 10:94 is the time of Moses and Pharaoh — the “previous scriptures” it points to there are principally the Torah, though the principle generalizes to the Gospel as well. And the Qur’an does explicitly affirm the Torah, the Gospel, and all the prophets before Muhammad:

إِنَّآ أَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَيْكَ كَمَآ أَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَىٰ نُوحٍ وَٱلنَّبِيِّۦنَ مِنۢ بَعْدِهِۦ

“Indeed, We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], as We revealed to Noah and the prophets after him. And We revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, the Descendants, Jesus, Job, Jonah, Aaron, and Solomon, and to David We gave the book [of Psalms].”

So the previous scriptures are indeed acknowledged. The remaining tension some Christian readers raise is this: if Muslims must ask those who read the previous scriptures, and some of them (Trinitarian Christians) say God is triune, isn’t that a contradiction with the Qur’an’s repeated, emphatic insistence that He has no partners? Not once we recognize what the verses above actually show: the Bible, read on its own terms, has Jesus calling himself neither God nor claiming divinity, and has him affirming the very oneness of God that the Qur’an teaches. The Qur’an doesn’t ask Muslims to adopt whatever any given reader of the earlier scriptures believes — it asks them to notice that the earlier scriptures, properly read, agree with it.

In summary, we Muslims believe in the God of Adam, Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all), who — according to the Bible’s own words above — is One, and to whom we should not associate partners.

Truly, Allah (may He be glorified and exalted) loves those who seek Him, and Allah knows best. Take care and Assalamu ‘Alaikum! (peace be upon you)