Does the Qur’an Say About Mary In The Trinity ?

The Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies have engaged in bit­ter polemics since the advent of Islam. One of their com­mon alle­ga­tions is that they claim that in Sura’ Al-Maiah (5):119, the Qur’an made a mis­take” in claim­ing that the Trin­i­ty con­sists of God, Jesus and Mary. The said verse is as follows :

And behold ! God will say : O Jesus the son of Mary ! Didst thou say unto men, Take me and my moth­er for two gods beside Allah’ He will say : Glo­ry to Thee ! Nev­er could I say what I had no right (to say). Had I said such a thing, Thou wouldst indeed have known it. Thou know­est what is in my heart, though I know not what is in Thine. For Thou know­est in full all that is hid­den.’ ” (Qur’an 5:116)

Upon care­ful obser­va­tion, one would indeed see that God have indeed spo­ken the Truth :

  • The men­tion­ing of the Trin­i­ty” appears in the Holy Qur’an in vers­es 4:171 and 5:73. In these two vers­es the name of Mary is not men­tioned as the third Per­son of the Holy Trinity”. 
  • Catholic and East­ern Ortho­dox Church­es can be found filled with carved or molten images and/​or stat­ues of Jesus Christ and his moth­er Mary, in var­i­ous sizes and shapes. 
  • Most of these stat­ues or images are placed in the promi­nent places of the prayer halls of these Chris­t­ian Church­es for ven­er­at­ing and wor­ship­ping of these enti­ties. One would also notice that the major­i­ty of the attend­ing con­gre­gates would kneel, wor­ship, ven­er­ate and pray before these images as their rev­er­ent rit­u­als and inher­it­ed tra­di­tions. Many devot­ed believ­ers would place light­ed can­dles in front of these stat­ues or images before wor­ship­ping or pay­ing their homage. 
  • These Catholic con­gre­gates who ven­er­ate Lord Jesus as their God and call Vir­gin Mary as the Moth­er of God”, do form the bulk of the Chris­tians com­mu­ni­ty. It has been so since the incep­tion of the Roman Catholic Church. The Protes­tants, who sep­a­rat­ed from the Roman Catholics, near­ly ten cen­turies after the advent of Islam, do not have the stat­ues of Moth­er Mary in their Church­es, although at one time Mary did play a piv­otal role. 
  • As for the Holy Ghost, the third per­son of the Holy Trin­i­ty, no Chris­t­ian Church has so far insti­tut­ed its ven­er­at­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion, image or sem­blance for their Churchgoers. 

Under the head­ing MARY, we find the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion that sup­ports the above argument.

Mary’s exalt­ed posi­tion also earned her the titles Moth­er of God and Core­demptrix, sug­gest­ing that she played an active role in the redemp­tion of mankind along with her son. The Moth­er of God title was applied ear­ly in church his­to­ry, based on the notion that Jesus was ful­ly God as well as human. This was estab­lished as a doc­trine in the 4th cen­tu­ry. In the East­ern church­es this doc­trine played a major devo­tion­al role and became a favorite sub­ject for icon painters. Dur­ing the Ref­or­ma­tion era it was accept­ed by both Catholic and Protes­tant schol­ars, though Mary’s role in Protes­tant the­ol­o­gy has declined marked­ly since then.Comp­ton’s Inter­ac­tive Ency­clo­pe­dia (1995), under the head­ing Mary”

It is clear that for all prac­ti­cal pur­pose and in real­i­ty, when the issue is of wor­ship­ping, ven­er­at­ing, deify­ing and/​or idol­iz­ing is con­cerned, it is Mary — the theotokos (Moth­er of God), and not the Holy Ghost, which has that kind of rank and sta­tus. Briefly, in terms of ven­er­a­tion, the idols of Jesus and Mary are treat­ed as deities. The Holy Ghost is not ven­er­at­ed as a deity in the man­ner that Jesus’ and Mary’s idols were treat­ed. The quot­ed verse from the Holy Qur?an ques­tions such Divine Rank and Sta­tus that have been assigned by the fol­low­ers of Jesus to him and his mother.

