Contrasting Mormonism and Islam (Part Three)

From a manuscript:

Islam has consistently denied the divinity of Christ. “If the Lord of Mercy had a son,” Muhammad is commanded to say, “I would be the first to worship him.”[1] But this the Qur’an explicitly and repeatedly denies. “How should He have a son when He had no consort?” it asks.¹⁹⁸ [2]But this commonsensical question—the same that was often asked by the late Elder LeGrand Richards of the Council of the Twelve—is used not to establish the possibility that God the Father has a wife, but the impossibility of his being a father. “He (exalted be the glory of our Lord!) has taken no wife, nor has He begotten any children.”[3] Probably the strongest state­ment of this principle occurs toward the end of the Qur’an-which means, most likely, that it came as one of the earliest chapters:

Say: “He is God, One,
God, the Everlasting Refuge,
who has not begotten, and has not been begotten,
and equal to Him is not any one.”[4]

The language of the Qur’an is often quite vigorous on this sub­ject. There can be no doubt about its opinion of the importance of the issue.

And they say, “The All-merciful has taken unto Himself a son.” You have indeed advanced something hideous!

The heavens are well-nigh rent of it and the earth split asunder, and

the mountains well-nigh fall down crashing

for that they have attributed to the All-merciful a son; and it

behooves not the All-merciful to take a son.

None is there in the heavens and earth but he comes to the All-merciful

as a servant.[5]

The Qur’an does not deny the concept of the Virgin Birth; in fact, it speaks emphatically of “Mary,…who preserved her chastity and into whose womb We breathed of Our spirit.”[6] But this does not make Jesus the son of God, according to Islamic views. Rather, it simply makes Jesus the only human being in history born to only one parent; to use technical language, he represents a case of par­thenogenesis. Jesus has a special place in Islamic thought and in Islamic expectations for the last days. But he is definitely not, according to Islamic doctrine, the Son of God. Indeed, the Qur’an represents him as denying this himself:

Then God will say: “Jesus, son of Mary, did you ever say to man­kind: ‘Worship me and my mother as gods beside God?’”

“Glory to You,” he will answer, “how could I say that to which I have no right? If I had ever said so, You would surely have known it. You know what is in my mind, but I cannot tell what is in Yours. You alone know what is hidden. I spoke to them of nothing except what You bade me. I said: ‘Serve God, my Lord and your Lord.’”[7]

[1] 43:81. ^198.6:101. 199′ 72:3.

[2] 6:101.

[3] 72:3.

[4] This is the entire text of sura 177 of the Qur’an.

[5] 19:88-93Arberry, compare 2:116; 10:68-69; 17:111; 18:4-5; 19:35; 21:26-29; 23:91; 25:2; 39:4; 43:59.

[6] 66:12.

[7] 5:116-17.