In three different passages the Quran refers to the companions of Jesus as al-ḥawāriyyūn, a term generally understood to mean “disciples” or “apostles”. The ḥawāriyyūn, in each of these passages, declare their belief in Jesus and in his God. In Āl ʿImrān (3) 52 the Quran recounts: “And when Jesus perceived their unbelief, he said, ‘Who will be my helpers unto God?’ The ḥawāriyyūn said, ‘We will be helpers of God; we believe in God; witness thou our submission (wa-shhad bi-annā muslimūn)’.”Footnote 2 In al-Mā'ida (5) 111 the divine voice of the Quran declares: “And when I inspired the ḥawāriyyūn: ‘Believe in Me and My Messenger’; they said, ‘We believe; witness Thou our submission’ (wa-shhad bi-annanā muslimūn)”. In al-Saff (61) 14a the Quran relates: “O believers, be you God's helpers, as Jesus, Mary's son, said to the ḥawāriyyūn, ‘Who will be my helpers unto God?’ The ḥawāriyyūn said, ‘We will be helpers of God’. And a party of the Children of Israel believed, and a party disbelieved”.
According to the mufassirūn, the ḥawāriyyūn were something like Jesus' faithful inner circle. Farrā' (d. 207/822) and Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) name them “the intimate companions (khāṣṣa) of Jesus”.Footnote 3Tafsīr al-Jalalayn describes them as his “pure companions (aṣfiyā')”.Footnote 4 In Tafsīr al-Manār, Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1354/1935) relates: “The ḥawāriyyūn were the supporters (anṣār) of Jesus… . They supported him by acting according to his religion and in their proclamation of his religion.”Footnote 5 Ṭabaṭābā'ī (d. 1402/1982) comes to a similar conclusion: “The Qurʾān only used this expression [“al-ḥawāriyyūn”] for the most intimate members of Jesus' companions (khawāṣṣ ʿĪsā min aṣḥābihi)”.Footnote 6
Presumably Muslim scholars have been inclined to think of the ḥawāriyyūn as faithful companions in light of the particular wording of the declarations attributed to them in the Quran. In Āl ʿImrān (3) 52 (as in al-Mā'ida (5) 111) al-ḥawāriyyūn declare to Jesus, “Bear witness that we are muslimūn”.Footnote 7 Twelve verses later (Q. 3:64) the Quran instructs the believers in its own prophet to declare to the People of Book: “Bear witness that we are muslimūn”.Footnote 8 This correspondence evidently suggested to the mufassirūn that the ḥawāriyyūn were faithful Muslim followers of Jesus, as the companions of the Prophet were the faithful Muslim followers of Muḥammad.
Most of the mufassirūn also report that Jesus had twelve ḥawāriyyūn, a number never mentioned in the Quran.Footnote 9 This report suggests that they had recourse to the New Testament traditions on the apostles, or the disciples, of Jesus, in their attempts to provide details on the ḥawāriyyūn. In fact the Quranic term ḥawāriyyūn is cognate to Geʿez ḥawāryā (literally “walker”), the term regularly used for “apostle” in the Ethiopic Bible.Footnote 10 However, the early mufassirūn, although they were not averse to explaining certain Quranic terms in light of non-Arabic vocabulary,Footnote 11 are unaware of this etymology. They generally consider ḥawāriyyūn to be a proper Arabic term from the root ḥ-w-r, with the meaning “to be white”. Most of the mufassirūn argue to this end that the ḥawāriyyūn were “whiteners” of clothing.Footnote 12 Farrā' explains: “It is said in the commentaries that they were called ḥawāriyyūn because they were bleachers of cloth”.Footnote 13
For his part Ṭabarī records three different opinions on why the Quran names the companions of Jesus ḥawāriyyūn: first, because of the whiteness of their clothing; second, because they worked as bleachers; and third because ḥawāriyyūn is a name given to the intimate companions of all prophets; that is, the term has no connection to the clothing or the job of Jesus' companions – it is a title (the meaning of which the tradition does not explain) which was bestowed upon them when they decided to follow Jesus. Ṭabarī favours the second opinion.Footnote 14 Elsewhere in his commentary, however, Ṭabarī quotes a tradition in which Ibn ʿAbbās is made to refute this view. By this latter tradition the companions of Jesus were called ḥawāriyyūn due to the whiteness of their clothing (the first opinion above), since they all worked as fishermen.Footnote 15
