Welcome to my blog 'A follower of Jesus about Jesus in the Quran'.

My motivation

For over 20 years, I have lived as a follower of Jesus in an environment that is predominantly characterised by the Islamic religion. For this reason, I have studied Islam by reading the Quran on my own and in many personal conversations with representatives of variants of Islam as it is practised today. Initially, I was generally interested in the differences between Islam and Christianity. Over time, my focus has become more and more clearly centred on the portrayal of Jesus in the Quran and the Gospel.

Influenced by the descriptions of Jesus in the Bible (i.e. Tevrat, Zebur and the Gospel), his Qur'anic portrait was initially rather strange to me. The main statements about Jesus' life and actions in the Qur'an are made on the one hand by the angel Gabriel at the announcement of Jesus' birth (Al-i Imran 3:42-59), and on the other hand by God in retrospect at the Last Judgement, in front of a gathered crowd of prophets and angels (Maide 5:109-120). The information thus comes from reports given by narrators at times far removed from the events described, not from the narratives of directly affected eyewitnesses. The preaching activity of Jesus found in the Gospel as well as his intensive interaction with the people and the religious leaders is only mentioned in passing in the Qur'an. The dominant theme of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection - about 40% of the material in the Gospel - is treated in the Qur'anic account seemingly superficially, in very few but much discussed verses.

The Christian and Muslim portrait of Jesus

Even more astonishing are the differences between the Islamic interpretation of the person of Jesus compared to the Christian one. The Bible - according to the Christian interpretation - speaks of the uniqueness of Jesus as God's Messiah confirmed by his extraordinary birth and multiple miracles; the sacrifice chosen by God for the sins of the world; the Saviour who reconciles humanity with God; the restorer of man to the image of God through the outpouring of God's Spirit on believers; the only way back to God; the resurrected firstborn in the second creation; the Lord of the universe who ascended into heaven and sits at God's right hand; the one entrusted with the tasks of bringing humanity back to life and being judge in the final judgement.  The Qur'an, on the other hand, according to the experts I consulted, portrays a Jesus who stands out as significant because of his special birth and the miracles granted to him by God, but who does not differ in any significant way from the other prophets as far as his person and message are concerned, let alone stand out; the term Messiah for Jesus is a nickname without functional significance for the ministry God intended for Jesus; he was sent to proclaim the eternally valid message of God, like all the prophets before and after him; one of the great prophets, but during his first earthly sojourn without universal significance, sent only to the children of Israel; certainly not a vicarious sacrifice for a lost humanity; not yet dead, but for the time being saved alive by a miracle from the hand of his persecutors into heaven; waiting in heaven for his second mission on earth at the end of time; at the end of earthly history a clear warner for humanity to take seriously God and the Koranic message; Jesus will die before the judgement and will be resurrected together with all other people at the Last Judgement; he is not the physical son of God and must never be equated with God; the person of Jesus, misunderstood by Christians, and his message, also falsified by Christians, were corrected by the work of the last prophet, Muhammad, and thanks to the new revelation Jesus becomes largely irrelevant for Muslims.

 Based on this situation, many experts come to the conclusion that there are only a few superficial points of contact between the biblical and Qur'anic Jesus. After all, according to the general opinion, there are enough similarities between the two portraits of Jesus that at least the question of whether they are the same person can be answered in the affirmative. But otherwise the two portrayals of Jesus are fundamentally contradictory.

Frustrated with this consensus of experts and motivated by the hope of finding more agreement with the biblical portrait in the Qur'anic depiction of Jesus, I began my intensive study of the relevant material in the Qur'an and its interpretation through the centuries. In particular, reading Sayyid Qutb's interpretation of the Koran, In the Shadow of the Quran opened my eyes to a way out of this, in my view, extremely unsatisfactory situation.

  After intensive research and much reflection, I came to the conclusion that there is significantly more agreement between the Quranic and biblical images of Jesus than the experts of the two religions admit. Many facets of the two depictions of Jesus that are perceived as contradictory by the respective experts can, in my view, be resolved through in-depth exegetical research. The view of an understanding of Jesus between the two religions that agrees in the main features began to emerge for me. I will present and explain these new insights in this blog. It will deal with the topics of Jesus' resurrection, his removal from earth, his similarity to the prophet Adam, his second stay on earth and his function during the Last Judgement. Finally, the question will arise as to what effects these insights can have on the faith and actions of people who are totally devoted to God.

 I invite you, the reader, to study the ideas presented in the blog with as little bias as possible. Please refrain from prematurely condemning what is presented on the basis of your favourite tradition. But then I am also very interested in hearing your well-founded opinions and logically based criticisms of the ideas I have presented in the blog. May the blog be the occasion for a joint, intensive exploration of the person and message of Jesus in the Qur'an, and may it contribute to God's intentions with this prophet also being fully fulfilled in the 21st century.