Mary & Tri-unity

(P)

Mustafa Ahmed & M S M Saifullah

© Islamic Awareness, All Rights Reserved.

Last Modified: 1st September 1999

Assalamu-`alaikum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu:

The following verses in the Qur'an say about Mary(P) being the part of Trinity.

And behold! Allah will say: "O Jesus the son of Mary! Didst thou say unto men, 'Take
me and my mother for two gods beside Allah'?" He will say: "Glory to Thee! Never
could I say what I had no right (to say). Had I said such a thing thou wouldst indeed
have known it. Thou knowest what is in my heart, though I know not what in Thine.
For Thou knowest in full all that is hidden. [Qur'an 5:116]

O People of the Book! Commit no excesses in your religion: nor say of Allah aught
but the truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) a messenger from
Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him:
so believe in Allah and His Messengers. Say not "Three": desist: It will be better for
you: For Allah is One God: Glory be to Him: (Far Exalted is He) above having a son.
To Him belong all things in the heavens and on earth. And enough is Allah as a
Disposer of affairs. [Qur'an 4:171]

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Therefore, the Christian missionaries for quite sometime have been saying that
Muhammad(P) 'misunderstood' the true concept of Trinity, i.e, which says the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit constitute the trinitarian godhead.

Rev. W. St. Clair Tisdall in his book The Original Sources Of The Qur'an says under
Muhammad's Misconception Of The Doctrine Of The Trinity.

...Muhammad heard certain Christians make that there are

three Gods, that is to say God the Father, Mary, and
Jesus. It is perfectly plain from these verses that
Muhammad really did believe that the Christian doctrine
inculcated belief in three separate Divine persons, Jesus
and Mary being two of them. But our third quotation
implies that Muhammad - probably from what he had seen of
"Christian" worship - thought that the order was Jesus,
Mary, God, or Mary, Jesus, God. No reasonable man will
wonder at the indignation with which Muhammad in God's
name abjures such blasphemy. We must all feel regret that
the idolatrous worship offered to Mary led Muhammad to
believe that people who called her "Queen of Heaven" and
"Mother of God" really attributed to her Divine
attributes.[1]

After a bit of Catholic-bashing, Tisdall laments:

Had he been taught that the doctrine of the Unity of God

is the very foundation of the Christian faith, he might
have become a Christian reformer. He can never have heard
the true explanation of the doctrine of Trinity in Unity,
otherwise he would have learnt that Christian theologians
spoke of the Father not as "the Third of Three" but as
the very "Fount of Deity".[2]

It is quite clear that Tisdall is pretty much aware of the famous heresies in Arabia
during the advent of Islam. George Sale in the preliminary discourse to his translation
of The Koran writes:

But, to be more particular as to the nation we are now

writing of, Arabia was of old famous for heresies; which
might be in some measure attributed to the liberty and
independency of the tribes. Some of the Christians of
that nation believed the soul died with the body, and was
to be raised again with it at the last day: these Origen
is said to have convinced. Among the Arabs it was that
the heresies of Ebion, Beryllus, and the Nazareans, and
also that of the Collyridians, were broached, or at least

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propagated; the latter introduced the Virgin Mary for
God, or worshipped her as such offering her a sort of
twisted cake called collyris, whence the sect had its
name.

This notion of the divinity of the Virgin Mary was also

believed by some at the Council of Nice, who said there
were two gods besides the Father viz. Christ and the
virgin Mary, and were thence named Mariamites. Others
imagined her to be exempt from humanity, and deified;
which goes but little beyond the popish superstition in
calling her the complement of the Trinity, as if it were
imperfect without her. This foolish imagination is justly
condemned in the Koran as idolatrous, and gave a handle
to Mohammed to attack the Trinity itself.[3]

Commenting on verse 4:171, George Sale says:

Namely, God, Jesus and Mary. For the eastern writers

mention a sect of Christians which held the Trinity to be
composed of those three; but it is allowed that this
heresy has been long since extinct. The passage, however,
is equally levelled against the Holy Trinity, according
to the doctrine of the orthodox Christians, who, as Al
Beidawi acknowledges, believe the divine nature to
consist of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost; by the Father, understanding God's essence,
by the Son, his knowledge, and by the Holy Ghost, his
life.[4]

It is pretty clear that whether the 'Holy' Trinity composed of the Father, Jesus(P) and the
Mary(P) or the Father, Jesus(P) and the Holy Spirit are equally condemned in the Qur'an.
Any association of partners with the God is unacceptable.