Our knowledge of the relationship between ḥawāriyyūn and Geʿez ḥawāryā might seem to confirm the way in which the mufassirūn associate the ḥawāriyyūn (by numbering them at twelve or reporting that they worked as fishermen) with the apostles, or disciples, of Jesus. Yet we might consider carefully what this relationship implies. The problem of interpreting Quranic vocabulary by searching out related foreign terms has recently been highlighted by Walid Saleh.Footnote 16 A good example of this problem, for our purposes, is the term naṣārā. It has long been noted that the appearance of this term in the Quran is peculiar, in as much as the word for “Christians” in the languages (Semitic or otherwise) of late antiquity is generally (as in English) some sort of calque of the Greek term Χριστιανοί. Thus in Syriac Christians are generally named mshiḥāyē (or krīsṭyānē);Footnote 17 indeed in Christian Arabic Christians are masīḥiyyūn.
The Arabic Quran, however, refers to Christians as naṣārā, a term which seems to be connected to Greek Ναζωραιοι (presumably through Syriac nāsrāyē), or “Nazarenes”.Footnote 18 As Sidney Griffith has recently pointed out, in the early Christian centuries the term “Nazarenes” was generally used in a pejorative manner, often to label a heretical sect accused of Judaizing.Footnote 19 The connection between the Quran's use of naṣārā, and the heresiographical use of “Nazarenes” became an important part of a scholarly theory, found already in the nineteenth century and still found today,Footnote 20 that the Quran employs the term naṣārā because Muḥammad knew Christianity only through a Jewish–Christian sect. For his part Griffith argues that the material in the Quran (once it is appreciated that the Quran is a text marked by rhetorical strategies like any other) offers no compelling reason to search for a Jewish–Christian sect behind the term naṣārā.Footnote 21
My point about the term ḥawāriyyūn is similar. Critical scholars are generally content to translate this term as “apostles” or “disciples” without any further comment.Footnote 22 The entry “Apostle” in the Encyclopedia of the Qur'ān is in fact an entry on the ḥawāriyyūn.Footnote 23 But what would it mean for the Quran, a text with no little polemic against Christianity, to invoke the apostles of Christian tradition?
In the New Testament the apostles (Greek ἀπόστολοι, lit. “those sent forth”),Footnote 24 or disciples (Greek μαθηταὶ),Footnote 25 are the twelve men whom Jesus chooses to be his co-labourers (see Matthew 10:2; Luke 6:13). They are also witnesses of the risen Christ. It is one of the “disciples” (John 20:25), Thomas, who touches the risen Christ and proclaims: “My Lord and my God!” After Jesus' ascension to heaven (Acts 1:2) – to which the apostles are witnesses as well – the apostles receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4) and work many “signs and wonders” (Acts 2:43). On the day of Pentecost Peter stands up in front of the other apostles and declares to the crowd gathered in Jerusalem, “God raised this man Jesus to life, and of that we are all witnesses. * Now raised to the heights by God's right hand, he has received from the Father the Holy Spirit, who was promised, and what you see and hear is the outpouring of that Spirit” (Acts 2:32–3).
The Christians (Ethiopian or otherwise) of the Quran's late antique milieu understood the apostles in this manner. The apostles were not simply the companions of Christ, teacher and prophet; they were witnesses of Christ risen from the dead, and among these apostles was Paul (who indeed is known simply as “the apostle” [shlīḥā] in Syriac Christian literature).Footnote 26 None of this, presumably, could apply to the ḥawāriyyūn of the Quran, a text which (according to the standard understanding at least) denies the death of Jesus, thinks of the Holy Spirit as the angel Gabriel, and never mentions the Church.