The quot­ed verse does not speak of the Church devel­op­ing the enig­mat­ic doc­trine of Trin­i­ty in the fourth cen­tu­ry. It is in fact accept­ed that the doc­trine of Trin­i­ty evolved and took its final shape near­ly 350 years of CE. Bart D. Ehrman observes that

Chris­tian­i­ty in the sec­ond and third cen­turies was in a remark­able state of flux. To be sure, at no point in its his­to­ry has the reli­gion con­sti­tut­ed a mono­lith. But the diverse man­i­fes­ta­tions of its first three hun­dred years — whether in terms of social struc­tures, reli­gious prac­tices, or ide­olo­gies — have nev­er been replicated.

Nowhere is this seen more clear­ly than in the realm of the­ol­o­gy. In the sec­ond and third cen­turies there were, of course, Chris­tians who believed in only one God ; oth­ers, how­ev­er, claimed that there were two Gods ; yet oth­ers sub­scribed to 30, or 365, or more. Some Chris­tians accept­ed the Hebrew Scrip­tures as a rev­e­la­tion of the one true God, the sacred pos­ses­sion of all believ­ers ; oth­ers claimed that the scrip­tures had been inspired by an evil deity. Some Chris­tians believed that God had cre­at­ed the world and was soon going to redeem it ; oth­ers said that God nei­ther had cre­at­ed the world nor had ever had any deal­ings with it. Some Chris­tians believed that Christ was some­how both a man and God ; oth­ers said that he was a man, but not God ; oth­ers claimed that he was God but not a man ; oth­ers insist­ed that he was a man who had been tem­porar­i­ly inhab­it­ed by God. Some Chris­tians believed that Christ’s death had brought about the sal­va­tion of the world ; oth­ers claimed that his death had no bear­ing on sal­va­tion ; yet oth­ers alleged that he had nev­er even died.Bart D. Ehrman, The Ortho­dox Cor­rup­tion Of Scrip­ture : The Effect Of Ear­ly Chris­to­log­i­cal Con­tro­ver­sies On The Text Of The New Tes­ta­ment, 1993, Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, Lon­don & New York, p. 3

So, in con­clu­sion, there is no point call­ing the mod­ern-day Trini­tar­i­an Chris­tian­i­ty as true’ Chris­tian­i­ty and all oth­ers as false’ since the evo­lu­tion of this doc­trine itself is very late. The ear­ly Chris­tian­i­ty them­selves had bizarre beliefs about their doc­trine as well as their Scriptures.

And only God knows best.Endmark


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3 responses to “Does the Qur’an Say About Mary In The Trinity ?”

  1. A believer Avatar

    To Jacob :

    The prac­tice is not in any way against the teach­ings of the Holy Bible and the Holy Quran.”

    As far as my under­stand­ing goes, that is against the teach­ings of the Quran. In Islam, there are no need for inter­ces­sion prayers. The rela­tion­ship is between man (or woman) and God. By pray­ing to a third par­ty, you would in fact be wor­ship­ing them. Cer­tain ideas in the Quran came about to reverse this prac­tice of pray­ing to saints. The only one wor­thy of wor­ship and prayer, in Islam­ic tra­di­tion, is God him­self. Pray­ing to a third par­ty could indeed be seen as a form of wor­ship. Islam sought to stop that and take the pow­er of prayer, for­give­ness and redemp­tion away from the peo­ple of the reli­gion, and bring it back sole­ly to God. 

    Fur­ther to the point in the blog post, the begin­nings of Chris­tian­i­ty are very uncer­tain. The way the Bible was formed in its cur­rent state, the tra­di­tions and prac­tices all came out of major con­flict with­in the reli­gion itself. The set of books that are the bible were cho­sen dur­ing the time of Con­stan­tine to align with a par­tic­u­lar school of thought. Many prac­tices were includ­ed in ear­ly Chris­tian­i­ty from pagan tra­di­tions to make con­ver­sion of the pagans eas­i­er. So what we know as Chris­tian­i­ty today may not actu­al­ly be the teach­ings and prac­tices of Jesus (who I might add, was indeed Jewish)

