7 
Cairo ; Ulaymī, Mujīr al-Dīn Abū l-Yaman
Abd al-Ramān b. Muammad, al-Uns al-jalīl
bi-tārīkh al-Quds wa-l-Khalīl, Amman , i,
-; Wāsiī, Muammad b. Amad, Fa āil al-
bayt al-muqaddas, ed. I. Hasson, Jerusalem ;
Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf; al-Zuaylī, Wahba, al-
Tafsīr al-wajīz wa-maahu asbāb al-nuzūl wa-qawāid
al-tartīl alā hāmish al-Qurān al-karīm, Damascus
.
Secondary: H. Busse, Bāb ia. Qur
ān :
and the entry into Jerusalem, in   (),
-; id., Jerusalem in the story of Muammad’s
night journey and ascension, in   (),
-; C. Gilliot, Coran , Isrā, , dans la
recherche occidentale. De la critique des tradi-
tions du Coran comme texte, in M.A. Amir-
Moezzi (ed.), Le voyage intiatique en terre d’Islam.
Ascensions célestes et itinéraires spirituels, Paris ,
-; I. Hasson, The Muslim view of Jerusalem.
The Qur
ān and adīth, in J. Prawer and
H. Ben-Shammai (eds.), The history of Jerusalem.
The early Muslim period. -, New York ,
-; A. Kaplony, The Haram of Jerusalem
-. Temple, Friday Mosque, area of spiritual
power, Stuttgart ; A. Neuwirth, From the
Sacred Mosque to the Remote Temple. Sūrat al-
Isrā
between text and commentary, in J.D.
McAuliffe, B.D. Walfish and J.W. Goering (eds.),
With reverence for the word. Medieval scriptural exegesis
in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, New York ,
-; Paret, Kommentar; Speyer, Erzählungen.
Jest see ; 
Jesus
The first-century Jewish teacher and won-
der worker believed by Christians to be the
Son of God, he is named in the Qur
ān as
one of the prophets before Muammad
who came with a scripture (see ;
  ; 
 ). The qur
ānic form of
Jesus’ name is Īsā. It is attested twenty-five
times, often in the form Īsā b. Maryam,
Jesus son of Mary. The Qur
ān asserts that
he was a prophet and gives him the unique
title “the Messiah” (see ). It
affirms his virginal conception (see ;
 ); cites miracles which he
performed by divine permission (see
); and states that God raised him
into his presence. It probably also alludes
to his future return. It denies, however,
that he was divine (as noted, one of his
qur
ānic identifications is as the “son of
Mary”; see below for further discussion of
this title) and attaches no significance to
the cross. As traditionally interpreted by
Muslims, it also denies that he was cruci-
fied (see ).
Inventory of the qurānic Jesus material
The relevant passages are listed here in
chronological order in accordance with
Nöldeke’s classification (see 
  

). For the sake of compari-
son, the order implied by the headings of
the standard Egyptian edition of the
Qur
ān is also given (see Robinson, Discov-
ering, -). For example N ⁄E  indi-
cates that according to Nöldeke the sūra in
question was the fifty-eighth revealed but
that it was the forty-fourth according to the
standard Egyptian edition:  :-,
- (N ⁄E );  :-, -
(N ⁄E );  : (N ⁄E );
 :- (N ⁄E );  :- (N ⁄
E );  :- (N ⁄E );  :,
-, - (N ⁄E );  :-,
- (N ⁄E );  :- (N ⁄E );
 :-, -, - (N ⁄E );
 :- (N ⁄E );  :- (N ⁄
E );  :,  (N ⁄E );  :-,
-, -, - (N ⁄E );
 :- (N ⁄E ).
There is widespread agreement that the
first six passages cited above (i.e. those
down to and including  :-) were
revealed in Mecca and the others in
Medina. The chronological order, however,
is only approximate and some of the ear-
lier sūras have almost certainly been
revised. The dating of the passages in  
is particularly problematic. There is a tra-
dition that the Muslims who emigrated to
 
Abyssinia (q.v.) recited part of this sūra to
the Negus (Ibn Isāq-Guillaume, -)
which would make it quite early (see
). In any case, the reference
in  : to an angel (q.v.), ‘our spirit,’
appearing in visible form strongly suggests
that the sūra is Meccan. Moreover,  :
implies that the Prophet’s audience had
already heard an extensive revelation
about “the son of Mary” and  :
probably alludes to a specific element in
this particular version of his story (cf.
 :-).  :-, however, which has
a different rhyme from the rest of the sūra
(see     