The ḥawāriyyūn and Muḥammad
For their part, traditional Muslim scholars seem to have associated the ḥawāriyyūn with the apostles (as I will henceforth refer to them, notwithstanding the use of “disciples” for the same characters elsewhere in the New Testament) because they were eager to show that Biblical protagonists pre-figured Muḥammad. In this case the link between Jesus and Muḥammad is suggested by the Quran itself, which seems to have (Q. 61:14) Muḥammad ask his followers to be God's “helpers” (anṣār) in the way that Jesus' ḥawāriyyūn were once God's helpers. In order to illustrate this link, Muslim scholars included elements in Muḥammad's biography that are evidently meant to be parallel to elements in the Christian biography of Jesus (the Quran itself being largely free of detailed narratives on the life of Jesus).
In his sīra of Ibn Hishām (d. 218/833) the Prophet, while still in Mecca, meets with twelve Arabs from Yathrib/Medina during the trading fair at a site named ʿAqaba. These twelve Medinans proclaim their belief in Islam, and pledge to him their support.Footnote 27 The following year, at the same fair, the Prophet meets with seventy-three Medinans (other traditions make this seventy),Footnote 28 all of whom pledge not only to support Muḥammad, but also to defend him in battle.Footnote 29
Ibn Hishām has Muḥammad – on the occasion of the second pledge at ʿAqaba – refer to the twelve leaders of the Medinans as nuqabāʾ, “chiefs” or “leaders”.Footnote 30 In doing so he is drawing on al-Mā'ida (5) 12, where the Quran has God reflect on how He appointed twelve naqībs among the Israelites in the days of Moses.Footnote 31 However, the story in which this term is used is related to the Quranic material on Jesus: Ibn Hishām has the Prophet exclaim to his twelve naqībs, “You are the sureties for your people just as the ḥawāriyyūn of Jesus, Son of Mary were responsible to him, while I am responsible for my people”.Footnote 32
The mufassirūn generally relate the story of ʿAqaba when commenting on al-Ṣaff (61) 14, a verse which seems to have the Prophet ask his followers if they will support him as the ḥawāriyyūn once supported Jesus. ʿAbd al-Razzāq (d. 211/827) and Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī quote a tradition by which al-Ṣaff (61) 14 was revealed at ʿAqaba.Footnote 33 ʿAbd al-Razzāq also explains, in line with a second widespread tradition, that the seventy Medinans who pledged their support at ʿAqaba were not Muḥammad's ḥawāriyyūn, but only his anṣār; the Prophet did have twelve “ḥawāriyyūn” of his own, but they all came from the Quraysh.Footnote 34
The story of ʿAqaba does not seem to be a case of religious apology (although it might be argued that the story has Muḥammad act in a distinctly prophetic sort of way, and with appropriately symbolic numbers) but rather haggadic exegesis. The story provides an Islamic story to explain Al-Ṣaff (61) 14. This verse opens with a command – “O believers, be you God's helpers (anṣār)” – but it does not identify who was commanded, or on what occasion the command was given. The story of ʿAqaba fills in these details by having the Medinans respond to Muḥammad's call by declaring that they will be his “anṣār”. This story, or better, this Muḥammadan reading of al-Ṣaff (61) 14, seems to explain how the idea of naming the Muslims of Yathrib/Medina “anṣār”, developed.Footnote 35
