The witnesses so far are Paul’s own contemporaries, the communities that kept the law after them, and the revelation that confirmed their witness. The Islamic tradition weighed his role and his claims as well, and for a very long time.
In recent times Christian missionaries have pressed the idea that Paul was one of the disciples, as if he belonged among the original followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam ʿalayhi al-salām, peace be upon him and inherited the teaching legitimately. They also claim that Muslim scholars “acknowledge” this. Is it so?
Their perception differs entirely from the judgment of Muslim scholars from the earliest times, who saw Paul as the corrupter of the tawḥīd (توحيد, “the oneness of God”) brought by al-Masīḥ ʿĪsā son of Maryam. These articles set out the authoritative Islamic view of Paul, so that the matter is made wholly plain.
The hadith
Muslims hold that between the mission of ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ and the Messenger of God ﷺ no prophet or messenger was sent, to the Jews or to anyone else. That rests on a hadith recorded by al-Bukhārī1 and Muslim:2
عن أبي هريرة قال: قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «أنا أولى الناس بعيسى ابن مريم في الأولى والآخرة». قالوا: كيف يا رسول الله؟ قال: «الأنبياء إخوة من علات، وأمهاتهم شتى، ودينهم واحد، وليس بيننا نبي».
ʿAn Abī Hurayrah qāla qāla Rasūlullāh ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam: anā awlā al-nāsi bi-ʿĪsā ibn Maryam fī al-ūlā wa al-ākhirah. Qālū: kayfa yā Rasūlallāh? Qāla: al-anbiyāʾu ikhwah min ʿallāt, wa ummahātuhum shattā, wa dīnuhum wāḥid, wa laysa baynanā nabiyy.
Abū Hurayrah reported that the Messenger of God ﷺ said: “I am the nearest of all people to ʿĪsā the son of Maryam, in this world and the next.” They asked: “How so, Messenger of God?” He said: “The prophets are brothers of one father and different mothers; their religion is one, and there is no prophet between me and him.”
We know of only one man who claimed to be a messenger sent in the period between the mission of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam and the coming of the Messenger of God ﷺ: Paul himself.
Apostolos and rasūl
In Christian belief, Paul is regarded as an “apostle” (apostolos, ἀπόστολος) appointed by ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. According to the New Testament narrative, ʿĪsā ibn Maryam is said to have appeared to Paul after the crucifixion and appointed him apostolos to spread his teaching. Because Christians believe Jesus to be God, Paul is regarded as a “messenger of God” within their frame of belief.
The term “messenger” (rasūl) carries a very different meaning in Islam. In Islam a messenger is a human being who receives revelation and miracles from God, Lord of the worlds, to deliver the message of tawḥīd. In Christian usage the term refers to hoi apostoloi (οἱ ἀπόστολοι), the disciples who acted as preachers of the teaching of ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ.
The two words share a definiendum, one who is sent; they share no definiens, since what sends a rasūl is God and what sent an apostolos was a vision. The difference touches the epistemological foundation and the very concept of messengership.
The difference sharpens on examination of the core of Paul’s teaching. The chief focus of his theology is the death of ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ as the basis of the doctrine of salvation (sōtēria, σωτηρία), the crucifixion regarded as an atonement for the sins of humanity (hilastērion, ἱλαστήριον).3
The Qurʾān plainly rejects the narrative that ʿĪsā ibn Maryam was crucified or killed.4 Paul’s teaching contradicts divine revelation, and it also contradicts the principle of justice and moral responsibility brought by the earlier prophets: a direct relationship between the human being and God, with no need of a redeeming sacrifice.
The typological method of interpretation Paul used also reinforces the structure of his belief. Through it the original meaning of events in the earlier scriptures is reinterpreted symbolically to support new narratives such as the crucifixion and resurrection. From the standpoint of Islamic epistemology the method is rejected, because it departs from the literal, historical and original meaning of revelation.
In Islam, interpretation must rest on the apparent and objective meaning, and never on symbolic imagination constructed to support an outside doctrine. The whole theological edifice built on typology, including the concepts of blood sacrifice (haima, αἷμα), crucifixion (stauros, σταυρός) and the divinity of Jesus (theotēs, θεότης), can therefore be regarded as invention separate from the frame of authentic revelation. Islam affirms that sin cannot be redeemed by the sacrifice of another, still less by the death of a man regarded as holy or divine.