), was almost certainly added later
and the references to “the book” ( :,
, , etc.) are probably late Meccan or
early Medinan.
The name Īsā, its origin and significance
The name “Jesus” (Īsā) occurs twenty-five
times: nine times by itself ( :; :, ,
, ; :; :; :; :) and six-
teen times in conjunction with one or more
other names or titles ( :, ; :;
:, ; :, , , , , ; :;
:; :; :, ). It was probably
absent from the original version of
 :- and it is not found in sūras 
or , but it is attested in the other twelve
sūras listed above.
The qur
ānic spelling of Jesus’ name is
strikingly different from any currently used
by Christians. The English form “Jesus” is
derived from the Latin Iesus which in turn
is based on the Greek Iēsous. It is generally
held, however, that because Jesus was a
Palestinian Jew, his original name must
have been Hebrew and that the Greek
Iēsous represents the Hebrew Yēshūa which
is an abbreviated form of Y ehōshūa (or
Y ehōshua ). The original meaning of Y ehō-
shūa was “Yahweh helps” but it was popu-
larly understood to mean, “Yahweh saves.”
When the New Testament was translated
8
from Greek into Syriac, Iēsous was ren-
dered Yēshū, although Syriac-speaking
Nestorian Christians called him Ishu. After
the rise of Islam, the gospels (q.v.) were
eventually translated from Syriac into Ara-
bic and Yeshū was rendered Yasū, which is
what Arab Christians call Jesus to this day.
The grounds for thinking that Jesus’ orig-
inal name was Yeshua are: ) The Hebrew
scriptures mention several people called
Y ehōshūa, Y ehōshua or Yēshūa, including
Moses’ successor Joshua son of Nūn whose
name is spelled in all three ways. In the
Septuagint, these names are almost invari-
ably rendered as Iēsous (Brown et al.,
Hebrew and English lexicon, ). ) By the
first century, only the short form Yēshūa
was in use. ) The New Testament refers to
Moses’ successor, Joshua, in Acts : and
Hebrews :, and in both instances it gives
his name in Greek as Iēsous. ) According
to Matthew :, an angel told Joseph in a
dream that Mary would have a son, and
added “Thou shalt call his name Jesus for
it is he who shall save his people from their
sins.” As there is no play-on-words in the
Greek, Matthew’s readers were presum-
ably familiar with the original Hebrew
name and its etymology.
Western scholars, because of their con-
viction that Jesus’ authentic Hebrew name
is Yēshūa, have been puzzled by the
Qur
ān’s reference to him as Īsā. They
have offered a number of explanations for
this apparent anomaly. One suggestion is
that y-sh-, the Hebrew consonants of
Yēshūa, have been reversed for some cryp-
tic reason to give -s-y, the Arabic conso-
nants of Īsā. Those who favor this view
note that in ancient Mesopotamia certain
divine names were written in one way and
pronounced in another; for example
EN-ZU was read ZU-EN (Michaud, Jésus,
). Scarcely more plausible is the sugges-
tion that the Jews called Jesus “Esau”
(Hebrew Esaw) out of hatred and that
 9 
Muammad learned this name from them
not realizing that it was an insult (see 
 ;   
). Admittedly, in Arabic Esau is
usually written Īsū and this might have
been changed into Īsā in order to assimi-
late it to other qur
ānic names ending in -ā.
There is no evidence, however, that the
Jews have ever called Jesus Esau. Moreover,
the Qur
ān criticizes them for insulting
Jesus’ mother ( :), and Muammad’s
many Christian acquaintances would
surely have corrected him if he had unwit-
tingly adopted a Jewish insult against Jesus
himself. A third suggestion is that Jesus’
name has been altered deliberately to
assimilate it to Mūsā (Moses, q.v.), with
whom he is sometimes paired. There may
be other examples of this phenomenon in
the Qur
ān, for instance, Saul (q.v.) and
Goliath (q.v.) are called ālūt and Jālūt,
Aaron (q.v.) and Korah (q.v.) are called
Hārūn and Qārūn. A fourth suggestion is
that, already before the rise of Islam,
Christians in Arabia may have coined the
name Īsā from one of the Syriac forms
Yeshū or Ishū. Arabic often employs an ini-
tial ayn in words borrowed from Aramaic
or Syriac and the dropping of the final
Hebrew ayin is evidenced in the form
Yisho of the “köktürkish” Manichaean
fragments from Turfan ( Jefferey, For.
vocab., ; see  ).
Although there is no irrefutable evidence
that the name Īsā was in use in pre-
Islamic times (see - 
  

), there was a monastery
in Syria which may have been known as
the Īsāniyya as early as  .. (Min-
gana, Syriac influence, ; see 
  

;  
).
While many Muslim scholars entertain
the possibility that the qur
ānic form of
Jesus’ name reflects the usage of certain
Christians in Muammad’s milieu, others
maintain that Īsā was, in fact, the original
form of Jesus’ name. Sarwat Anis al-
Assiouty ( Jésus, -) champions this
view. Among the arguments which he
adduces, the following merit consideration:
) If Jesus’ original name had been
Yēshūa, the final ayin would have been
retained in Aramaic sources which men-
tion him. In the Talmud, however, he is
called Yēshū.
) In Matthew :, the angel states that it
is Jesus himself, not Yahweh, who will save
his people. Thus, far from supporting the
derivation of Iesous from Yeshua, this bibli-
cal verse militates against it.
) Josephus used the Greek name Iēsous to
denote three people mentioned in the Bible
whose Hebrew names were not Yēshūa,
Y ehōshūa or Y ehōshua. They were Saul’s son
Yishwī (Anglicized as “Ishvi” in the RSV of
I Samuel :), the Levite Abīshūa (men-
tioned in I Chronicles :, etc.) and Yish-
wah the son of Asher (Anglicized as
“Ishva” in the RSV of Genesis :).
) Around the middle of the second cen-
tury, Justin Martyr penned his famous Dia-
logue with Trypho the Jew. Justin, a Christian
who wrote in Greek and knew no Hebrew,
argued at length that the Old Testament
story of Joshua should be interpreted typo-
logically as referring to Jesus. Under his
influence, most Christians subsequently
assumed that Jesus’ Hebrew name must
have been the same as Joshua’s.
) Jesus’ name should be derived ulti-
mately from the Hebrew verb āsā, “to do,”
which also means “to bring about” in the
sense of effecting a deliverance. This ety-
mology would make better sense of Mat-
thew : than the assumption that his
Hebrew name was Yēshūa. Moreover, in
the first centuries of the Christian era,
Nabatean pilgrims inscribed the name s
on rocks in the region of Sinai, and the
name is also found in inscriptions in south-
ern Arabia and the region between Syria
 
(q.v.) and Jordan (see  
 

).
None of al-Assiouty’s arguments is deci-
sive and some of them are unsound. The
Talmudic Yēshū may be a deliberate defor-
mation of Jesus’ name to ensure that his
memory would be blotted out. Matthew
: should be read in conjunction with
Matthew :, where Jesus is identified as
Emmanuel, “God with us”; from the evan-
gelist’s viewpoint, therefore, it would have
been entirely appropriate for his name to
mean “Yahweh saves.” Although Josephus
furnishes important evidence for the wide
variety of Hebrew names represented in
Greek by Iēsous, it is noteworthy that none
of these names begins with an ayin. Justin
Martyr elaborated the Joshua⁄Jesus typol-
ogy but he did not invent it; it was already
implicit in Hebrews :. It is true that the
Hebrew verb āsā, “to do,” can mean “to
bring about” in the sense of effecting a
deliverance. In biblical passages where it
has this latter meaning, however, the sub-
ject is invariably Yahweh (Brown et al.,
Hebrew and English lexicon, ). Moreover,
as the verb is not Aramaic and is not cer-
tainly found in south Semitic languages
(ibid., ) it is not relevant to the interpre-
tation of the pre-Islamic inscriptions which
the author mentions.
According to al-Rāghib al-I+fahānī (fl.
fifth⁄eleventh cent.), some authorities took
Īsā to be an Arabic name and derived it
from ays, “a stallion’s urine” ( Jefferey, For.
vocab., ). As urine was used to bleach
clothes, this bizarre suggestion probably
arose among interpreters who were famil-
iar with the tradition that Jesus’ disciples
were fullers. The Lisān al-Arab mentions
two other Arabic derivations: from ayas, “a
reddish whiteness,” or from aws, the verbal
noun of awasa, “to roam about.” The for-
mer should perhaps be explained in the
light of the adīth (   
10