The exegetical nature of the story of ʿAqaba seems to have a parallel in a (Shiite) variant reading of al-Ṣaff (61) 14 attributed to al-Rabīʿ b. Khuthaym, by which the last line of this verse – “So We confirmed those who believed against their enemy, and they became masters” – is replaced by: “So we aided the believers in their fight alongside the paternal cousin of their Prophet [i.e. ʿAlī] against their enemy”.Footnote 36
The story of ʿAqaba and the report of Muḥammad's twelve ḥawāriyyūn are elaborations of the parallel between Muḥammad and Jesus suggested by al-Ṣaff (61) 14. The twelve ḥawāriyyūn are Muḥammad's apostles. The 70 (or 73) anṣar of Medina are his disciples (whom he sent out to Medina to prepare for the arrival of Islam). Thus his biography matches the Gospel reports which have Jesus choose both twelve apostles and (in the Gospel of Luke) seventy others whom he sent out in twos to preach the Gospel, “as lambs among wolves” (Luke 10:3).Footnote 37
Rethinking the apostles of Jesus in the Quran
Thus both tafsīr on Jesus' ḥawāriyyūn and traditions on Muḥammad's ḥawāriyyūn reflect an association that traditional Muslim scholars make between the ḥawāriyyūn of the Quran and the apostles of the New Testament. Critical scholars make this same association. Watt describes al-ḥawāriyyūn as “the twelve apostles of Jesus”.Footnote 38 Dénise Masson names them: “Les disciples immédiats de Jésus, ceux que la tradition chrétienne désigne sous le nom d'Apôtres”. She adds that they are believers: “Ils sont croyants; Jésus a accompli à leur demande le miracle de la table servie, et ils y ont cru. Le dernier verset de la Sourate LXI semblerait même les proposer en exemple aux compagnons de Mohammad”.Footnote 39 It is worth asking, however, what it might mean to think of the Quran's ḥawāriyyūn as both apostles and believers in the Muslim Jesus of the Quran. In other words, if the ḥawāriyyūn are the apostles of the New Testament, how could they also be faithful companions of the Muslim Jesus?
It seems to me that one of these two must go. Either the Quran's ḥawāriyyūn are not the “apostles” but rather fundamentally different characters with no particular connection to the stories of the New Testament, or they are the “apostles”, but not faithful companions of the Quran's Jesus. The right solution will emerge through a careful reading of the three passages in which al-ḥawāriyyūn appear (see Table 1).Footnote 40
Quranic passages in which al-ḥawāriyyūn appear
In the first verse quoted in Table 1 (Q. 3:52), which follows an account of Jesus' message to the Israelites (Q 3:49–51), the ḥawāriyyūn declare their belief in God. Their declarations continue in the next verse: “Lord we believe in that Thou hast sent down, and we follow the Messenger. Inscribe us therefore with those who bear witness” (Q 3:53). Thereafter, however, the Quran reports, “And they devised [makarū], and God devised, and God is the best of devisers” (Q. 3:54). This report suggests that the ḥawāriyyūn did not remain true to their declaration of faith. They were like the second son who, when asked, promised that he would go to work in his father's vineyard, but then did not go (Matthew 21:30). Their “devising” (or better, “deception”, Ar. makr) consisted of making promises that they did not keep (“We will be helpers … we believe … witness thou our submission … we believe … we follow … inscribe us therefore with those who bear witness!”).
