ABSTRACT
God’s glorious unity not be obscured or
confused. The Qur ) an offers a spectrum
of opinions of Christianity, from the
friendly – ‘nearest among them in love
to the believers will you find those who
say, ‘‘We are Christians’’’ (5.82); ‘those
who believe . . . and the . . . Christians
any who believe in Allah and the Last
Day and work righteousness on them
shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve’
(2.62; 5.69) – to the more hostile – ‘O
People of the Book, commit no excesses
. . . say not ‘‘three’’’ (4.171). The Qur
) an also portrays Christians
as fellow believers in Allah who will
receive an eschatological reward (2.62;
5.69). Alongside this is a verse describ-
ing them as people having ‘a portion of
the Book’ who are ‘invited to the [entire]
Book of Allah to settle their dispute’,
that is, to repent of their incomplete
lives and come to the fulfillment that is
Islam (3.23). ‘Come to common terms’,
3.64 exhorts, ‘as between us and you’,
terms of theological surrender, recogni-
tion that the Muslims worship Allah
rightly and are not guilty of shirk as are
the Christians. Some Christians and
Jews do exactly this (3.199), so that ‘not
all of them are alike: of the People of the
Book are a portion that stand [for the
right]’, having already embraced Islam
(3.113-114). It is not clear, however,
whether they are accepted as mono-
theists and broadly on the right path
while remaining Christians or whether
they have to take the step of actual
conversion to receive the ultimate
reward of heaven.