) in which the Prophet describes
Jesus as “ruddy (amar) as if he had just
come from the bath.” The latter is proba-
bly linked with attempts to derive Jesus’
title al-Masī from masaa, “to pace” or “to
survey.” abāabā
ī (d. ) favors a tradi-
tion which derives Īsa from yaīsh, “he
lives,” because the name of Zechariah’s
(q.v.) son, Yayā ( John; see  
), likewise has this meaning, and
because in   the two births are an-
nounced in similar fashion. Nevertheless,
several classical philologists thought that
Īsā was a Hebrew or Syriac name that
had been Arabicized and this view was
endorsed by a number of classical com-
mentators (for a recent analysis in which a
misreading of the unpointed Arabic is sug-
gested, see Bellamy, Textual criticism, ;
see  ;  ;
   

).
By way of conclusion, it is worth sum-
marizing the salient features of the debate
about the origins of the qur
ānic form of
Jesus’ name. It is not certain that Jesus’
original name was Yēshūa. The view that it
was, and that it connoted that he was the
Savior, cannot be traced back to earlier
than around  .., the time when He-
brews and Matthew were written. In any
case, Īsā, the qur
ānic form of his name,
has no such connotations. The attempts to
derive that form from an Arabic root are,
however, far-fetched and show, if anything,
that it had no obvious associations for the
native speaker of Arabic. It is just possible
that Īsā was actually Jesus’ original name,
although it seems more likely that it is an
Arabicized form of the name current
among Syriac-speaking Christians as was
recognized by a number of classical
authorities. This Arabicized form may be
pre-Islamic but there is no compelling evi-
dence that it is. Nor are there grounds for
thinking that its purpose is polemical.
 11
References to Jesus as “the son of Mary” and “the
Messiah”
The expression “the son of Mary” is
attested twenty-three times. By itself, it
occurs in only two Meccan verses:  :
and  :. In the other instances, which
are all Medinan, it is invariably preceded
by “Jesus,” “the Messiah” or “the Messiah
Jesus.”
An Arabic name (ism) is often followed
by a familial attribution (nasab), “the son
of X.” Moreover, the nasab may also be
employed in isolation. Thus as regards its
position, form and employment, “the son
of Mary” resembles a nasab. In a nasab,
however, X is normally the name of the
person’s father. Very occasionally, one
encounters a nasab in which X denotes the
person’s mother; for example, “the son of
the Byzantine woman,” “the son of the
blue-eyed woman,” or “the son of the
daughter of al-Aazz” (Schimmel, Islamic
names, ). Note, however, that in these
examples X is not the mother’s name but a
nasab indicating her place of origin, a nick-
name drawing attention to one of her dis-
tinguishing features or her own nasab. This
last type of nasab is employed when the
maternal family is more distinguished than
the paternal line: for instance the Aazz in
the above-mentioned example was a vizier.
Because there is no exact parallel to the
expression “the son of Mary,” its origin
and significance are disputed. It is attested
only once in the New Testament, in Mark
:, where Jesus’ townsfolk say, “Is not this
the carpenter the son of Mary?” Some
interpreters think this biblical passage
merely implies that Mary was a widow
whereas others detect an insult: a hint that
Jesus was perhaps illegitimate. Neither
explanation suits the qur
ānic context
because Joseph is not mentioned in the
Qur
ān, and among the Arabs an illegiti-
mate child was called Ibn Abīhi, “son of

his father.” Nor need it be supposed that
the Qur
ān imitated the usage of the Ethi-
opic church ( pace Bishop, The son of
Mary) for it is unlikely that Ethiopian
Christians called Jesus “the son of Mary”
(Parrinder, Jesus, -) and although the
Qur
ān contains a number of Ethiopic
loan words they occur mostly in Medinan
sūras. In the opinion of the present writer,
during the Meccan period the expression
was used merely for ease of reference.
Bearing in mind that in the earliest refer-
ence to Jesus ( :-) the principal
character was Mary, with Jesus figuring as
her unnamed child, the brief allusions to
Jesus as Mary’s son in the subsequent reve-
lations concerning Jesus (those in   and
) are entirely understandable. In the
Medinan period, however, many of the
revelations about Jesus were concerned
with countering Christian claims about
him. Hence, the expression “the son of
Mary” took on polemical overtones; it was
an implicit reminder that Jesus is not the
son of God as the Christians allege (also,
some suggest implausibly a reflection of
Trinitarian doctrines with Mary as the
mother of God; see ). The classical
commentators do not distinguish between
the Meccan and Medinan usage. They
interpret the expression as a counter-thrust
to Christian claims but also regard it as an
honorific title because of the high status
that the Qur
ān ascribes to Mary (see
   

; ).
The term “the Messiah” (al-Masī) is
attested eleven times and is found only in
Medinan revelations. It occurs by itself
three times; followed by “the son of Mary”
five times; and followed by “Jesus the son
of Mary” three times. There can be little
doubt that it is derived ultimately from the
Hebrew Māshīa, which means “anointed”
or “Messiah.” In ancient Israel, kings and
priests were consecrated by anointing their
 