Further Edward Gibbon in his book The History of The Decline & Fall Of The Roman
Empire says:

The Christians of the seventh century had insensibly

relapsed into a semblance of paganism: their public and
private vows were addressed to the relics and images that
disgraced the temples of the East: the throne of the
Almighty was darkened by the clouds of martyrs, and
saints, and angels, the objects of popular veneration;
and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished in the
fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with
the name and honours of a goddess.[5]

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So, there existed a sect in Arabia which exalted Mary(P) to goddess and included her in
the godhead along with the Father and Jesus(P).

St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia, in Cyprus, writing in the fourth century against
the Collyridians, says:

"After this a heresy appeared, which we have already

mentioned slightly by means of the letter written in
Arabia about Mary. And this heresy was again made public
in Arabia from Thrace and the upper parts of Scythia, and
was brought to our ears, which to men of understanding
will be found ridiculous and laughable. We will begin to
trace it out, and to relate concerning it. It will be
judged (to partake of) silliness rather than of sense, as
is the case with other like it. For, as formerly, out of
insolence towards Mary, those whose opinions were such
sowed hurtful ideas in the reflexions of men, so
otherwise these, leaning to the other side, fall into the
utmost harm...... For the harm is equal in both these
heresies, the one belittling the holy Virgin, the other
again glorifying her over-much. For who should it be that
teach thus but women? for the race of women is slippery,
fallible, and humble-minded...... For some women deck out
a κουτρκον that is to say, a square stool, spreading upon
it a linen cloth, on some solemn day of the year, for
some days they lay out bread, and offer it in the name of
Mary. All the women partake of the bread, as we related
in the letter to Arabia, writing partly about that......
Yea, verily, the body of Mary was holy, but was surely
not God. Verily, the Virgin was a virgin, and was
honoured, but was not given to us to worship; but she
worships Him who was born from her according to the
flesh, having come from heaven out of the Father's
bosom......" This offering and eating of cakes was
probably derived from the worship of Artemis.[6]

Apart from the misogynist comments, St. Epiphanius makes quite clear basics of the
Collyridian heresy. It is worthwhile adding that even to this day, the Catholic
Christians consider Mary(P) as the Mother of God and prayers are sent to her.

Recently, it was heard from the Christian missionaries that the Qur'an does not
condemn the 'true' Trinity, i.e., which says the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
constitute the godhead. In fact, the Qur'an itself condemns all sorts of shirk, i.e.,
associating partners with Allah. It would not matter if the Trinity was composed of
any permutations and combinations of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit or the Mary
or even Martin Luther King or Calvin or Pope. It would still be considered as

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associating partners with Allah. The above verse of the Qur'an 4:171, For Allah is
One God, is enough to refute any such bizarre argument. It is equally clear even in the
Old Testament & The New Testament that the God is one God without any partners.

Ye [are] my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye
may know and believe me, and understand that I [am] he: before me there was no God
formed, neither shall there be after me. I, [even] I, [am] the LORD; and beside me
[there is] no savior." [Isaiah 43:10-11]

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God [is] one LORD" [Deuteronomy 6:4]

"And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The
Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first
commandment." [Mark 12:29-30]

The above verses speak of themselves.

