Much of the Quran is devoted to a single idea: Islamic monotheism. While Christianity and Judaism also affirm the doctrine of monotheism, Islam is different. The Quran spells out this idea in clear terms in Surah 6. There are no deities besides Allah alone that govern the entire cosmic order. Hence, Allah sovereignly determines who he guides on the right path and who he leads into error (6:39, 125). Also, if Allah afflicts a person, no one else can remedy it (6:17). For every prophet Allah appointed, he also appointed human and spirit enemies for the prophet (6:112). These ideas convey that Allah alone governs the universe as He sees fit. Indeed, verse 102 explicitly puts it like this:
Surah Al-Anaam, Verse 102:
ذَٰلِكُمُ اللَّهُ رَبُّكُمْ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ خَالِقُ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ فَاعْبُدُوهُ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ وَكِيلٌ
That is Allah, your Lord, there is no god but He; the Creator of all things, therefore serve Him, and He has charge of all things.
So, Allah is the creator of all things, and that implies that everything else is an ontologically inferior creature.
Because much of the Quran’s content interacts with historical Christianity, Islamic monotheism is likely a reaction against what Muhammad understood Christianity to be. Hence, Quran 6 continues:
Surah Al-Anaam, Verse 101:
بَدِيعُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ أَنَّىٰ يَكُونُ لَهُ وَلَدٌ وَلَمْ تَكُن لَّهُ صَاحِبَةٌ وَخَلَقَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ وَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ
Wonderful Originator of the heavens and the earth! How could He have a son when He has no consort, and He (Himself) created everything, and He is the Knower of all things.
Here, then, is our first avenue for exploring Islamic monotheism. This verse assumes that for Allah to have a son, he must have a consort, a wife. In other words, the Quran’s understanding of the Christian sonship language is sexual – and that is understandably repulsive. But, of course, this is not what Christians mean when they say Jesus is God’s Son. The Quran also shows awareness of why God having a son is problematic for the Islamic doctrine of monotheism. First, Quran 4 says:
Surah An-Nisa, Verse 171:
يَا أَهْلَ الْكِتَابِ لَا تَغْلُوا فِي دِينِكُمْ وَلَا تَقُولُوا عَلَى اللَّهِ إِلَّا الْحَقَّ إِنَّمَا الْمَسِيحُ عِيسَى ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ وَكَلِمَتُهُ أَلْقَاهَا إِلَىٰ مَرْيَمَ وَرُوحٌ مِّنْهُ فَآمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَلَا تَقُولُوا ثَلَاثَةٌ انتَهُوا خَيْرًا لَّكُمْ إِنَّمَا اللَّهُ إِلَٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ سُبْحَانَهُ أَن يَكُونَ لَهُ وَلَدٌ لَّهُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ وَكَفَىٰ بِاللَّهِ وَكِيلًا
O People of the Scripture, do not commit excess in your religion or say about Allah except the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah and His word which He directed to Mary and a soul [created at a command] from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers. And do not say, “Three”; desist – it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God. Exalted is He above having a son. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. And sufficient is Allah as Disposer of affairs.
The people referred to here are Christians. This verse implies that Christians known to Muhammad thought of Jesus as God. However, the verse counters this by saying that Jesus was merely a human born of a human mother. Besides, it is unthinkable for Allah to have a son, apparently because Allah does not have a wife. Quran 72 repeats the same idea:
Surah Al-Jinn, Verse 3:
وَأَنَّهُ تَعَالَىٰ جَدُّ رَبِّنَا مَا اتَّخَذَ صَاحِبَةً وَلَا وَلَدًا
And [it teaches] that exalted is the nobleness of our Lord; He has not taken a wife or a son
The idea in Quran 4:171 above that Allah owns everything communicates that Allah has no need, much like Quran 10:68 asserts, and having a son would be necessary. However, since Allah wants worshippers (often understood as Allah’s slaves) devoted to him alone, and nobody thinks this qualifies as a divine need, Allah having a son is no worse than having devoted slaves.
Second, Quran 23 provides another idea why a son would undermine Islamic monotheism:
Surah Al-Mumenoon, Verse 91:
مَا اتَّخَذَ اللَّهُ مِن وَلَدٍ وَمَا كَانَ مَعَهُ مِنْ إِلَٰهٍ إِذًا لَّذَهَبَ كُلُّ إِلَٰهٍ بِمَا خَلَقَ وَلَعَلَا بَعْضُهُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ عَمَّا يَصِفُونَ
Allah has not taken any son, nor has there ever been with Him any deity. [If there had been], then each deity would have taken what it created, and some of them would have sought to overcome others. Exalted is Allah above what they describe [concerning Him].
