قُلْ يَٰٓأَهْلَ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ تَعَالَوْا۟ إِلَىٰ كَلِمَةٍۢ سَوَآءٍۭ بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكُمْ أَلَّا نَعْبُدَ إِلَّا ٱللَّهَ وَلَا نُشْرِكَ بِهِۦ شَيْـًۭٔا وَلَا يَتَّخِذَ بَعْضُنَا بَعْضًا أَرْبَابًۭا مِّن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ فَإِن تَوَلَّوْا۟ فَقُولُوا۟ ٱشْهَدُوا۟ بِأَنَّا مُسْلِمُونَ

“Say, ‘O People of the Scripture, come to a word that is equitable between us and you: that we will not worship except Allah and not associate anything with Him and not take one another as lords instead of Allah.’ But if they turn away, then say, ‘Bear witness that we are Muslims.’”¹

A case needs a measure. This site judges Paul of Tarsus by principles stated before the charges are heard, open to inspection by Muslim and Christian alike, and applied to the evidence without favour.

Each is drawn from the Qurʾān and the Sunnah, and each can be tested by reason. This page sets them out, in shāʾ Allāh (God willing).

Understanding before judgment

Judgment comes second. We first let Paul speak at length, in his own letters and in the book written about him, and we take his doctrines as his followers hold them. Only then do we weigh them, and we weigh them by principles that belong to neither party, since a standard borrowed from either side would decide the case before it was heard.

The unity of truth

The first principle is tawḥīd (التوحيد, the affirmation of God’s oneness), and with it the unity of truth. If God is One, truth is one, and what contradicts itself cannot come from Him. The Qurʾān offers itself to that very test: “If it had been from [any] other than Allah, they would have found within it much contradiction.”²

Three rules of judgment follow. A claim must correspond with reality. It must not contradict itself.

It must stay open to evidence, for the Qurʾān forbids pursuing “that of which you have no knowledge”, and asks every claimant: “Produce your proof, if you should be truthful.”³

Transcendence stands at the heart of the principle. Every human is created upon the fiṭrah (فطرة, the natural disposition), “the fitrah of Allah upon which He has created [all] people”, and by it knows that God is, that He is One, and that no creature shares His nature.⁴ Paul’s Christ, a man “in the form of God” before whose name every knee must bow, fails that test before any other.⁵

Each rule tests Paul. His promise of the Lord’s return within his own lifetime fails the first, since what he foretold never came to pass.

Letters that contradict one another, and a life that Acts tells otherwise than Paul, fail the second. A gospel preached as “foolishness” to the wise and a stumbling block to reason fails the third, for it closes the mind that the third rule keeps open.⁶

Man’s innocence

The second principle concerns man. The fiṭrah is innocent: every human is born with a clean slate, and “no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another”.⁷ No sin is inherited, and no guilt passes from father to son.

Against this stands Paul’s doctrine that sin entered the world by one man and passed upon all.⁸ Without a fallen humanity, a crucified redeemer has nothing to redeem.

The law and the ethic of intention

The third principle concerns the law. ʿĪsā ibn Maryam upheld the law of Moses as God’s command, and he restored its purpose. The Qurʾān gives his own words: he came “confirming what was before me of the Torah and to make lawful for you some of what was forbidden to you”.⁹

The worth of a deed lies in the heart that performs it, as the Prophet ﷺ taught: “Actions are but by intentions.”¹⁰ The two belong together: the law kept, and kept from the heart.

Paul broke with both. He declared the law abolished and cursed, and in place of the ethic of intention he set a dogma of salvation by the cross. The ethic of ʿĪsā was turned into its opposite while it kept its name, a transvaluation the charges on this site trace step by step.

Deeds and the world

The fourth principle concerns action and the world in which it takes place. Man is judged by what he does: “whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it, and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it”.¹¹

The world is the theatre of his doing, good in itself and made for his use: “Who has forbidden the adornment of Allah which He has produced for His servants and the good [lawful] things of provision?”¹² Its perfection is his task.

Paul taught the reverse on each point. Faith without deeds justifies, the flesh wars against the spirit, and the whole creation groans in travail.¹³

The charges, measured

Every charge on this site applies one of these principles.

The oneness of God. Two gods in place of one, and a Christ set above the Spirit: Seven doctrines, “Lord” before the Spirit.
The unity of truth. A prophecy that failed, letters at war with each other, and accounts that cannot all be true: The failed prophet, Letters that contradict themselves, The three accounts compared.
Man’s innocence. Sin inherited from Adam and paid for on the cross: Seven doctrines, Twisting the scriptures.
The law and the ethic of intention. The law abolished, and the disciples who kept it opposed: The Jerusalem Council, Seven doctrines: the law and the covenant.
Deeds and the world. Faith in place of works, and the body and creation condemned: Justification by faith, The flesh, The Greek body and the Jewish bed.

The verse that opens this page asks only for a word that is equitable between us and you. Paul’s gospel cannot meet it, for it takes a man as lord besides God. The same verse gives the answer when the call is refused: “Bear witness that we are Muslims.”

Sūrah Āl ʿImrān 3:64. ↩
Sūrah al-Nisāʾ 4:82. ↩
Sūrah al-Isrāʾ 17:36; Sūrah al-Baqarah 2:111. ↩
Sūrah al-Rūm 30:30. ↩
Philippians 2:6, 10 (KJV). ↩
1 Corinthians 1:18–23. ↩
Sūrah al-Najm 53:38. ↩
Romans 5:12. ↩
Sūrah Āl ʿImrān 3:50. ↩
Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, no. 1; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, no. 1907, from ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb. ↩
Sūrah al-Zalzalah 99:7–8. ↩
Sūrah al-Aʿrāf 7:32. ↩
Romans 3:28; Galatians 5:17; Romans 8:22. ↩