Son of God.’’ He thought that to claim God has a son would
be tantamount to saying that God had a wife with whom He
had sexual relations. Muhammad could conceive of the idea
of divine sonship only in physical terms. In the Koran, the
true believers insist that ‘‘we shall never join anything [in
worship] with our Lord and exalted be the Majesty of our
Lord, He has taken neither a wife, nor a Son’’ (Sura 72:2–
3). The denial is elsewhere put in question form: ‘‘How can
He have a Son, when He has no wife?’’ (Sura 6:101).
In line with this is Muhammad’s misunderstanding of
the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In the Koran, the
Trinity includes Allah, Mary, and Jesus: ‘‘And when Allah
saith: O Jesus, son of Mary! Didst thou say unto mankind:
Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah? He
saith: Be glorified! It was not mine to utter that to which I
had no right. If I used to say it, then Thou knewest it. Thou
knowest what is in my mind, and I know not what is in Thy
Mind. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Knower of Things
Hidden!’’ (Sura 5:116).
Muhammad thus presumably thought that Christians
believed that Mary had become Allah’s wife and had given
birth to their son, Jesus. Obviously, this crude physicality is
far from the actual Christian concepts of the Trinity and the
Incarnation. But the Koran rejects all this as polytheism and
denies the divinity of Christ: ‘‘O people of the Scripture! Do
not exceed the limits in your religion, nor say of Allah aught
but the truth. The Messiah [Jesus], son of Mary, was a
Messenger of Allah and His Word, which He bestowed on
Mary and a spirit created by Him; so believe in Allah and