Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

Islam and Christianity share significant common ground, including monotheistic belief, a shared ethical heritage emphasizing compassion and justice, and reverence for many of the same prophetic figures from biblical history. Nevertheless, the two faiths diverge sharply on several fundamental theological claims regarding the nature of God, the identity of Jesus, and the means of salvation.

The most significant point of difference concerns the person of Jesus Christ. Christianity affirms that Jesus is the divine Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, who became incarnate, died on the cross for the sins of humanity, and rose from the dead. This claim stands at the very center of Christian faith and worship. Islam, by contrast, reveres Jesus (Isa) as a prophet and messenger of God, born of the Virgin Mary, but emphatically denies his divinity. The Quran explicitly rejects the doctrine of the Trinity as a form of polytheism and asserts that Jesus was neither crucified nor resurrected. For Muslims, attributing divinity to Jesus constitutes a fundamental violation of the oneness and unity of God.

A second major area of divergence concerns the reliability and authority of Scripture. Christians regard the Bible—both the