In a recent video response to Muslim apologist Khalid Yasin, James White mentioned Surah 5:116 in the Qur’an which reads:
And when Allah saith: O Jesus, son of Mary! Didst thou say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah? he saith: Be glorified! It was not mine to utter that to which I had no right. If I had ever said it, then Thou wouldst have known it. Thou knowest what is in my mind, and I know not what is in Thy Mind. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Knower of Things Hidden?
Many Christians understand this to be a Muslim misunderstanding of the doctrine of the Trinity (see here), but is it? Maulana Muhammad Ali says:
From this description of Mary being taken for a god by the Christians, some Christian critics of the Qur’an conclude that the doctrine of the Trinity according to the Qur’an consists of three persons — God, Jesus and Mary. But this is an absolutely unwarranted conclusion. Mary is no doubt spoken of as being taken for an object of worship by the Christians; but the doctrine of the Trinity is not mentioned here, while the divinity of Mary is not mentioned where the Trinity is spoken of.1
I don’t doubt that there may be some Muslims who read the passage this way, but I’d have to agree with Ali that the Trinity is not spoken of, or even alluded to here. So the next time you talk to your Muslim friend about the Trinity, don’t accuse the Qur’an of representing it as the Father, Son, and Mary.
B”H
1 The Holy Qur’ān with English Translation and Commentary. Maulana Muhammad Ali, trans. (Dublin, Ohio: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha’at Islam Lahore, 2002), 282, n. 116a.