heads with oil. After the Babylonian exile,
there arose in some circles expectations
of a future ideal Davidic ruler, God’s
anointed par excellence, an eschatological
figure who would usher in an age of peace.
Whereas the Jews maintain that this Mes-
siah is yet to come, Christians claim that
Jesus had this God-given role and that he
was wrongly killed but will return in glory.
In the Greek New Testament, Messias, the
Hellenized transliteration of the Hebrew
word, occurs only twice ( John :; :).
The New Testament writers showed a
marked preference for the literal Greek
translation Christos, “Christ.” According to
one tradition, Jesus was instituted as the
Messiah when God anointed (echrisen) him
with the Holy Spirit at his baptism (Acts
:; cf. Luke :-; :-). He is, how-
ever, frequently referred to as Iēsous Christos,
“Jesus Christ,” or Christos Iēsous, “Christ
Jesus,” almost as if Christos were an addi-
tional name rather than a title.
Arabic lexicographers regarded al-Masī
as a laqab, or nickname, and attempted to
give it an Arabic etymology. Al-Fīrūzabādī
(d. ⁄) claimed to have heard no less
than fifty-six explanations of this sort
(Lane, ). Only those most frequently
encountered in the classical commentaries
will be mentioned here. It was widely held
that it was derived from the verb masaa,
which occurs five times in the Qur
ān: four
times in instructions on performing ablu-
tions by “wiping” various parts of the body
with water ( :) or clean earth ( :;
:; see   ;
 ) and once in a reference to
Solomon’s (q.v.) “stroking” his horses
( :). Most of those who took this line
thought that masī was an adjective with
the force of a passive participle and meant
“touched” or “anointed.” They variously
suggested that Jesus was given this nick-
name because he was touched by Gabriel’s
(q.v.) wing at birth to protect him from
12
Satan (see ); because he was anointed
with oil, as were all the prophets; or be-
cause he was anointed with God’s blessing
(q.v.; cf.  :). Others held that masī
was an adjective with the force of an active
participle. They claimed that he was given
the nickname because he laid hands on the
sick and healed them (see  
); or because he washed men from
their faults and sins (see ,  
). This last explanation was generally
frowned on because the Qur
ān insists on
individual responsibility and denies that a
person can count on anyone but God to
save him ( :; :; see ;
;   -
; ). Finally, there were
those who maintained that although masī
had the force of an active participle it was
derived not from masaa but from sāa, a
verb meaning to travel about in the cause
of religion ( :; see ) and hence
to be devout ( :; :; see also
). They alleged that Jesus received
this nickname because of his itinerant life-
style (see further Arnaldez, Jésus fils de
Marie, -).
The explanation why the lexicographers
exercised such ingenuity in trying to
account for the qur
ānic term, and why
they put forward such diverse explanations,
is that a laqab may be bestowed for a whole
range of reasons. There are laqabs that are
honorific titles but there are others that
merely indicate a person’s trade or physical
characteristics so as to help identify him.
Despite the prima facie plausibility of the
etymologies mentioned above, however, it
should be noted that those which seem to
indicate qualities that Jesus shared with
other prophets do not do justice to the fact
that he alone is called al-Masī in the
Qur
ān. It seems likely that the first hearers
of the revelations would have been aware
that al-Masī was a dignified title which
the Christians held was uniquely applica-
 13
ble to Jesus. Nevertheless, the qur
ānic title
does not have precisely the same connota-
tions as “Messiah” or “Christ” in the New
Testament. Several of the New Testament
writers stressed that Jesus was the Davidic
Messiah, and two of them furnished gene-
alogies tracing his “descent” from David
through Joseph, despite the fact that they
apparently believed in the virginal concep-
tion (Matthew :-, Luke :-). In the
Qur
ān, on the other hand, the link
between Jesus and David (q.v.) is tenuous
( :); Mary’s betrothal to Joseph is not
mentioned; and what is stressed is Jesus’
descent from Adam (see   )
via Noah (q.v.), Abraham (q.v.), Imrān
(q.v.) and Mary ( :-).
Jesus’ conception and infancy and the description
of him as “word” and “spirit”
In   God recounts that, while Mary was
in seclusion, he sent his spirit to her in the
form of a man who announced that,
despite being a virgin, she would conceive
a boy-child by divine decree ( :-);
that she conceived and withdrew to a
remote place where her labor pains drove
her in despair to the trunk of a palm tree
( :-; see  ); that after she
had given birth, her baby told her to
refresh herself from the ripe dates and a
stream which God had miraculously pro-
vided ( :-); and that when she
returned to her people he spoke up in her
defense ( :-).   includes a similar
account of the annunciation ( :-),
although here God’s agent is described as
“the angels.”   and  both allude to
Jesus’ speaking in the cradle ( :; :).
In the biblical version of the annuncia-
tion, God’s agent is named as Gabriel
rather than the spirit (q.v.; Luke :).
Some Christians, however, may have
regarded them as identical on the basis of
Tatian’s gospel harmony, the Diatesseron, in
which Luke’s account of the annunciation

is followed immediately by Matthew’s
report of how Mary was found to be with
child by the Holy Spirit. The miracle of
the palm tree and the stream is mentioned
in the Latin Gospel of pseudo-Matthew; and,
according to the Arabic infancy gospel Jesus
spoke while still a child in the cradle.
Although these two apocryphal writings
post-date the rise of Islam, Christians in
Muammad’s audience were probably
familiar with the episodes to which they
refer. The Qur
ān’s reference to Mary’s
labor pains, on the other hand, may have
been intended to counter the Christian
belief in Jesus’ divinity and Mary’s perpe-
tual virginity.
Most commentators identify the spirit
who was sent to Mary as Gabriel, on the
grounds that both designations appear to
be used interchangeably elsewhere for the
revelatory angel ( :; :; :; see
  ). Gerock
(Versuch, -) claims that the Qur
ān
regards Gabriel as Jesus’ father. This inter-
pretation can be ruled out because the
Qur
ān defends Mary against the charge
of unchastity ( :; see ),
although some of the classical commenta-
tors suggest that the effect of Gabriel’s
sudden appearance in human form was
to arouse Mary’s desire, as in an erotic
dream, and thereby facilitate the descent of
the maternal fluid into her womb (Robin-
son, Christ, , ).
In  :, God states that he set the son
of Mary and his mother as a sign (see
) and that he sheltered them on a hill-
top “where there was both a cool place and
a spring” (dhāti qarārin wa-maīnin). The sug-
gestion made by some Christian authors
that this is an allusion to the assumption of
Mary which allegedly took place on a hill
in Ephesus, is wide of the mark. The verse
seems rather to refer back to the circum-
stances surrounding Jesus’ birth, which
were mentioned in   where Mary was
 
instructed to drink from a stream that
appeared miraculously ( :-; see
  ). There is even a
verbal echo of the infant Jesus’ words to
her, “refresh yourself,” literally “cool your
eye” (qarrī aynan,  :). Other verses in
  deny that God has taken a son
( :) and warn against appealing to
another deity beside him ( :). It is
clear therefore that neither Jesus nor Mary
is to be regarded as a divine being. To-
gether, however, they constitute a “sign:”
probably a reference to the virginal con-
ception, which, like the miraculous cre-
ation (q.v.) of the first man, points to
God’s power to raise the dead (compare
 :-; see    ;
     
