Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (d. 751/1350) was one of the most influential Muslim jurists and theologians of the later classical period. A leading student of Ibn Taymiyyah, he was deeply engaged in Muslim–Christian polemics at a time when Eastern Christianity remained intellectually active under Islamic rule. Alongside his legal and theological works, Ibn al-Qayyim was also a gifted poet, composing didactic and polemical qasīdah (Arabic poetry) that combined theology with rhetoric.
One of his most famous poems is “Aʿbād al-Masīḥ fī Naqd al-Naṣrāniyyah” (“O Christ-Worshippers! In Refuting Christianity”). This qasīdah remains widely known in the Muslim world and has even been adapted into nasheed form. What follows is an English rendering of the poem, which presents a sustained critique of the Christian doctrine of the crucified God.
The Poem
The following is the English translation of the poetry from the Arabic original.
O Christ-worshippers! We seek an answer from your wise ones:
If the Lord was murdered by people’s hands, what kind of god is this?
Was He pleased with what they did to Him?
If yes, then blessed are they, for they fulfilled His will;
But if He was displeased, then they overpowered Him.¹
When He was killed, who governed existence?
Who answered prayers while He lay in the ground?
Were the heavens left empty?
Did the worlds run without a God while His hands were nailed?²
Why did the angels not rescue Him
when they heard Him cry?
How did rods and iron restrain the True Lord?
How did His enemies strike Him?
Was Christ raised by his own power,
or did another god revive him?³
What a sight — a grave enclosing a god,
stranger still a womb containing Him.
Nine months in darkness, nourished by blood,
then born a helpless infant,
needing milk.
He ate, drank, and relieved himself.
Is this what you call God?⁴
Exalted is Allah above the fabrications of Christians;
they will answer for these claims.
O Cross-worshippers!
Why is this object exalted
while those who reject it are condemned?
Should it not be destroyed —
and the one who invented it?⁵
If the Lord was nailed upon it,
then it is a cursed thing.
So do not kiss it; do not glorify it.
You adore the very object on which He was humiliated.
Does this not make you His enemy?
If you honor it because it carried your god,
then why do you not worship graves —
since the grave held him as well?⁶
So open your eyes, O Christ-worshipper.
This is what your belief truly implies.
Christian Attempts to Escape the Dilemma
Christian theology did not resolve Ibn al-Qayyim’s critique; it redefined God to survive it.
Kenosis
Modern Christianity appeals to kenōsis (Philippians 2:7), claiming that the Son “emptied himself” of divine attributes to become human. Nineteenth-century theologians such as Charles Gore and later Jürgen Moltmann taught that God temporarily surrendered omnipotence and impassibility. This does not solve the problem — it concedes it. A God who can stop being omnipotent is no longer the God of classical theism.
The Hypostatic Union
The Council of Chalcedon attempted to preserve both divinity and suffering by declaring Christ one person in two natures. But hunger, fear, bleeding, and death are not detachable features — they are marks of contingency. Assigning them to one “nature” while protecting the other turns incarnation into a verbal maneuver rather than a coherent doctrine.
Aquinas and Divine Impassibility
Thomas Aquinas taught that God cannot suffer because suffering implies being acted upon. Yet Christianity also insists that God truly died. The claim that only Christ’s human nature suffered creates a fatal split: if only the human died, then God did not die; if God died, divine impassibility is false.
The Modern Suffering God
Twentieth-century theology abandoned impassibility altogether. Jürgen Moltmann openly taught that God is wounded and changed by the cross. This confirms Ibn al-Qayyim’s insight: to preserve crucifixion, Christianity had to abandon classical divine transcendence.
Conclusion
Ibn al-Qayyim’s qasīdah was written in the fourteenth century, yet it still confronts Christianity today. Churches continue to proclaim a God who entered a womb, was beaten, nailed, abandoned, and killed. The philosophical difficulty has not disappeared — it has merely been hidden beneath new terminology.
The poem forces one unavoidable question: Can the Necessary Being become contingent? Can the eternal become killable? Can the Sustainer of all reality be sustained by blood and milk?
Christian theology has answered by dividing Christ into layers — one that suffers and one that does not — but this fractures the doctrine of incarnation itself. Either God truly entered the cross, in which case God is no longer transcendent; or God did not, in which case Christianity worships a human tragedy while calling it divine redemption.
Islam does not reject Jesus. It rejects the idea that God can be reduced to flesh, humiliated, and worshipped through an instrument of execution. Ibn al-Qayyim’s poem remains powerful because it exposes the crucified god not as a mystery, but as a metaphysical impossibility.
