Islam
What Muslims believe
Islam is an Arabic word meaning submission: submission to the one God, called Allah in Arabic (the same word Arabic-speaking Christians use for God). Its followers, Muslims, believe God revealed his will finally and completely to the prophet Muhammad in the seventh century AD, and that the record of that revelation, the Qur'an, corrects and completes the earlier scriptures. Muslims honour the Torah of Moses, the Psalms of David and the Gospel of Jesus as originally given by God, while teaching that their texts were corrupted in transmission over the centuries.
Five practices carry the weight of Muslim devotion, and most Muslims will name them the same way. The Shahada, the declaration that there is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger. Salah, ritual prayer five times a day. Zakat, obligatory giving for the poor. Sawm, the fast through the month of Ramadan. And Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, required once in a lifetime of those who are able. Alongside these stands a real moral seriousness: charity, family duty, modesty and reverence for God are not decoration in Islam. They are the substance of it.
Jesus, called Isa, holds a high place. Muslims believe he was born of the virgin Mary, that he performed miracles, that he was a prophet and messenger of God, and that he will return at the end of history. What Islam denies is the centre of the Christian claim: that Jesus is the Son of God, and that he was crucified. The Qur'an (4:157) teaches that he was not killed on the cross but that it was made to appear so. Salvation in Islam rests on submission, obedience and the mercy of God, who weighs a person's deeds; assurance of paradise is generally not claimed in this life.
Key differences with Scripture
Who God is
Both faiths confess one God; the difference is who that one God is. Islam teaches that God is a single person, and regards the Trinity as a denial of his oneness. The Bible confesses one God (Deuteronomy 6:4) and also that the Word who was with God, and was God, became flesh. Christians do not worship three gods. We worship one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, because that is how God has shown himself in Scripture.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.
Deuteronomy 6:4 (BSB)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1 (BSB)
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form.
Colossians 2:9 (BSB)
Who Jesus is
Islam honours Jesus as a prophet. The Bible names him the eternal Son of God, God in the flesh. This is the difference everything else hangs on, and John states its weight plainly: whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. There is no shared middle position here, and honesty requires saying so kindly and clearly.
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 (BSB)
Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son.
1 John 2:22 (BSB)
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.
1 John 2:23 (BSB)
The cross
Islam teaches that Jesus was not crucified. Christianity stands on the cross: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and was raised on the third day. Remove the cross and there is no gospel left to discuss, which is why this difference cannot be blurred by either side.
But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5 (BSB)
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
1 Corinthians 15:3 (BSB)
In plain words
Paul is handing on what was handed to him. This is not his private idea; it is the heart of the faith, and its first item is that Christ died for our sins, exactly as the Scriptures said he would.
Context · Received, and passed on
Paul uses the language of receiving and delivering something fixed, the same words he uses for the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23. Verses 3 to 8 read as a short summary the church already confessed: Christ died, he was buried, he was raised, he appeared. Paul is quoting the faith, not inventing it.
that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
1 Corinthians 15:4 (BSB)
In plain words
Because he truly died, he was buried. And he truly rose, on the third day, as the Scriptures said he would.
See also · On the third day
Paul does not name the passages here. Jesus himself spoke of the three days by the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:40), and Hosea 6:2 speaks of being raised up on the third day.
How a person is made right with God
In Islam, acceptance rests on God's mercy toward a life of obedience, prayer and good deeds, with the outcome finally uncertain. In the gospel, God himself bears the sin: the LORD has laid on Christ the iniquity of us all, and whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, present tense, as a gift. Paul warns that even an angel preaching a different message is to be rejected. The difference is not emphasis. It is the message itself.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16 (BSB)
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a curse!
Galatians 1:8 (BSB)
We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:6 (BSB)
Questions Muslims ask
“Hasn't the Bible been corrupted over the years?”
