Qur'anic Approaches to Jesus Christ in the Perspective of Comparative Theology

The Christology is among Christians and Muslims generally regarded as the crucial point of difference between the two religions. For instance, whereas for Christians the belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God establishes a core belief, Muslims seem to feel that refusing this belief is a fundamental part of their faith. Consequently, the Christian confession of Jesus as the Christ is considered to be the single most important difference between Islam and Christianity. On the other hand, there is probably no other religion besides Christianity, which acknowledges in the normative foundations of its own faith such a deep appreciation of the person and life of Jesus of Nazareth as Islam. Therefore, it can be stated without much debate that the Islamic tradition has always cultivated a remarkable fascination with Jesus of Nazareth.

Given some Quranic statements in which Jesus is described as the Word of God, it was very intriguing to examine these statements towards their Christological content. The project therefore scrutinized whether it is feasible, from a particularly Christian perspective, to recognize the Quranic appreciations of Jesus of Nazareth as a form of Jesuology, which could possibly be saying something valuable to Christians. In accordance with that thought one can also ask, whether the Christian faith could accommodate to a certain extend the depiction of Jesus of Nazareth in the Quran within its own frame of belief and could the peculiarity of this approach be regarded as an enrichment of the Christian identity. Similarly, from the perspective of a Muslim Comparative Theology we discussed the question whether the relationship between the Christian confession of Jesus as the Christ and the Quranic statements about Jesus can be reviewed on the grounds of offering a new understanding of Jesus to Islamic thought.