 ).
 :- alludes to Mary and her son
without naming them. Here, too, they are
said to constitute a sign. The only new ele-
ment is God’s statement that she “guarded
her chastity ( farjahā, literally, her opening)
so we breathed into her ( fīhā) of our spirit”
( :). An almost identical statement
occurs in  :, the only difference being
that there God says that he breathed “into
it” ( fīhi), “it” presumably being Mary’s farj.
In both instances, the probable reference is
to God’s creating life in her womb without
her having sexual intercourse. Similar lan-
guage is used elsewhere to describe how he
gave life to the first man ( :; :;
:). Some of the classical commenta-
tors, however, assumed that “our spirit” in
 : and : denoted Gabriel, as in
 :. They therefore reasoned that
Mary literally “guarded her opening” from
Gabriel on the specific occasion of the
annunciation and debated whether the ref-
erence was to her vulva (the usual meaning
of farj) or to an aperture in her clothing.
They cited reports alleging that she con-
ceived after he blew up her skirt, down the
14
neck of her chemise, into her sleeve or into
her mouth (Robinson, Fakhr al-Dīn, ).
There are two Medinan verses which
clearly state that Jesus is God’s word (see
  ), namely  : and  :.
Moreover, it is sometimes held that  :
and : (a Medinan passage in  ) also
imply this. As the context of these verses is
Jesus’ conception, birth and infancy, it is
appropriate to discuss them at this point.
Christian apologists often argue that they
echo the teaching of John’s Gospel, which
states that God’s divine Word (logos), which
was with him in the beginning and through
whom he created all things, became flesh
in Jesus Christ ( John :-). We shall see,
however, that although the Qur
ān calls
Jesus “a word from God” it does not
endorse the orthodox Christian view that
he was the incarnation of a pre-existent
divine hypostasis.
 : recalls that the angels announced
to Zechariah the good news (q.v.) of the
forthcoming birth of John, who would
“confirm the truth of a word from God.”
Arabic does not distinguish between upper
and lower case letters, but as kalima lacks
the definite article it should probably be
rendered “word” rather than “Word.” The
classical commentators generally assumed
that the “word” in question was Jesus.
They cited a number of traditions in sup-
port of this, including one from Ibn
Abbās, which relates how John bowed
down in reverence before Jesus when they
were both babes in their mothers’ wombs.
Although some of the early philologists
argued that in this context kalima denotes a
“book” or “scripture,” the traditional inter-
pretation is preferable in view of  :,
which recalls how the angels told Mary:
“God announces to you good news of a
word from him; his name will be the Mes-
siah Jesus son of Mary….” Here kalima
clearly refers to Jesus and, as the annuncia-
 15
tion to Mary is the structural homologue of
the earlier annunciation to Zechariah, it
seems likely that kalima refers to Jesus there
as well. Nevertheless, it should be noted
that, whereas kalima is a feminine noun, the
pronominal suffix attached to “name” is
masculine. Thus the name “the Messiah
Jesus son of Mary” is attributed to the
male person indicated by the word, rather
than to the word itself. Elsewhere in the
Qur
ān kalima usually denotes a divine
decree, and this seems also to be the case
here. The classical commentators argued
convincingly that Jesus is called a “word”
primarily because, as was also the case
with Adam, God brought him into exist-
ence merely by uttering the command
“Be!” as is stated a few verses later in
 : (see ).
 : is more overtly polemical. The
People of the Book (q.v.) are ordered not to
exaggerate in their religion and to speak
nothing except the truth about God. The
Messiah Jesus son of Mary was only God’s
envoy (see ) and “his word
which he cast unto Mary” and a spirit from
him. Here, Jesus and the “word” are even
more closely associated because the verb
“cast” is followed by the redundant femi-
nine object pronoun. Nevertheless, as there
is no suggestion that Jesus was God’s sole
envoy and, as “spirit” is indefinite, “his
word” should probably be construed as “a
word of his,” without any implication of
uniqueness. In any case, the polemical con-
text and the insistence that Jesus is only an
envoy, word and spirit, should caution
Christian apologists from interpreting
kalima in the light of orthodox Christian
logos theology.
 : contains the word qawl, which
can mean either “word” or “statement.”
Two of the seven readers (see  
 

), Ā+im in Kūfa and Ibn Āmir
in Damascus, vocalized the crucial expres-

sion as qawla l-aqqi, giving qawl an accusa-
tive ending. This is the reading found in
Flügel’s text and in the standard Egyptian
edition of the Qur
ān, which are the basis
of most English translations. If it is
accepted, the expression introduces an
exclamation and the verse should be ren-
dered: “That is Jesus son of Mary — state-
ment of the truth concerning which they
are in doubt!” In which case, “statement of
the truth” simply refers to the previous
story and has no bearing on the qur
ānic
teaching about Jesus as a word from God.
The other five readers, however, favored
qawlu l-aqqi, with qawl in the nominative.
This reading, which may well be the more
original, can be construed in two ways:
either as the predicate of a sentence whose
subject has been omitted, namely “[It is] a
statement of the truth” or as a nominal
phrase in apposition to Jesus, namely
“Word of Truth.” In view of the fact that
this verse is part of a highly polemical
Medinan addition to the sūra and that the
next verse denies that God has taken a son,
the former interpretation seems the more
probable.
The understanding of Jesus as God’s
word in the minimalist sense that he was
brought into existence by God’s command
is in line with the teaching of the Nestorian
Christians (O’Shaugnessy, Word, ) as is
the Qur
ān’s stress on the similarity of the
virginal conception and the creation of
Adam (Robinson, Christ, -). The state-
ment that he was both a word and a
“spirit” (rū) from God ( :) is more
difficult to interpret in view of the range of
meanings ascribed to spirit in the Qur
ān.
It may, however, reflect a thought-world
akin to that of Psalm :, where God’s
creative word and breath (Hebrew rūach)
are treated as synonyms because an utter-
ance is invariably accompanied by out-
breathing.
 