Muslims are taught that the Bible was corrupted over time, a teaching called tahrif. Christians answer from the record itself: the biblical text is carried by an unusually large and early manuscript tradition across many languages, the message is consistent from the earliest copies to the latest, and no Christian doctrine rests on a single disputed line. Worth adding, gently: the Qur'an speaks of the Torah and the Gospel as God's books and tells its readers to judge by them, which is hard to square with the claim that those books were already lost. Then open one. The best reply to a claim about the Bible is the Bible, read together.
“How can God have a Son? Does God have a wife?”
"Son of God" is a title about nature, not biology. Christians do not believe God took a wife. We believe the Son is eternal, with the Father before all worlds, and that "Son" names who Jesus is in himself: the Word who was God, made flesh. The phrase offends because it is heard physically. Explained from John 1, it usually still divides, but it stops confusing.
“Why do Christians worship three gods?”
We don't, and the confession starts where Islam starts: God is one. Deuteronomy 6:4 is prayed by Christians as well as Jews and affirmed by the creed. The difference is that the one God has revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons in one being, not three beings. That is a mystery, but it is not arithmetic gone wrong, and it comes from the Bible's own words about Jesus and the Spirit, not from later invention.
“Why did Jesus have to die? Can't God simply forgive?”
Because forgiveness that costs nothing is not justice, and God is just. A judge who simply waved every crime away would not be good. At the cross God's justice and his love meet: sin is punished, and the sinner is offered pardon, because the punishment fell on Christ in our place. "He was pierced for our transgressions." Muslims feel the weight of this question because Islam also takes God's holiness seriously. The disagreement is not whether God is merciful. It is whether mercy and justice can both be fully true at once. The cross is the Christian answer.
How to respond
Listen first, and let your friend describe his own faith before you describe yours. Most Muslims you meet are sincere, devout and family-minded, and many have never heard the gospel stated plainly by someone who respects them. You may be the first.
Keep the conversation on Jesus. Arguments about politics, history or the character of Muhammad close ears quickly; the person of Christ opens them. Ask real questions: "What do you believe about Jesus?" "What do you do with your guilt before God?" "How do you know God will accept you?" Then answer the same questions from your own faith, briefly and from Scripture.
Practise ordinary hospitality. Muslims fast during Ramadan and abstain from pork and alcohol; a meal that respects those convictions preaches before you say a word. And keep the long view: friendships across months, with John's Gospel open on the table, have carried more people to Christ than any single debate.
A gospel bridge
Begin where you agree, because the agreement is real: one God, the Creator, who made Adam, spoke to Abraham, and will judge the world. Your Muslim friend already honours Jesus as a prophet born of a virgin. The bridge is a single question, asked with genuine interest: "Who do you say Jesus is, in himself?" Islam's answer stops at prophet. The Gospels will not let him stop there.
From there, do not argue a system. Offer a book. Invite your friend to read John's Gospel with you, a chapter a week, and let Jesus speak in his own words: "I am the way and the truth and the life." End where John ends: believing in the Son is not one option among the prophets. It is the difference between having the Father and not having him, stated by the apostle who knew Jesus best, and stated so that the friendship can bear the weight of it.
Learn it as a lesson
This page is also a full lesson in School 5, with flashcards, a quiz and a leader pack: Understanding Islam
Sources: The Qur'an's teaching on the crucifixion is stated at Qur'an 4:157, referenced here as the source of the Muslim position, not quoted. The five pillars (Shahada, Salah, Zakat, Sawm, Hajj) are the standard summary of Muslim practice given by Muslim sources themselves. The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible (BSB) | Berean Bible Translation Committee, in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible and OpenBible.com | Text as verified verse-by-verse against fetched BibleHub BSB chapter pages; log at content-review/VERSE-SOURCES.md | Public domain - dedicated to the public domain 30 April 2023; all uses freely permitted; attribution appreciated, not required | http://berean.bible/terms.htm | Supports: every Scripture quotation in this record.