This verse demonstrates an understanding of the fundamental concept that if Allah were to have a son, that son would be a deity. It further adds, perhaps influenced by surrounding ideas in Muhammad’s time, that a plurality of deities would result in infighting. The idea, it seems, is that Muhammad’s audience would somehow be able to tell that no such divine fights were happening, and therefore, Islamic monotheism is true. There’s no God but Allah.
In this entry, I shall argue that the Quran indeed agrees with the Bible that God is the father of Jesus, despite the numerous verses that deny the sonship of Jesus. I shall explain exactly what the Bible means by saying God is a Father, and then show that the Quran affirms the biblical claim of how God became a Father. I understand that Muslims may continue to hold on to the explicit texts that deny the sonship of Jesus. But it would seem like the Muslim must wrestle with whether the Quran accurately critiques the Bible on this matter.
The Biblical Jesus and the Father
It first dawned on me about 10 years ago that something was weird about the labels of the Triune God. I recall speaking at a church and wondering aloud why Christians give the Holy Spirit a non-familial name, alongside the Father and the Son. “Holy Spirit” is an unusual label – “Mother” or some other familial term would be more fitting if we consider human reality. Even earlier still, while in college, I realized that whatever Christians mean by calling God the “Father” cannot be equivalent to a human father. This point should be rather obvious and non-controversial. God is a spirit (John 4:24) and, therefore, carries no phallus. To be a spirit is to be unembodied. Spirits are not gendered because they cannot be.
There are other ways God is not like a human father, too. Amy Peeler writes that God is a Father, but he is not male (2). Contrary to centuries of Christian traditions that have assumed the maleness of God, God is quite unlike a male human. God does not create as humans, male or female, procreate. God can create ex nihilo without needing preexisting material to do His creative works. Humans always need a partner to procreate. Procreation in humans is a bodily exercise, an observation that does not apply to spirits.
Besides, there is an old but inaccurate analogical idea that God is male because the male human provides the seed or energizing force leading to a pregnancy. Both ancient and modern science refute this idea. The ancients knew that both male and female humans contributed materials for procreation. Ironically, modern biology has shown that women contribute more essential materials to the proper development of children. So, that construal of maleness does not work.
Indeed, the Hebrew Bible often employs a masculine language for God. Below are a few examples:
Deuteronomy 32:6 NIV
Is this the way you repay the Lord, you foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?
Isaiah 63:16 NIV
[16] But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us; you, Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.
Psalms 68:5 NIV
[5] A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
Psalms 89:26 NIV
[26] He will call out to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Savior.’
Malachi 1:6 NIV
[6] “A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty. “It is you priests who show contempt for my name. “But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’
These uses of the Father language are generally focused on Israel’s national identity, creation, and God’s guidance of the people. As we shall soon see, this is remarkably not how the New Testament uses the language.
A notable detail is that the Hebrew Bible also employs female language quite graphically for God. Here are a few examples:
Deuteronomy 32:18 ESV
[18] You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.
Hosea 11:3-4 ESV
[3] Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. [4] I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.
Isaiah 42:14 ESV
[14] For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant.
Isaiah 49:15 ESV
[15] “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
Isaiah 66:13 ESV
[13] As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
The Hebrew Bible is not shy about using exclusive motherly language to describe Yahweh. It appears that the Hebrew Bible’s use of gendered language for God is balanced. In other words, one cannot construct a doctrine of God’s exclusive maleness from the Hebrew Bible.
How God Became a Father
So, why do Christians call God a father, then? It may be shocking, but it is true: God became a father because of Mary. Unlike the Old Testament’s use of the Father language, the New Testament consistently emphasizes that God is the Father of Jesus Christ. He is not merely the father of Israel (which is still true) or the father of creation. God in the New Testament is the father of Jesus Christ of Nazareth (e.g Matthew 3:17, 17:5, John 20:17).
This point is worth stressing. Christians refer to God as Father because this was Jesus’s preferred label for God in the Gospels. This fact is why we call God “Abba, Father” – a phrase that doubly names God as Father. Jesus introduced believers to a God who was a Father, and his followers used that language thereafter to refer to God (1 Corinthians 8:6, Romans 1:3-4, 2 Corinthians 1:3, Hebrews 1:5, 1 John 4:9, Ephesians 1:3).
