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.
Muhammed,
1) You are asking the question, “Why doesn’t God just change his mind, his standard of justice, and his nature?” This is an absurd question.
2)The Bible never orders anybody to destroy a plant. I checked the verse you quoted, and I find nothing about plants.
3) When Jesus is talking about “turning the other cheek” in the Sermon on the Mount, he is speaking in context about not seeking retribution in court. He is not condemning all violence.
4) Eve had the greater responsibility because she sinned first and tempted Adam to sin. But both are responsible.
5) The Bible never says you are responsible for the sin of Adam and Eve. It says that you inherit death from them and through death the tendency to sin.
I lack the time to correct all of your misinterpretations of Christianity
Oops….it should be John 1:1
Salamu Alaikum,
John 3:16 says that ‘Father’, ‘Son’ and ‘Holy Ghost’ are one.
How come they are one when ‘Son’ is dead but ‘Father’ & ‘Holy Ghost’ are alive?
“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. ”
ANy FEAR OR “SEPERATION” WOULD be softened cause christianties god ,according to the gospels, knew that his death was not the END of him.isn’t there a happy ending to christian god’s suicide? satan has pre-knowledge that hundreds and thousands will join him in hell only if he endure pain for a few days and pretends to be god.Why would satan give 2 hoots about few days of pain and suffering and “seperation” from his evil?
“…any feelings of DISTANCE or ABANDONMENT by the father he might have suffered would have been softened by his expectation of being inevitably reunitd with him…”
“…god’s plan for the salvation of sinners, a PLAN in which jesus himself would have PARTICIPATED by ALLOWING himSELF TO BE EXECUTED, and which as gOD himSELF jesus would have HELPED DESIGN.Therefore far from feeling lonely jesus should have enjoyed a sense of cooperation and fellowship with the father in working towards an eminently worthwhile objective”
the first sentence in the second paragraph of the 1st response is correct when it said
“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.”
Atleast Deeroy we have given you chance to show your view point.How many chances you have given to us?
When I read the About This Site page all that I could think of is that this site was about defending the Muslim faith and counter the lies by anti muslim polemics around the world.Instead what I found is that you guys are more busy attacking the christian beliefs rather than defending the Muslim faith itself.If this is the best response option you guys have then I suggest you guys change ur tagline and the about page.Stick to the cause.Show why it is lies.Bring out your point.
Reply to Gajibur:
Assalam alaikum brother!
Injil.org is just another flagship site to convert Muslims to ‘Kufranity’.
Most important: It is a site from the answering-islam weasels.
Just verify these links before they make any changes!!
Deceit #1
Deceit #2
Salaam Robert,
If I say “Why didn’t God just forgave sins?”, you will say “Because God does not go against His word(need blood to erase sins).” But the next statement is, God goes against his word(abrogation) in many parts of the Bible. For example, in the 10 Commandments, there is a rule which “Thou Shall Not Kill”, there is also what Jesus said “Turn the other cheek”, but Biblical God orders the killings of women, children, infants, plants and animals(see Deut. 2:32-37, and 1 Samuel 15:2-4).
Instead of going through what he(Jesus) KNEW what he was going to go through, he could have said, “You no longer have to sacrifice in order for ME to forgive your sins, because I am Most-Merciful.” You also want us to believe the original sin, something that is obviously unjust. Why am I responsible for what Adam and Eve did, specially of Eve(in the Bible, Eve is holding the biggest responsibility, but in the Qur’an Even AND Adam is held responsible).
Also you say “The pain and death were inconsequential compared to even a moments separation from the Father.” but the Trinity teaches that the Farther, the Son, and the Spirit are all one, yet distinct. Surely, the Son being one as the Father wouldn’t feel separation. Also, God having the burden of “feeling separation” doesn’t seem Godly. How can something ONE feel separated? This, feeling, clearly shows what Jesus was, a prophet who is a man(peace be upon him), because he wanted to be with GOD, the Creator.
“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.”
What? How can GOD BE SEPARATED? Anyone hearing this will say “Wait, I though we worshiped One God, not 3 separate beings.” Trinity is supposed to say that you worship in one God, in 3 persons. How can they be all God if they are separated?
As for:
“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’m sure he only wrote what he saw.
Also, he is not “too” wrong. For example, one of the 10 commandments tell us not make idols! Yes, we see the statues of Jesus, Mary, and other biblical figures(peace be upon them) almost every church. Now you might argue that they are not idols in the sense that you do not offer anything to them and you do not believe they hold powers, but they are idols because they are used during worship as a “visual representation”(a reply I got for this before). But John 4:24 says:
“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
Can you say that you worship God in spirit when you have visual representations of him? Also, you can not deny that there Christians speak to these carvings as if they are God! Perhaps they give a wrong image of Christianity. But we do see in movies and such, such as Christians lighting candles in front of the cross, or Jesus, or Marry (peace be upon them both) and praying by LOOKING at them, as if they are talking to them and see them. Unlike the way we face(but not look, as we look down) Kiblah(it is a temple and it is for unity of the Muslims to worship in the same direction), we don’t believe that the Kiblah is a “visual interpretation” of God or any other figure. I do not believe Christianity(from the Bible) is an idolatry religion, maybe some Christians are giving the wrong image?
Anyways, I don’t want to derive from the point, the author only wrote what the people at the time and place thought and did. I agree that just because Jesus was a baby doesn’t mean he was defenseless(even though he ran from Egypt), but the problem is not with the author of the Poem but the Christian teachings.
You say that GOD incarnated his self in to Jesus and also God is 3 persons. How can God do both at the SAME TIME? Please don’t say he is capable of doing anything because the age old question “Can God create a boulder which He can not carry?” which basically means only think in the realm of reason. The Christian teachings just confused him as it confuses many people today(such as the creation[Genesis], I thought God isn’t suppose to be the God of confusion). By saying God incarnated his self in to Jesus(pbuh), you are saying God gave up his Godly powers, but I never heard, until now, a Christian say “the SON incarnated his self in flesh”, which is more easy to understand in the case of the incarnation. I always here the claim “God LITERALLY incarnated his self in flesh which we call Jesus.” But, then the author would think you worship 3 Gods. I honestly think that worshiping Jesus(pbuh) and others is wrong. We should only worship God as One, and not in 3 persons.
Since we are on that part, let us examine what you just said:
“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.”
Is God’s infinite knowledge an object that can be degraded by “mortalizing” in flesh? How can GOD be tempted or even TRIED?
As for your last comment, I thank you, because not many people do this. I think, even though I believe you are wrong, it is the thought that counts.
I pray to Allah so He may guide you to the True path, Islam.