Full Lecture Transcript (Cleaned)
The Question — 0:00
Brother Imad has a Christian colleague who is telling him: "The Quran doesn't understand the Trinity. Your prophet made a mistake. The Quran says Christians believe in three gods and that Mary is part of the Trinity — but no Christian has ever believed this. We believe in one God, and the Trinity is three persons in one substance, not three separate gods. And Mary was never in the Trinity."
The Three Key Quranic Verses — 0:50
The main Quranic verses dealing with Christian theology are:
First Clarification: The Quran Knows Christians Claim One God — 2:00
The claim that the Quran's author didn't know Christians believe in one God is simply false. Surah al-'Ankabut 46 explicitly states: "Do not argue with the People of the Book except in the best manner... and say: 'We believe in what was revealed to us and what was revealed to you. Our God and your God is one, and to Him we submit.'" The Quran is saying: we believe in the same God. So the Quran is clearly aware that Christians claim monotheism.
Early Scholars' Responses — 3:00
When the more learned early scholars engaged with these verses, some — like Ibn Hazm (who read widely in other religious traditions) — acknowledged the problem and proposed that the Quran might be referring to an extinct Christian sect that actually believed Jesus and Mary were two gods alongside Allah. He named a group he called "al-Barbara." Al-Suyuti and his teacher also mentioned this in Tafsir al-Jalalayn.
The problem with this answer: there is no confirmed historical evidence such a sect existed, and even if it had, it was too fringe to be addressed by revelation.
The Academic Research — 5:00
More satisfying answers come from scholarship that looks carefully at the actual religious landscape of Arabia in the 7th century CE.
Answer 1 — The Najrani and Hassanid Arab Christians: The verses of Surah al-Nisa and Surah al-Maida were revealed after the Christians of Najran visited Madinah. It is the Najrani Christians who are being primarily addressed. Modern academic research — including work by Professor Block in an article in the Journal of Islamic Studies titled "Philoponian Monophysitism in South Arabia at the Advent of Islam" — has demonstrated that the Arab Christians of that region had absorbed the theology of John Philoponus, a famous Christian theologian who died around 570 CE (when the Prophet ﷺ was being born). John Philoponus was accused even by his contemporary Christians of tritheism — of holding beliefs that implied three distinct gods. His theology had a significant influence on both the Hassanid and Najrani Arab Christians. Therefore, the Quran's language about "three" and about Mary and Jesus as gods alongside Allah is extremely precise — it is describing the actual beliefs of the specific Arab Christians being addressed, not the abstract Nicene formulations of Constantinople.
Answer 2 — Lived Religion vs. Abstract Creeds: The Quran does not address the sophisticated theological formulations passed by councils in Nicaea, Constantinople, and Rome. It addresses the lived reality of how ordinary Christians experience their faith. Consider: in pre-Reformation Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, Mary was — and is — invoked for one's needs. People pray to Mary and ask her to intercede. If you go to a Catholic church, you find icons of Mary and Jesus and pray before them. The Quran is saying: whatever your councils say in their creeds, in practice, in your lived religious experience, you have made Mary and Jesus into deities. You invoke them. You ask them to answer your prayers directly. In your psychological and devotional framework, they function as gods even if your creed says otherwise. Allah is addressing that reality, not the abstract philosophical formulations.
The Conclusion — 12:00
Far from being imprecise or mistaken, the Quran's terminology is extraordinarily precise — it is calibrated to the actual beliefs of the Arab Christian audience being addressed, beliefs that are verifiably different from what modern Western Protestants might hold. It is the Christian polemicist who is "lost in abstract creeds" — comparing the Quran to Nicene formulations that the Arab Christians of the 7th century did not necessarily hold.
And if the Christian colleague is a genuine seeker of truth, Yasir Qadhi invites him to reflect on what the Quran is actually saying — and what Jesus himself said in the New Testament. Jesus never claimed divinity. Jesus never taught a trinity. Jesus never instructed anyone to worship him or his mother. The Quran and the historical Jesus are far closer to each other than the Christianity that developed through councils and creeds centuries later. And Allah knows best.