His status and mission
The Qur
ān emphatically denies that Jesus
was God, a subsidiary deity or the son of
God (e.g.  :, , ; :; see -
  ). He was merely a
“servant” (q.v.) of God ( :; :;
:) and was required to pray and to pay
alms (zakāt,  :; see ;
). He and his mother needed to eat
food ( :; see   ) and
God could destroy them both if he wished
( :). He was nonetheless a “mercy (q.v.)
from God” ( :), a “prophet” (nabī,
 :) and an “envoy” (rasūl,  :, ;
:; :, :), “eminent” in this world
and the hereafter (see ) and
“one of those brought near” ( :).
Although Jesus was a sign for humanity as
a whole ( :), his specific mission was
to the Children of Israel (q.v.; e.g.  :;
:). God taught him the Torah (q.v.)
and the Gospel ( :; :) and sup-
ported him with the Holy Spirit ( :,
; :) — possibly an allusion to his
baptism (q.v.) but most commentators
assume that the reference is to Gabriel.
Jesus attested the truth of what was in the
Torah ( :; :; :); made lawful
some of the things that were forbidden to
the Children of Israel in his day ( :;
see   ; );
clarified some of the things that they dis-
agreed about ( :); and urged them to
worship God alone (e.g.  :). Like
David before him, he cursed those of his
people who disbelieved ( :).
He is credited with a number of miracles
including creating birds from clay; healing
a blind person and a leper; raising the
dead; and telling the Children of Israel
what they ate and what they stored in their
houses ( :; :). The miracle of the
birds is mentioned in the apocryphal
Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and the healings
and resuscitations correspond to those nar-
rated in the canonical gospels. From the
16
qur
ānic perspective, however, none of
these miracles implies that he possessed
divine status or supernatural power; they
were simply God-given signs of the
authenticity of his mission, “clear proofs”
which the unbelievers nevertheless dis-
missed as sorcery ( :; :; see ;
  ).
A further miracle attributed to Jesus is
that, at the request of his disciples, he
asked God to send down “a table (q.v.)
spread with food” ( :-). The Arabic
word translated by this phrase is māida.
The lexicographers derived it from the
verb māda, “to feed,” but it is probably an
Ethiopic loanword for it resembles the
term used by Abyssinian Christians to
denote the eucharistic table. Moreover, as
Jesus speaks of the table as a “festival” for
his disciples, there can be little doubt that
the episode describes the institution of the
Eucharist at the Last Supper; but, in ac-
cordance with traditional Christian typol-
ogy, it appears to have conflated the Last
Supper with the gospel feeding miracles
and the Hebrew Bible story of how God
sent down manna to the Israelites in the
wilderness. Although the Qur
ān seems at
this point to acknowledge the legitimacy of
a specifically Christian ritual that origi-
nated with Jesus, the next verse makes
clear that Jesus did not instruct people to
worship him and his mother ( :).
Moreover, the ritual is not linked with
Jesus’ atoning death. On the contrary, as
God punishes whom he wills and forgives
whom he wills, there can be no question
of the participants enjoying a special sta-
tus or gaining immunity from punish-
ment ( :, ; see  
).
The Qur
ān recognizes that God granted
special favors to some of the envoys who
preceded Muammad, in the case of Jesus
by supporting him with the Holy Spirit
and enabling him to perform miracles
 17
( :). Moreover, it singles out Noah,
Abraham, Moses and Jesus as prophets
with whom God established a strong cove-
nant (q.v.;  :; compare :). It urges
the Muslims, however, to believe in all of
God’s envoys and not make a distinction
between them ( :, ; :; :)
because they all taught essentially the
same religion. Thus Jesus’ name also fig-
ures in more extensive lists of messengers
( :; :-).
From the qur
ānic perspective, like the
other envoys, Jesus was a precursor of
Muammad. This is underscored in three
ways. First, Jesus and Muammad are
depicted as having had similar experi-
ences. For instance, both were sent as a
“mercy,” both needed to eat food, both
had “helpers” (anār, see ;
  ) and both were
suspected of sorcery (Robinson, Christ,
-; see ; ; ).
Second, God informs Muammad that he
has inspired him in the same way as he
inspired his predecessors including Jesus
( :; :). Third, Jesus is said to have
foretold the coming of an envoy called
Amad ( :), the heavenly name of
Muammad.
The plot to kill him, his exaltation and future
descent
According to Islamic tradition, when the
Jews sought to kill Jesus, God outwitted
them by projecting his likeness onto some-
one else whom they mistakenly crucified.
Meanwhile, he caused Jesus to ascend to
the second or third heaven (see 
 ), where he is still alive. Jesus will
return to kill the Antichrist (q.v.), and after
a forty-year reign of peace he will even-
tually die and be buried in Medina (see
). On the day of resurrection
(q.v.), he will be a witness against the unbe-
lieving People of the Book. It is question-
able whether the qur
ānic data provides

sufficiently solid foundations to bear the
weight of this construction.
In   the child Jesus speaks of the day
of his birth, the day he will die, and the
day he will be raised alive ( :). From
the similar statement about John ( :),
and from subsequent verses that deal with
eschatology ( :-, ), it has been
inferred that Jesus will be raised alive at the
general resurrection. There is not the
slightest hint, however, that his death also
lies in the future. On the contrary, given
only this sūra, the assumption would be
that it already lay in the past like John’s.
  includes the cryptic assertion that
“he” or “it” (the pronominal suffix -hu
could mean either) is “knowledge for the
hour” ( :). The classical commenta-
tors mention three traditional interpreta-
tions: (i) Jesus’ future descent is a portent
which will signal that the hour is approach-
ing, (ii) the Qur
ān imparts knowledge con-
cerning the resurrection and judgment (see
 ), and (iii) Jesus’ raising of
the dead by divine permission brings
knowledge that God has the power to raise
the dead (Robinson, Christ, -). Instead
of ilm, “knowledge,” Ibn Abbās (d. ca.
⁄), Qatāda (d. ca. ⁄), and
al- aāk (d. ⁄) allegedly read alam,
“sign, distinguishing mark,” which would
strengthen the case for the first interpreta-
tion, whereas Ubayy (see  
 ) allegedly read dhikr,
“reminder,” which would seem to lend
weight to the second (see   