The standard Islamic interpretation of this passage is quite different. Most of the mufassirūn connect verse 54 to the beginning of verse 52, that is, to those whose unbelief Jesus “perceived”.Footnote 41 These unbelievers are the Jews who rejected Jesus. The “devising” in verse 54 consists of their plot to crucify him (even if the crucifixion is not mentioned anywhere in this passage, or indeed in this Sura).Footnote 42
Yet the idea that the ḥawāriyyūn were those who devised corresponds with the role they play in al-Mā'ida (5).Footnote 43 In al-Mā'ida (5) 111 the Quran cites a pious proclamation of the ḥawāriyyūn; in the very next verse, they demand a sign of Jesus (“O Jesus son of Mary, is thy Lord able to send down on us a Table out of heaven?”). Thereby the Quran has the ḥawāriyyūn challenge at once Jesus and God. When Jesus seeks to dissuade them from this challenge (“Fear you God, if you are believers”) they insist still more fervently, “We desire that we should eat of it and our hearts be at rest; and that we may know that thou hast spoken true to us” (Q 5:113).Footnote 44
The demand of sceptics, or hypocrites, for a sign from heaven is a prominent topos in the Quran. The unbelievers ask regarding the Quran's own prophet, “Why have signs not been sent down upon him from his Lord?” (Q. 29:50). Elsewhere the divine voice of the Quran explains to the Prophet: “The People of the Book will ask thee to bring down upon them a Book from heaven; and they asked Moses for greater than that, for they said, ‘Show us God openly’. And the thunderbolt took them for their evildoing” (Q. 4:153a). To this effect the Quran also relates how Pharaoh once sought to look upon the God of Moses, for which reason he commanded his assistant Haman to build him a tower: “Pharaoh said, ‘Haman, build for me a tower, that haply so I may reach [the passageways],Footnote 45 * [the passageways] of the heavens, and look upon Moses’ God; for I think that he is a liar'.” (Q 40:36–7).Footnote 46
The mā'ida episode is similar. In al-Mā'ida (5) 111 the ḥawāriyyūn are told by God to believe in Him and in Jesus, and they profess their faith in response. In the next verse, however, they demand that Jesus bring them a sign from heaven. They insist that he do so even when Jesus attempts to dissuade them. If the Quran does not declare that they think him a liar (as Pharaoh thinks the God of Moses to be a liar), it implies something to this effect when it has them explain to Jesus, “We desire that we should eat of it … that we may know that thou hast spoken true to us”.
Thus in neither Āl ʿImrān nor al-Mā'ida do the ḥawāriyyūn play the role of the faithful apostles. Instead their role reflects that of the crowds in John 6.Footnote 47 In al-Mā'ida (5) 111 the Quran has God inspire the ḥawāriyyūn with belief in God and His messenger, Jesus. In John 6:29 (the introduction to the “Bread of Life” discourse) Jesus tells the crowd to “believe in the one He has sent” (i.e. “His messenger”; ὃν ἀπέστειλεν ἐκεῖνος).Footnote 48 The crowds respond to him with a demand for a sign, “What sign will you yourself do, the sight of which will make us believe in you? What work will you do? * Our fathers ate manna in the desert; as scripture says: He gave them bread from heaven to eat” (John 6:30–31). Here John has the crowds make a reference to the Old Testament material on the manna which God gave to the Israelites during their forty years of wandering in the desert.Footnote 49 The Quran does something similar when it has the ḥawāriyyūn ask: “Is thy Lord able to send down on us a Table out of heaven?” Their question reflects the manner in which the Psalmist chastises the Israelites for their constant demands of Moses in the wilderness: “They insulted God by saying, ‘Can God make a table in the desert?’” (Psalm 78:19).Footnote 50
The presentation of the ḥawāriyyūn in the mā'ida passage as imperfect followers of a prophet seems to reflect the Quranic presentation of the Christians generally. Earlier in the same Sura the Quran makes imperfect belief a distinctive quality of the Christians. In Al-Mā'ida (5) 13 the Quran insists that the Jews have been cursed by God for their infidelity to Him:
So for their breaking their compact We cursed them and made their hearts hard, they pervert words from their meanings; and they have forgotten a portion of that they were reminded of; and thou wilt never cease to light upon some act of treachery on their part, except a few of them. Yet pardon them, and forgive; surely God loves the good-doers (Q. 5:13).
In the following verse the Quran turns to the Christians:
And with those who say “We are Christians” We took compact; and they have forgotten a portion of that they were reminded of. So We have stirred up among them enmity and hatred, till the Day of Resurrection; and God will assuredly tell them of the things they wrought (Q. 5:14).
The Quran insists that God has made a “compact” (mīthāq) with both the Jews and the Christians. The Jews have broken their compact, and therefore have been cursed; they have also “forgotten a portion of that they were reminded of” (or “of that which was explained to them [dhukkirū bihi]”). The Christians, evidently, have not broken their contract, but have only “forgotten a portion of that they were reminded of”.