The question yet remains: How exactly did God become Jesus’s Father? Theologians have spilled much ink on the eternality of God as the Father and of the sonship of Jesus. That’s not my worry here. The simple historical answer is that God became a Father through the incarnation. The gospels clearly state that Joseph did not father Jesus. They are also consistently clear that Mary was Jesus’s mother. Well, does that make Jesus a fatherless child? No. The New Testament consistently claims that God played the role of a father in the conception of Jesus. That’s what the incarnation is about.
In the Annunciation, when Gabriel came to Mary with the news of motherhood, Matthew and Luke, the two authors who include the birth narrative in their stories, make an extra effort to tell a story of a non-sexualized pregnancy. This is remarkable because both authors almost certainly were aware of stories of gods impregnating women. The Greeks had plenty of such, and Luke was a Gentile. In the improbable event that they did not know about gods messing around with women, Matthew and Luke surely have read Genesis 6. Yet they told stories of a non-sexual pregnancy.
When Gabriel arrives with the good but terrifying news, Luke depicts Mary as interrogating the angel about his news. Mary was not passive. She considered the news and ultimately decided to invest. It is vitally important that there were no threats to Mary should she reject the message of Gabriel. Indeed, she raised similar questions as John the Baptist’s father, but she received no punishment, unlike Zechariah. Mary had to be under no threats or coercion, or we would have a case of divine rape – a theme not uncommon in Greek mythology. Luke writes:
Luke 1:35 ESV
[35] And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
The Holy Spirit, an unembodied entity, will come upon, not into, Mary. Surely, Luke deliberately told the story of the most sexual of human realities, pregnancy, in a non-sexual way. The Most High played the role of a father, though not as male humans do. For that reason, the child would be called the Son of God. In other words, God became a father, first to Jesus and then to all believers. I cannot stress the point enough: God is a Father, but he is not male. He became a father because Mary was the mother of the child. No child can be born without both a father and a mother. The texts say Mary was the mother and God was the father of Jesus.
Here is a noteworthy point worth mentioning. The first woman in the Bible to name God, long before God would self-identify as Yahweh to the descendants of Abraham, was an Egyptian slave woman named Hagar, the young girl Abraham and Sarah sexually maltreated, and who would be claimed as Muhammad’s ancestor:
Genesis 16:13 ESV
[13] So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”
So, there is a biblical precedent for women naming God. What’s interesting is that Luke introduces Mary as a slave girl, too:
Luke 1:38 ESV
[38] And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
The word rendered as “servant” here refers to a female slave. True, Mary was not an enslaved person in the same social sense as Hagar was, but she, quite like Hagar, would forever determine God’s name. God became a father because of Mary. God has always accorded more worth to women than religious men have ever dared to replicate.
The Quran Agrees
As we have already seen, the Quran emphatically denies that God has a son. It gives various reasons. If Allah had a son, the son would be a deity like his father; in any case, Isa is merely a human, just as his mother was. Interestingly, the Quran affirms the immaculate conception. Yes, it misrepresents the details, but the gist survives in a recognizable form. Describing how Mary became pregnant, the Quran says:
Surah Al-Anbiya, Verse 91:
وَالَّتِي أَحْصَنَتْ فَرْجَهَا فَنَفَخْنَا فِيهَا مِن رُّوحِنَا وَجَعَلْنَاهَا وَابْنَهَا آيَةً لِّلْعَالَمِينَ
And [mention] the one who guarded her chastity, so We blew into her [garment] through Our angel [Gabriel], and We made her and her son a sign for the worlds.
The Arabic word rendered as “garment” here is the word for “vagina.” So, the Quran says Allah, through his angel, was responsible for Mary’s pregnancy.
The same idea is affirmed in another Surah:
Surah At-Tahrim, Verse 12:
وَمَرْيَمَ ابْنَتَ عِمْرَانَ الَّتِي أَحْصَنَتْ فَرْجَهَا فَنَفَخْنَا فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِنَا وَصَدَّقَتْ بِكَلِمَاتِ رَبِّهَا وَكُتُبِهِ وَكَانَتْ مِنَ الْقَانِتِينَ
And [the example of] Mary, the daughter of ‘Imran, who guarded her chastity, so We blew into [her garment] through Our angel, and she believed in the words of her Lord and His scriptures and was of the devoutly obedient.
So, with relatively minor alterations, the Quran affirms what the Bible teaches concerning Jesus’s sonship. Mary did not become pregnant naturally. Allah sent his angel to fulfill His will in the conception and birth of Jesus in a unique way that has never been repeated. This means that Allah played the role of a father in the conception of Jesus, just as the Gospels say. We may quibble about words, but Allah is the father of Isa, according to the Quran.
Work Cited
Peeler, Amy. Women and the Gender of God. Eerdmans, 2022.
