Question 1

Muslims don't worship the same God.

Accepted Answer

False. Allah is not the name of a rival deity. It is the Arabic word for God, and Arabic-speaking Christians have used it in their Bibles, liturgies and prayers for well over a thousand years — long before and long after Islam appeared. An Arab Christian reading John 1:1 reads the word Allah. The God Islam describes is the God of Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus: the Creator who spoke to the prophets, who gave the moral law, who judges, who forgives. The Quran explicitly instructs Muslims to say that they believe in what was revealed to them and what was revealed before them, and that our God and your God is one. What differs is the description, not the referent. Two people can disagree about the nature of the same king without one of them describing a different king.

Question 2

Muslims deny that Jesus is the Son of God.

Accepted Answer

True and false — and the distinction is the whole point. Muslims reject the literal reading: that God begot a child, that divinity was transmitted biologically, that there exists an offspring sharing God's essence. That reading is refused because it makes God a being with a lineage, a body, a partner — in other words, a creature's equal. A Muslim is not barred from the scriptural, metaphorical sense of sonship. The Bible itself calls Israel God's son, calls Solomon God's son, calls peacemakers sons of God, calls Adam a son of God. Used that way — the beloved, chosen, obedient servant standing in a unique relationship of favour with God — nothing is violated. Christians should understand where the literal reading leads rather than assuming hostility toward Jesus. The moment God is equated with a person, or given a person's attributes as though they were the substance of God rather than a way of speaking about Him, worship slides toward the created thing. That is exactly what happened in pre-Islamic Arabia: daughters of God, sons of God, intermediaries, statues. Islam arrived and cut the root. Yes, we speak of God's mercy, His hearing, His speech, His hands — human language is the only language we have. But the guardrail never moves: nothing is equal to God, nothing resembles Him, nothing shares His authority by right.

Question 3

Muslims reject the Trinity, so they reject who God really is.

Accepted Answer

Partly true — and there is more room here than either side admits. Islam's non-negotiable is not a rejection of mystery. It is one sentence: nothing is equivalent to God. Whatever a doctrine says about God's inner life, the instant it places a second sovereign alongside Him — equal in right, equal in authority, equal in essence — it has crossed into shirk. Islam already speaks of God's Word (kalimatullah, applied directly to Jesus) and of the Holy Spirit (Ruh al-Qudus, who strengthens Jesus). The categories are not foreign. What Islam refuses is co-equality, not the existence of God's word or God's spirit. So there is space in Islam for someone wrestling their way out of Trinitarian language, provided they hold the line: God's Word and God's Spirit are His, not co-equal sovereigns beside Him. Many Christians, pressed on it, describe something close to this already — the Father as the unbegotten source, the Son as sent, obedient, subordinate in mission. Jesus makes the hierarchy explicit himself: the Father is greater than I; why do you call me good, there is none good but God; this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

Question 4

Muslims think Jesus was just a prophet.

Accepted Answer

Understated to the point of being wrong. In Islam, Jesus is conceived without a father, born of the virgin Mary, named the Messiah, called a Word from God, given the Gospel, strengthened by the Holy Spirit, granted the ability to heal the blind and the leper and to give life by God's permission, protected from his enemies, raised by God to Himself, and returning at the end of time. By any ordinary measure that is more than a prophet. As a Muslim I can say plainly that Jesus occupies a role in the Bible, in the Quran and in the world that no other human being occupies. And still: not God's equal. Not because Islam wants to diminish him, but because he said so himself, and because a servant honoured by God does not become God by being honoured.

Question 5

Muslims follow a different book that contradicts the Bible.

Accepted Answer

Narrower than it sounds. The Quran names Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, Job, Zechariah, John the Baptist and Jesus. It affirms the Torah, the Psalms and the Gospel as revelation from God. It repeats the same moral law and the same monotheism. The disputes are real but specific: the nature of Jesus, the mechanism of atonement, the events at the cross, the transmission of earlier scripture. That is a short list next to the enormous shared body of prophets, commandments, eschatology and ethics. Muslims are also told exactly how to handle the disagreement: argue with the People of the Book in the best manner, and say we believe in what was sent down to us and to you.

Question 6

Christianity is grace; Islam is works. Muslims think they can earn Heaven.

Accepted Answer

False on both halves. No Muslim believes deeds purchase Paradise. The Prophet said explicitly that no one enters Paradise by his deeds alone, but by God's mercy. Deeds are the evidence of faith and the response to mercy, not the price of it. And the New Testament is not workless. Jesus tells the rich young man to keep the commandments. Matthew 25 sorts the nations by whether they fed the hungry and clothed the naked. James says faith without works is dead. Revelation judges each according to his deeds. Both traditions hold the same four things together: faith, repentance, obedience, and the mercy of God as the decisive factor. The caricature only survives where neither side reads the other's text.

Question 7

Muslims deny the crucifixion, so they deny history itself.

Accepted Answer

More complicated than either mainstream position allows. This one deserves more than a paragraph. My own position — that the crucifixion and the empty tomb happened, and that Jesus was divinely shielded from an accursed death and survived it by God's power — sits comfortably in neither mainstream Christianity nor mainstream Islam. The full case runs through the Koine Greek of the New Testament: the Sign of Jonah requiring a living man, the answered prayer of Hebrews 5:7, the pivot in Psalm 22, the Deuteronomy 21 curse trap, egeirō versus apoktanthēnai, the blood and water, and the flesh and bones of the post-cross appearances.

The arguments against Islam, answered honestly.

Stretch it as far as Islam allows — and not one inch further

The arguments against Islam, answered honestly.

Stretch it as far as Islam allows — and not one inch further

01“Muslims don't worship the same God.”Verdict: False.

02“Muslims deny that Jesus is the Son of God.”Verdict: True and false — and the distinction is the whole point.

03“Muslims reject the Trinity, so they reject who God really is.”Verdict: Partly true — and there is more room here than either side admits.

04“Muslims think Jesus was just a prophet.”Verdict: Understated to the point of being wrong.

05“Muslims follow a different book that contradicts the Bible.”Verdict: Narrower than it sounds.

06“Christianity is grace; Islam is works. Muslims think they can earn Heaven.”Verdict: False on both halves.

07“Muslims deny the crucifixion, so they deny history itself.”Verdict: More complicated than either mainstream position allows.