:   ). As
Jesus is the subject of verse  and verse
, it is probably he, rather than the
Qur
ān, who is the subject of verse .
Additionally, in view of the predominant
concern with eschatology in verses -, it
seems likely that verse  alludes to Jesus’
future descent rather than to his miracu-
lous raising of the dead. Nevertheless,
there is nothing to indicate that his future
 
descent requires him to have been spared
death on the cross.
  contains two consecutive verses which
have a bearing on this topic. First there is a
reference to Jesus’ unbelieving opponents,
“And they plotted and God plotted, and
God is the best of plotters” ( :). This is
followed by a statement about what God
said to him, “When God said, ‘Jesus, I am
going to receive you and raise you to
myself…’ ” ( :). Muslim commentators
usually assume that both verses refer to the
same incident, namely the Jews’ plot
against Jesus’ life and God’s counter-plot to
rescue him by having them crucify a look-
alike substitute. Although there may be a
close link between the two verses, the stac-
cato nature of much qur
ānic narrative
should be a caution against supposing that
this is necessarily the case. Therefore each
verse will be considered in turn.
The verb makara, “to plot, plan or
scheme,” and its derivatives, occur in thir-
teen sūras spanning Nöldeke’s second and
third Meccan periods, and in   and 
which are Medinan. When human beings
are the subject of this verb, they are usu-
ally unbelievers who plot against specific
envoys of God including Noah ( :),
āli (q.v.;  :), Moses ( :), and
Muammad ( :; :), or against
God’s signs ( :) thereby hindering
others from believing ( :). When God
is the subject of the verb, the reference is
invariably to his counter-plot, but the
emphasis may be on his rescue of the
envoy ( :; see ), the imme-
diate punishment of the unbelievers
( :, : f.; see  
;  ), the
recording of their misdeeds ( :; see
   ) or their even-
tual punishment in the hereafter ( :).
Hence, in  : the unbelievers’ plot
could have been an attempt on Jesus’
18
life — either the final plot to kill him or
one which took place earlier in his ministry
(see  :, compare Luke : and John
:) — or an attempt to subvert his mes-
sage. God’s counter-plot could have
entailed his rescue of Jesus, but it might
equally well have been his punishment of
the Jews by destroying Jerusalem (q.v.), or
his preservation of Jesus’ monotheistic
teaching. It is true that Noah, āli and
Moses were all rescued by God and that
the Qur
ān warns against thinking that he
would fail his envoys ( :), which seems
to strengthen the case for thinking that
 : implies that Jesus was delivered
from death. On the other hand, the same
sūra explicitly mentions the possibility of
Muammad dying or being killed ( :)
and states that the Muslims who were
killed at Uud (see  
; ; 
) are not dead
but “alive with their lord” ( :). Thus
Jesus’ death, ostensibly at the hands of his
enemies, cannot be ruled out on the basis
of  :.
The interpretation of  : hinges on the
meaning of the present participle of the
verb tawaffā (Robinson, Christ, -),
which was rendered above as “going to
receive.” The finite verb is attested twenty-
two times and the imperative three times.
When God is the subject it can mean to
receive souls in their sleep (q.v.;  :;
:) but it more frequently means “cause
to die.” As this latter meaning is attested in
 : and as the Qur
ān uses the verb in
other sūras when speaking about Muam-
mad’s death ( :; :; :), there is
a prima facie case for construing God’s
words to Jesus to mean that he was going
to cause him to die and raise him into his
presence. Most of the classical commenta-
tors, however, took them to mean that he
would cause Jesus to sleep and to ascend in
that condition or that he would snatch him
 19
alive from the earth. The minority, who
conceded that the participle does mean
“cause to die,” nevertheless denied that
Jesus was crucified. Some of them argued
that the order of the verbs is inverted for
stylistic reasons and that, although God
has already caused Jesus to ascend, his
death still lies in the future. Others held
that God caused him to die a normal
death, while his substitute was being cruci-
fied, and that he then caused him to
ascend.
In  , the Jews are criticized for boasting
that they killed Jesus ( :-). The inter-
pretation of this passage poses a number of
problems (Robinson, Christ, -, -,
-). First, there is the statement, “They
did not kill him or crucify him.” Tradition-
ally, Muslim interpreters have held that this
is a categorical denial of Jesus’ death by
crucifixion. It may simply mean, however,
that although the Jews thought that they
had killed Jesus, Muslims should not think
of him as dead because, from the qur
ānic
perspective, he is alive with God like the
martyrs of Uud ( :, see above; see
).
The second problem centers on the
clause wa-lākin shubbiha lahum ( :).
Most of the classical commentators under-
stood it to mean “but he [i.e. the person
whom they killed] was made to resemble
[ Jesus] for them.” In support of this they
cited traditional accounts of how God pro-
jected Jesus’ likeness (Arabic shibh) onto
someone else. These accounts, however,
are unreliable for they differ over the iden-
tity of the person in question, some saying
that he was a loyal disciple of Jesus who
volunteered to die in his place, others that
he was Judas Iscariot or one of the men
sent to arrest Jesus. The non-standard
interpretation that regards the verb as
impersonal and construes the clause as
“but it was made to seem like that to them”

avoids the need to identify any person onto
whom Jesus’ identity was projected.
A third problem is posed by the words
“God raised him to himself ” ( :). The
verb is rafaa (compare the use of the parti-
ciple rāfi in the similar context in  :).
The classical commentators invariably
took it to mean that God caused Jesus to
ascend bodily into the second or third
heaven where Muammad allegedly saw
him on the night of the mirāj (see -
). It is arguable, however, that it is
simply a graphic way of saying that God
honored him, for elsewhere the same verb
is used to denote God’s raising envoys in
rank (e.g.  :), his exalting Muam-
mad’s reputation ( :) and the ascent of
good works into his presence ( :; see
 ).
The final problem is the ambiguity of the
words “his death” in  :. The classical
commentators mentioned two principal
interpretations: either it refers to the death
of each individual Jew and Christian,
because immediately before their death
they will recognize the truth about Jesus, or
it refers to Jesus’ death, because he is still
alive and all the People of the Book will
believe in him when he descends to kill the
Antichrist. A good case can be made for
the former interpretation on syntactical
grounds, for the whole sentence constitutes
an oath used as a threat (see 
    

). Moreover, the
reading “their death,” which is attributed
to Ubayy, supports this interpretation.
Owing to the influence of the adīths
about Jesus’ future descent, however, the
view that the verse referred to Jesus’ death
gained widespread support.
The assertion that Jesus will be a witness
against the People of the Book ( :) is
unproblematic and accords with the
qur
ānic teaching that God will raise a wit-
ness against every community ( :).
 