W. M. Watt ponders in his book Muhammad At Medina:

One of the remarkable features of the relationship

between Muslims and Christians is that neither Muhammad
nor any of the Companions seems to have been aware of
some of the fundamental Christian doctrines. Apart from
the reference to the crucifixion (which is primarily a
denial of Jewish claim), and the mention of the twelve
apostles as the 'helpers' of Jesus, and of the miracles
of healing and raising the dead, there is nothing in the
Qur'an about the adult life and teaching of Jesus as
recorded in the New Testament. The early Muslims gave
Jesus the title Messiah (Masih) but did not appreciate
that it involved a claim to be 'God's anointed'. They did
not understand the distinctive work of Jesus in redeeming
the world and atoning for its sins. They did not realize
that the Holy Spirit was regarded by Christians as the
third person in the Godhead. It is indeed remarkable that
there should have been among the Muslims over such a wide
area this absence of knowledge of Christianity. The blame
for this state of affairs probably rests on those
Christians with whom Muhammad and his Companions were in
contact, who may themselves have had little appreciation
of the doctrines mentioned. Nevertheless the 'absence of
knowledge' remains, and in the thirteen centuries since
Muhammad's time few Muslims have done anything to fill
the lacuna.[7]

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It is amazing that even Orientalists like Watt cannot come out of the 'true' Trinitarian
doctrine and think of the infamous Christian heresies which were in Arabia during the
advent of Islam.

Finally, it is quite clear that the doctrine of Trinity evolved and took its final shape
nearly 350 years of CE. But before that:

Christianity in the second and third centuries was in a

remarkable state of flux. To be sure, at no point in its
history has the religion constituted a monolith. But the
diverse manifestations of its first three hundred years -
whether in terms of social structures, religious
practices, or ideologies - have never been replicated.

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the realm of

theology. In the second and third centuries there were,
of course, Christians who believed in only one God;
others, however, claimed that there were two Gods; yet
others subscribed to 30, or 365, or more. Some Christians
accepted the Hebrew Scriptures as a revelation of the one
true God, the sacred possession of all believers; others
claimed that the scriptures had been inspired by an evil
deity. Some Christians believed that God had created the
world and was soon going to redeem it; others said that
God neither had created the world nor had ever had any
dealings with it. Some Christians believed that Christ
was somehow both a man and God; others said that he was a
man, but not God; others claimed that he was God but not
a man; others insisted that he was a man who had been
temporarily inhabited by God. Some Christians believed
that Christ's death had brought about the salvation of
the world; others claimed that his death had no bearing
on salvation; yet others alleged that he had never even
died.[8]

So, in conclusion, there is no point calling the modern day trinitarian Christianity as
'true' Christianity and all others as 'false' since the evolution of this doctrine itself is
very late. The early Christianity had bizarre beliefs about their doctrine as well as
their Scriptures. Moreover the Jesus(P) and early Church Fathers were utterly unaware
of this doctrine and they never practiced it. Would then the modern day 'true'
Christianity brand them as heretics?

Other Articles Related To The Historical Errors

Mary, Sister Of Aaron?

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 Al-`Aziz & Potiphar

Qur'anic Accuracy Vs. Biblical Error: The Kings & Pharaohs Of Egypt

The 'Samaritan' Error In The Qur'an

Reference

[1] Rev. W. St. Clair Tisdall, The Original Sources Of The Qur'an, 1905, Society For
The Promotion Of Christian Knowledge, London, pp. 180-181.

[2] Ibid, p. 181.

[3] George Sale, The Koran, IX Edition of 1923, J B Lippincott Company, London, p.
25.

[4] Ibid, p. 81

[5] E. Gibbon, The History of The Decline & Fall Of The Roman Empire, 1994,
Penguin Books, p. 177.

[6] C. H. H. Wright & C. Neil (Editors), A Protestant Dictionary, 1904, Hodder &
Stoughton, London, p. 390 (Under "Mary, The Virgin").

[7] W. M. Watt, Muhammad At Medina, 1956, Oxford At The Clarendon Press, p.

320.

[8] B. D. Ehrman, The Orthdox Corruption Of Scripture: The Effect Of Early

Christological Controversies On The Text Of The New Testament, 1993, Oxford
University Press, London & New York, p. 3.

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