The particular condemnation which the Quran reserves for the Jews – vis-à-vis the Christians – is presumably explainable by their disbelief in Jesus. Their refusal to believe in him is emphasized in al-Ṣaff (61) 6:
And when Jesus son of Mary said, “Children of Israel, I am indeed the Messenger of God to you, confirming the Torah that is before me, and giving good tidings of a Messenger who shall come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad”. Then, when he brought them the clear signs, they said, “This is a manifest sorcery”.
Here the Quran makes Jesus a prophet to the Israelites in the way that Hūd was a prophet to ʿĀd, Ṣāliḥ a prophet to Thamūd, and Shuʿayb a prophet to Midian. When Hūd preached to his people, most of ʿĀd rejected him and were annihilated, but God “delivered him, and those with him” (Q. 7:72; or, according to Q. 11:58, “those who believed with him”). So too God saved those of Thamūd who believed in Ṣāliḥ (Q. 11:66) and those of Midian who believed in Shuʿayb (11:94). The ḥawāriyyūn are those who believed in Jesus.
According to this topos, in other words, when God sends a prophet to a people some of the people reject the prophet (and are punished), while others accept him (and are saved). This topos is evidently developed for the sake of the Quran's religious exhortation to its own people. The Quran has its prophet allude to a party (ṭā'ifa) of believers and a party of unbelievers within his community:
And if there is a party of you who believe in the Message I have been sent with, and a party who believe not, be patient till God shall judge between us; He is the best of judges (Q. 7:87).
This topos is again found in respect to Jesus, several verses later in al-Ṣaff (61), the third passage which involves the ḥawāriyyūn:
O believers, be you God's helpers, as Jesus, Mary's son, said to the Apostles. “Who will be my helpers unto God?” The ḥawāriyyūn said, “We will be helpers of God”. And a party (ṭā'ifa) of the Children of Israel believed, and a party disbelieved. So We confirmed those who believed against their enemy, and they became masters (ẓāhirīn; Q. 61:14).
Now according to the traditional interpretation of this verse, those who “became masters” are those addressed at its beginning (“O believers”), that is, the followers of Muḥammad.Footnote 51 However, this reading seems to ignore the syntax of the verse (which suggests that the party of the Israelites who believed “became masters”). Moreover the relationship of al-Ṣaff (61) 14 to the corresponding passage of Āl ʿImrān (3) belies this interpretation.
As in al-Ṣaff (61) 14, in Āl ʿImrān Jesus asks: “Who will be my helpers unto God” and the Apostles volunteer for the job (Q. 3:52–3). In al-Ṣaff the Quran continues by explaining that a party of the Israelites believed, while another party did not, and that God “supported” (ayyadnā; Arberry translates “confirmed”) the believers. This explanation finds a parallel in Āl ʿImrān (v. 55), where the Quran has God declare that He will put the followers of Jesus above the unbelievers. Tafsīr Muqātil identifies the unbelievers in this verse as the Jews, and the believers as, “The people of Jesus' religion: the Muslims”.Footnote 52
This identification seems to be far removed from the concern of the Quran, namely the manner in which the Israelites were split into those who believed in Jesus and those who did not. As there was a division among ʿĀd, Thamūd, and Midian between a party of believers and a party of unbelievers, so too there was a division among the Israelites. In the case of Jesus, however, the belief at stake is not belief in one God (the two parties agree on this point) but rather belief in Jesus' prophethood. The ḥawāriyyūn – that is, the Christians – believed in him, and the Jews did not.