    Just my two cents

  2. jacob Avatar
    jacob

    Dear friend in One and the Only God,
    Catholic Chris­tians use the stat­ues of St.Mary and oth­er saints in church­es to make peo­ple remem­ber them always and keep their holy lives close to their heart and lead good life like them to get in to the eter­nal life. They are done for enhanc­ing the believes of the peo­ple as regards the peo­ple sent by God. Ortho­dox Chris­tians don’t place such stat­ues but they do keep paint­ings by the Leg­ends regard­ing the peo­ple of God. Such Icons or Paint­ings are not wor­shiped by Chris­tians. They are being used to remind us about the era of their life and their teachings.
    Please note… Mary is not being wor­shiped as part of trin­i­ty by Chris­tians world wide. Chris­tians do inter­ces­sion prayer through Mary and oth­er saints. As they were dear­er to God, Chris­tians ask the saints to pray for their sins and have mer­cy on them. This is done on the belief that depart­ed souls always praise the Most High along with the Angels. The prac­tice is not in any way against the teach­ings of the Holy Bible and the Holy Quran. As regards trinity-
    Trin­i­ty means- God,Son and the Holy Spirit.
    Our God is one and will always be.
    God’s spir­it came on Mary and she became the moth­er of the holy child.
    Holy spir­it stands for God him­self. We use this ter­mi­nol­o­gy as God’s spir­it appeared in the form of flames, strong wind … on the day of the Pen­te­cost when the fright­ened dis­ci­ples became pow­er­ful, brave and hold­ers of strong faith. The mes­si­ah and the mes­sen­ger Jesus is preached as son as the spir­it of God took body from a woman. Hence the face of Jesus depict­ed the holi­ness of the Most High!.
    Please don’t think ever that the con­cept of trin­i­ty is against God’s exis­tence as the one and the only God.
    Chris­tians attempt to reach the Most High(Allah) through the teach­ings and the life of Jesus.
    Please be hap­py that Chris­tians and Mus­lims are not on par­al­lel tracks but for sure meet at a com­mon point…
    ‑The Most High-
    Some inter­pre­ta­tions and opin­ions by peo­ple on dif­fer­ent con­texts may cre­ate dilem­ma … please don’t mat­ter … we are one in God.
    Let us embrace each oth­er on similarities.
    May God Bless all of us…!

  3. shadowofears Avatar
    shadowofears

    The obvi­ous con­clu­sion is that for all prac­ti­cal pur­pose and in real­i­ty, when the issue is of Wor­ship­ping, Ven­er­at­ing, Deify­ing and/​or Idol­iz­ing, it is Mary — the Moth­er of God” and not the Holy Ghost has that kind of rank and sta­tus. Briefly, the his­tor­i­cal fig­ures of Jesus and Mary are ven­er­at­ed as Deities. The Holy Ghost is not ven­er­at­ed as a Deity.

    The quot­ed verse from the Holy Qur’an ques­tions such Divine Ranks and Sta­tus that have been assigned by the fol­low­ers of Jesus to him and his moth­er. The verse does not speak of the Church devel­oped enig­mat­ic Doc­trine of Trinity.

    The­o­log­i­cal­ly speak­ing, the con­cept of Holy Ghost as Filioque’(“a dou­ble pro­ces­sion”) was added to the Orig­i­nal Doc­trine much lat­er. As taught by the Greek the­olo­gians and advo­cat­ed by St. Augus­tine, it sim­ply makes the Holy Ghost a go-between” com­mu­ni­ca­tions or things that pro­ceed from the Father and is received by an indi­vid­ual via Jesus Christ. One may argue that since the Holy Ghost emanates from God the Father, it is also God. In real­i­ty, this would only be pos­si­ble if there was a total ema­na­tion” (100% trans­fer). If that be the case, then the Pri­ma­ry Source has either anni­hi­lat­ed Him­self (Itself) or has pro­duced a Clone. God the Father still exists and Chris­tians with their Trini­tar­i­an Beliefs yet claim God is One.

    Dur­ing his min­istry, Jesus Christ had taught in very explic­it lan­guage to wor­ship the Father in Heav­en” (see Matthew 6:5 – 13). Jesus nev­er ever taught his fol­low­ers to make images of him and/​or his moth­er and then ven­er­ate either of them. In this regards, the Protes­tants con­sid­er them­selves a step ahead and reformed than their counterparts.

    The quot­ed verse from the Holy Qur’an is a direct chal­lenge to those who make the graven images of Jesus and Moth­er Mary. The Almighty God in the Sec­ond of the Ten Com­mand­ments also warns mankind against mak­ing of graven images and wor­ship­ping them. (See Exo­dus 20:4).

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