” At the moment of His death, at the time he took all the sins of the world past and present upon Himself, He was separated from the Father. THAT was the real sacrifice. The pain and death were inconsequential compared to even a moments separation from the Father. ”
seperation in your invention means god stopped being god? did the second leg of trinity know what seperation feels like before he puts it into action/incarnation? or does his omniscience and omnipotence switch off like electrical items? you said, “he was seperated from the father” this sounds like what humanity has been doing with its children long before christianity.why do you apply this to god? if the son was “seperated” he knew that his holy spirt was still CONNECTED with the father,didn’t this holy spirit + father connection ease the “seperation”?
No shelb, for whatever the answers are in the bible, the questions still remain coz still the GOD died. And the idea that GOD died is….well shall I say ….questionable? For GOD created everything, inclusive death. GOD can’t lose control of death till it overpowers HIM and takes HIS “live”. Man just cannot kill their GOD. It is not a story about one mad scientist who creates a monster and only to be killed by it. Can’t you understand……? Hopefully you are not what Allah mentioned in the Al Quran. “They are deaf dumb and blind”
First of all, as a born again Christian, let me state emphatically that we do not worship the cross. We worship God in three parts, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity, if you will. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. What Christ accomplished on the cross assures me of eternal life in Heaven. Rest assured that the “heavens were not empty” while Christ hung on the cross or during his burial. God the Father still sat on the throne and heard the pleas and prayers of the faithful.
USMAN (in reference to your post), while Christ knew full well that He was to die and that He would also be ressurected, that was not the real issue. At the moment of His death, at the time he took all the sins of the world past and present upon Himself, He was separated from the Father. THAT was the real sacrifice. The pain and death were inconsequential compared to even a moments separation from the Father. The cross is a symbol of that sacrifice. It is a rallying point for Christians, but we most certainly do not worship the cross.
Christ was born in the flesh to live life as man and to be tempted as such. His sinless life provided the righteous basis for his sacrifice. He was the Lamb without spot or blemish.
The writer of the referenced piece, regardless of his time period, had a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Christ, His sacrifice, and exactly Who Christians worship.
I pray humbly for the salvation of all who read this. Salvation for all is God’s will as expressed in His Holy Word.
“As an evangelical Chrsitian and student, it is quite obvious that the writer of this song has never read the Bible or even Googled the bases of Christian faith. If so- all the “WHY?” questions would be void.”
how could he google when there was no internet in his time? what i find interesting is this ?
“Were the heavens vacated, when He laid under the ground somewhere?” i assume al jawziyah had access to a gospel that said the crosstian god got buried and had a burial service.
ShelbSpeakers,
the writer of the song was writing at a time when computers did not exist. So he could not “Google” :)
He is a midieval writer and scholar.
As an evangelical Chrsitian and student, it is quite obvious that the writer of this song has never read the Bible or even Googled the bases of Christian faith. If so- all the “WHY?” questions would be void.
We wonder! Was He pleased by what they did Him?
Were the heavens vacated, when He laid under the ground somewhere?
Why did not the angels help Him, when they heard him while he wailed?
He ate and drank, and did what that naturally resulted,1
Is this [what you call] a god?
COME ON! The answers to such things are the very BASES for our faith! Try doing a little research before assuming we’re all blind idiots who believe whatever anyone tells us. I’m sure you’d want the same respect regarding your faith.
very intersting read. i wonder how a christan would respond.
the man-god died as a martyr?
This does seem to imply that Jesus chose to die, if not the manner of his death (although, as the son aspect of an omniscient being, it would be hard to claim he didn’t know exactly how he would die). Jesus lays down his life, knowing that he will take it up again. To say that others since Jesus have been emulating his example is thus not correct, because others have gone to their deaths not having genuine foreknowledge, but at the most only faith in life after death or a future resurrection.
Thus, the sacrifices of ordinary human beings before and after Jesus are more impressive than that of Jesus, since unlike them, according to the gospels, he was fully aware that he would be resurrected and then ascend into heaven. All he had to do was endure a few hours of pain and discomfort. Countless human beings have endured far more, and died only with the hope of living again, not with the absolute knowing that Jesus would have had.
But now let’s go the opposite direction; suppose Jesus was simply a deluded person who believed himself to be the Messiah and believed his death would make atonement for sin. Well, not many people are going to go to their deaths thinking the same thing, that by their deaths they are going to save the world. They may think that at most they may save a few people’s lives and perhaps do their tiny part to make the world a better place, or perhaps they think advancing an ideal is worth the sacrifice. Is this not more impressive than someone dying knowing that his death will save the world and knowing that he will be reunited with his trinitarian parts?