In  :, Jesus says to God, “I was a wit-
ness over them while I dwelt among them,
and when you received me you were the
watcher over them.” The word rendered
‘you received’ is the first person plural per-
fect of tawaffā, a verb whose meaning was
discussed earlier in connection with  :.
It most probably refers here to Jesus’ death
or rapture before his exaltation, which
already lies in the past. As the statement
occurs, however, in a conversation that will
take place on the last day, it is just con-
ceivable that it refers to Jesus’ future death
after his descent to kill the Antichrist.
From the above analysis, it should be
obvious that the qur
ānic teaching about
Jesus’ death is not entirely clear-cut. Three
things, however, may be said with certainty.
First, the Qur
ān attaches no salvific im-
portance to his death. Second, it does not
mention his resurrection on the third day
and has no need of it as proof of God’s
power to raise the dead. Third, although
the Jews thought that they had killed Jesus,
from God’s viewpoint they did not kill or
crucify him. Beyond this is the realm of
speculation. The classical commentators
generally began with the questionable
premise that  :- contains an unam-
biguous denial of Jesus’ death by crucifix-
ion. They found confirmation of this in
the existence of traditional reports about a
look-alike substitute and adīths about
Jesus’ future descent. Then they inter-
preted the other qur
ānic references to
Jesus’ death in the light of their under-
standing of this one passage. If, however,
the other passages are examined without
presupposition and  :- is then inter-
preted in the light of them, it can be read
as a denial of the ultimate reality of Jesus’
death rather than a categorical denial that
he died. The traditional reports about the
crucifixion of a look-alike substitute proba-
bly originated in circles in contact with
20
Gnostic Christians. They may also owe
something to early Shīī speculation about
the fate of the Imāms (see 
; 
  

).
Neal Robinson
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al-Qāshānī’s comments on Sura , in Islamo-
christiana  (), -; id., Christ in Islam and
Christianity, Albany ; id., Christian and
Muslim perspectives on Jesus in the Qur
ān, in
A. Linzey and P. Wexler (eds.), Fundamentalism and
tolerance. An agenda for theology and society, London
, -, -; id., Covenant, communal
boundaries and forgiveness in Sūrat al-Mā
ida,
in Journal of quranic studies (forthcoming); id.,
Creating birds from clay. A miracle of Jesus in
the Qur
ān and in classical Muslim exegesis, in
  (), -; id., Discovering the Qurān. A
contemporary approach to a veiled text, London ;
id., Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and the virginal con-
ception, in Islamochristiana  (), -; id.,
Hands outstretched. Towards a re-reading of
Sūrat al-Mā
ida, in Journal of quranic studies 
(), -; id., Jesus and Mary in the Qur
ān.
Some neglected affinities, in Religion  (),
-; id., The qur
ānic Jesus, the Jesus of
history, and the myth of God incarnate, in V.S.
Sugirtharaja, Frances Young Festschrift (forth-
coming); id., The structure and interpretation of
Sūrat al-Mu
minūn, in Journal of quranic studies 
(), -; J. Robson, Christ in Islam, London
; M.P. Roncaglia, Éléments Ébionites et
Elkésaïtes dans le Coran, in Proche orient chrétien 
(), -;  = The Bible, revised standard ver-
sion, London ; E. Sayous, Jésus-Christ d’après
Mahomet, Paris and Leipzig ; C. Schedl,
Muhammad und Jesus, Vienna ; A. Schimmel,
Islamic names, Edinburgh ; id., Jesus und Maria
in der Islamischen Mystik, Munich ; O.H.
Schumann, Der Christus der Muslime, Gütersloh
; J.S. Trimingham, Christianity among the Arabs
in pre-Islamic times, London ; R.C. Zaehner,
At sundry times, London ; A.H.M. Zahniser,
The forms of tawaffā in the Qur
ān. A con-
tribution to Christian-Muslim dialogue, in  
(), -; S.M. Zwemer, The Moslem Christ,
Edinburgh .
  
Jewels and Gems see 
 
Jews and Judaism
Terminology
The Arabic term denoting “Jews” is yahūd,
which occurs seven times in the Qur
ān.
The form hūd also denotes the same and
appears in this sense three times. The sin-
gular, yahūdī, occurs once. From yahūd⁄hūd
was derived the secondary verb hāda, which
means “to be a Jew⁄Jewish.” “Those who
were Jews” (hādū) is mentioned ten times.
This verb appears once with the comple-
mentary ilā ( :), in which case it
denotes “to return to.” It is put into the
mouth of Moses (q.v.), who says to God:
“We have returned (hudnā) to you.” Obvi-
ously, this is a play on yahūd, on behalf of
whom Moses is speaking here (see Paret,
Kommentar, ad  :). Outside the Qur
ān
the transitive hawwada is used in the sense
of “he made him a Jew.” The form yahū-
diyya, which denotes “Judaism,” or “the
Jewish religion,” is also non-qur
ānic (cf.
Lane, s.v. h-w-d). In addition to yahūd and
its derivatives, the Qur
ān addresses the
Jews as “Children of Israel” (q.v.), which
alludes to their ancestral origin. Some-
times the Christians (see  
), too, are included in this
designation. The Jews are called by this
appellation to imply that the fate of the
old Children of Israel is continued through
their descendants. Apart from the ethnic
designations, the Qur
ān addresses the
Jews as “People of the Book” (q.v.). This is
a religious evaluation of them, and refers
to the fact that they had prophets sent to
them with revealed scriptures (see ;
  ). The
Jews are not the only community with a
revealed book.  : mentions two par-