ABSTRACT
The wording of the references to Christians and Christianity in the Qur'an is rather different from the common names that Christians use for themselves. The Qur'an mainly refers to Christians in two ways: either by subsuming them, together with Jews and other possible recipients of divine revelation, in the more general category of ahl al-kitab, or by specifically addressing them as Nasara. The Arabic words ahl al-kitab together form a construct phrase in which a noun ahl is modified or specified by a second noun, in this case kitab. The word ahl basically means 'people' or 'family'. The word kitab can have a number of different meanings such as, written document, letter, and so on. In its approach to Christians, both as a separate group and as part of the People of Scripture, the Qur'an applies a double criterion to determine the true devotion of Christians: confessing the Oneness of God and accepting the new message brought by Muhammad.