The Quran's explanation that the party who believed in Jesus “became masters” (or better, “victorious” (ẓāhirīn)), implies that the ḥawāriyyūn are not (pace Tafsīr Muqātil) the Muslim disciples of Jesus known to Islamic tradition (who were persecuted soon after the day of the Crucifixion and disappeared from the face of the earth).Footnote 53 Instead the ḥawāriyyūn are the Christian apostles. The apostles believed in Jesus. Their community, the Christians, became masters and ruled over the Jews (we can detect here something of the Christian idea of the triumph of the Cross). In Āl ʿImrān (3) 55 – set in the time of Jesus – God announces that He will support those who believe in Jesus against those who do not (the Jews). In al-Ṣaff (61) 14 – set in the time of Muḥammad – God reminds the Prophet of how He once supported those who believed in Jesus against those who did not.
The ḥawāriyyūn, then, are the party of believing Israelites.Footnote 54 Their belief, however, is imperfect: they demand a sign from Jesus (Q. 5:112), doubting that he is truthful (Q. 5:113) immediately after they declare their belief in him (Q. 5:111). They also proceeded to say things which Jesus did not say:
Q. 5:116–8: And when God said, “O Jesus son of Mary, didst thou say unto men, ‘Take me and my mother as gods, apart from God?’” He said, “To Thee be glory! It is not mine to say what I have no right to. If I indeed said it, Thou knowest it, knowing what is within my soul, and I know not what is within Thy soul; Thou knowest the things unseen. * I only said to them what Thou didst command me: ‘Serve God, my Lord and your Lord’. And I was a witness over them, while I remained among them; but when Thou didst take me to Thyself, Thou wast Thyself the watcher over them; Thou Thyself art witness of everything. * If Thou chastisest them, they are Thy servants; if Thou forgivest them, Thou art the All-mighty, the All-wise.”
For this reason the ḥawāriyyūn are guilty of “deception” (Q. 3:54). The Quran's concern with the imperfect faith of the ḥawāriyyūn appears again in al-Mu'minūn (23):
Q. 23:49–53: And We gave Moses the Book, that haply they would be guided; * and We made Mary's son, and his mother, to be a sign, and gave them refuge upon a height, where was a hollow and a spring: * “O Messengers (rusul), eat of the good things and do righteousness; surely I know the things you do. * Surely this community of yours is one community, and I am your Lord; so fear Me.” * But they split in their affair between them into sects, each party rejoicing in what is with them.
Here the Quran, immediately after referring to Jesus and Mary, has God speak to “al-rusul”. Now these rusul might be thought to be the rusul mentioned five verses earlier (Q. 23:44): “Then sent We Our Messengers successively; whenever its Messenger came to a nation they cried him lies …”. By this reading verse 51 (“O Messengers [rusul], eat of the good things and do righteousness; surely I know the things you do”) would be a general address by God to all of the prophets whom He has sent in earlier generations.Footnote 55 It does seem strange, however, that God would gather all of these prophets (including those who were dead?), treat them as one community, and command them to eat only licit foods.
Instead these rusul should be thought of as the Christian rusul: the apostles or the [ḥawāriyyūn]. Indeed rusul is a good Arabic translation of Greek ἀπόστολοι, “apostles”. The connection with Christians is suggested by the mention of Mary and Jesus in verse 52, and by the reference in verse 53 to the divisions in their “community”. As we have seen (Q. 5:14) the Quran presents discord and division as a (divinely ordained) mark of the Christian community. The connection with Christians is also suggested by the relationship of this passage with al-Anbiyāʾ (21) 91–3.Footnote 56
Q 21:91–3: And she who guarded her virginity, so We breathed into her of Our spirit and appointed her and her son to be a sign unto all beings. * “Surely this community of yours is one community, and I am your Lord; so serve Me.” * But they split up their affair between them; all shall return to Us.
Here the Quran similarly refers to Mary and her son (v. 91), has God command a community to remain united, and then (speaking retrospectively) reflects on how this community divided into sects.Footnote 57
If the Quran indeed uses the term rusul (otherwise reserved for prophets or angels) in al-Mu'minūn (23) 51 to refer to the apostles, then the phrase that appears in the following verse (“‘O Messengers (rusul), eat of the good things and do righteousness; surely I know the things you do”; a version of this appears in Q. 21:92) speaks of a revelation to them. In this light we might better understand al-Mā’ida (5) 111. In Arberry's translation this verse begins: “And when I inspired the ḥawāriyyūn: ‘Believe in Me and My Messenger’…”. Arberry here translates awḥaytu ilā as “I inspired”, yet the Quran generally uses the verb awḥā to refer to divine revelation (to Moses 7:117, 160; to Muḥammad Q. 3:44; 4:163; to the angels 8:12, etc.).Footnote 58 Arberry has seemingly shaped his translation here so that it conforms to Islamic doctrine.
Now the Quran also has God awḥā to the bees (Q. 16:68 – here Arberry does translate “revealed”) and to the earth (Q. 99:5). Elsewhere the demons are said to awḥā (Q. 6:112, 121). Yet al-Mā'ida (5) 111 is a case of God speaking to humans (not to animals or minerals); moreover, the Quran is not merely inspiring people in any spiritual sense but rather delivering a literal message, which the Quran relates in direct speech (I revealed to the apostles, “Believe in Me and My Messenger”). There is nothing to differentiate this report from those Quranic reports of God's literal messages to Moses (e.g. Q. 7:117: “We revealed to Moses: ‘Cast thy staff’) or the Quran's own prophet (‘Then We revealed to thee: “Follow thou the creed of Abraham”’)”. In other words, the apostles of the Quran – like the apostles of the New Testament – receive divine revelation.Footnote 59
Thus the Quran's presentation of the apostles is ambiguous. On the one hand, the Quran reports how the apostles proclaimed their belief in Jesus, how God revealed messages to them (on at least two occasions), and how God supported them against the Jews for the sake of their belief in Jesus. On the other hand, they forgot the words of Jesus and split apart into different sects.
The ambiguity in the Quran's material on the apostles reflects its teaching on the Christians generally.Footnote 60 The Quran's Christians are fundamentally unlike the Quran's Jews. The Quran refers to the Jews in the same way that it refers to other peoples who refused to believe in other prophets. The Quran, it might even be said, refers to the Jews in the way that it refers to the ruins of the people who rejected the prophet Lot:
Q 37:133–8: Lot too was one of the Envoys; * when We delivered him and his people all together * save an old woman among those that tarried; * then We destroyed the others, * and you pass by them in the morning * and in the night; will you not understand?
The unbelievers of Lot's people (whose ruins were thought by the Quran to be visible to its own people) were destroyed by God and serve as an example of a divine punishment. Similarly the unbelievers of Jesus' people – the Jews – serve as an example of a divine curse. To this end the Quran, in al-Mā'ida (5) 13, first describes how God has cursed the Jews (“So for their breaking their compact We cursed them and made their hearts hard…”) and then continues, “and thou wilt never cease to light upon some act of treachery on their part”. The treachery of the Jews is a sign of God's curse (which made their hearts hard), as the ruins of Lot's people are a sign of God's punishment.
As for the Christians, they are the imperfect believers whom the Quran seeks to reprimand (in part by citing examples such as the destruction of Lot's people and the cursing of the Jews) and to convert to proper faith. This fundamental difference between the Quran's treatment of the Jews and of the Christians is evident in the comparison that the Quran draws between the Jews and the Christians later in al-Mā'ida:
Q 5:82–3: Thou wilt surely find the most hostile of men to the believers are the Jews and the idolaters; and thou wilt surely find the nearest of them in love to the believers are those who say “We are Christians”; that, because some of them are priests and monks, and they wax not proud; * and when they hear what has been sent down to the Messenger, thou seest their eyes overflow with tears because of the truth they recognize. They say, “Our Lord, we believe; so do Thou write us down among the witnesses”.
In the larger context of the Quran's narratives of the prophets and their peoples, the Christians are a unique case. They have not been destroyed or cursed (indeed, they have been made “victorious” by God). But they have forgotten the message of their prophet. The Quran is meant to be their reminder.
