Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? Some insist that the answer is no, while others argue that Christianity and Islam are simply two different ways of worshiping the same God. Some even go so far as to describe Christians and Muslims as brothers and sisters in faith.1
In fact, in 2003, the president of the United States of America, George W. Bush, was asked whether Muslims worship the same Almighty as Christians. His answer was, “I believe we worship the same God.”2
Then, in 2015, a professor at Wheaton College, a prominent Evangelical school, made a similar statement. Her name was Larycia Hawkins, and she announced that she would wear a hijab during the Advent season to show solidarity with Muslims. In a Facebook post, she stated:
I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.3
The college placed her on administrative leave, and the controversy made national headlines. Eventually, she and the college agreed to part ways. Theologians disagreed over the issue. Miroslav Volf, a professor at Yale University, defended Hawkins and argued that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, even though they understand Him differently.4 So who’s right? What is the conclusion? Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?
We can answer this question by comparing what the Bible teaches about God with what the Qur’an teaches about Allah.
Before we do that, however, I want to make something clear. This isn’t a question about whether Muslims are sincere in their faith or whether Christians should love their Muslim neighbors. Of course we should! Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors, and that includes people we disagree with. But loving people doesn’t require us to pretend that our religious beliefs are identical or equally valid. As we have expressed in other articles, Muslims are fundamentally wrong about who Jesus is and what the Bible is.
I think part of the reason this subject is so controversial is that we live in a world where people are increasingly uncomfortable saying that someone else’s religious beliefs are wrong. We don’t want to appear judgmental, intolerant, or unloving. But what happens when our desire to not offend people causes us to compromise the truth? What happens when we become so concerned about religious unity that we begin ignoring the very teachings that distinguish Christianity from other religions? When the gospel is at stake, we cannot afford to do that. If Jesus really is the only way to the Father, as He claimed in John 14:6, then we need to be willing to say so, even when other people disagree.
Regarding our question at hand, let’s look at the evidence. First, we need to understand why some people believe Christians and Muslims worship the same God. After all, Christianity and Islam do have some important claims and beliefs in common. Both religions teach that there is only one God who created the heavens and the earth. Both believe that God created Adam and Eve, that Noah survived the flood, and that Abraham and Moses were important figures in history. Muslims also believe that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, that He was the Messiah, and that He performed miracles.
In addition to that, the Qur’an actually tells Muslims that they worship the same God as Jews and Christians.
Do not argue with the People of the Book unless gracefully, except with those of them who act wrongfully. And say, “We believe in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to you. Our God and your God is only One. And to Him we fully submit.”
Sarah 29:465
There’s also the matter of the word “Allah.” Some Christians assume that Allah must be the name of a completely different god, but that’s not how the word works. Allah is simply the Arabic word for God, and Arabic-speaking Christians use that word when referring to the God of the Bible.
So the issue isn’t what name or language someone uses when speaking about God. The issue is who that God actually is. Some people argue that because Christianity and Islam both claim to worship the one Creator, they must be worshiping the same God, even if they disagree about His nature. Yet this argument overlooks something extremely important: There’s a difference between identifying God by His role as Creator and identifying Him by who He is.
For example, you and I may think we know the same man. We begin discussing our friendships with him, and we realize that we disagree about certain details concerning him. I think he’s forty years old, and you think he’s forty-one. That difference doesn’t necessarily mean we’re talking about two different people. But suppose we disagree about his fundamental identity and relationships. I say he’s from Canada, and you say he’s from Belgium. I say he’s married to Alyssa, and they have four children, and you say he’s never been married at all and certainly isn’t a father. At some point, we have to ask whether we’re even describing the same person. Obviously, we’re not.
That’s the question we need to consider when comparing Christianity and Islam. Both religions claim to worship the Creator. But do they agree about who the Creator is? Let’s begin with the most important difference: Jesus Christ.
According to the Bible, Jesus is God. We’ve created several studies on this site that explore that teaching, so we won’t rehash it all here. Suffice it to say that Christians believe that in Christ “dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9), and that Christians echo the claim of Thomas, that Jesus is “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Jesus wasn’t merely a prophet who came to teach people about God. He was God manifested in the flesh.
But Islam emphatically rejects that teaching. The Qur’an honors Jesus as a prophet and the Messiah, but it denies that He is God. In Surah 5:72, it says:
Those who say, “Allah is the Messiah, son of Mary,” have certainly fallen into disbelief. … Whoever associates others with Allah in worship will surely be forbidden Paradise by Allah. Their home will be the Fire. And the wrongdoers will have no helpers.
Christianity teaches that Jesus is God and worthy of worship. Islam teaches that Jesus is not God and that worshiping Him as God is a sin that leads to eternal punishment. These aren’t two slightly different descriptions of Jesus. They’re fundamentally incompatible claims about His identity. The Bible tells us to worship Jesus. Islam tells us not to. How can both religions be teaching the same truth about God when they disagree about something so essential?
In 1 John 2:23 the Bible says:
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
You cannot reject the Son and still claim to have the Father. But that’s precisely what Islam does. It rejects Jesus as the divine Son of God while claiming to worship the same God Christians worship. That’s a pretty significant problem for the claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
Additionally, the Bible teaches that God is our Father. When Jesus taught His disciples how to pray in Matthew 6:9, He began with the words, “Our Father in heaven.” Throughout the New Testament, Christians are taught to approach God as their heavenly Father. The relationship between the Father and the Son is central to Christianity. But Islam rejects the Christian understanding of God’s fatherhood and sonship. The Qur’an says:
He [Allah] has never had offspring, nor was He born.
Surah 112:3
Christians do not believe that God physically produced a child. That’s not what the Bible means when it calls Jesus the Son of God. The relationship between the Father and the Son is divine and eternal, not biological. Nevertheless, Islam rejects that relationship as Christianity understands it. So when a Christian speaks about God, we’re speaking about our heavenly Father, who sent His Son into the world to save us. A Muslim says that Allah is not a father and never will be.
That brings us to what I believe is the most decisive difference of all. The Bible teaches that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There is only one God, but three distinct divine persons. In Matthew 28:19, Jesus commanded His apostles to baptize people in the name (singular) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We’re not talking about three different gods. We’re talking about the one true God, eternally existing as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Islam, on the other hand, teaches a doctrine known as Tawhid, which emphasizes the absolute oneness of Allah and rejects what is often called the Trinity. The Qur’an even condemns those who describe Allah as the “third of three” in Surah 5:73. Now, to be clear, that description isn’t how Christians themselves define God or the concept of the Trinity. We don’t believe God is one of three gods. The rejection of God’s triune nature, however, is unmistakable in Islamic theology.
This is why none of us should agree with the claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. We’re not merely disagreeing about what God has done. We’re disagreeing about who God is.
For Christians, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. That truth was cemented in the Scriptures and in Christianity from the first century. Islam came half a millennium later and specifically rejected those foundational Christian beliefs and New Testament teachings.
So here’s my question: If the God of the Bible is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but Islam says, “No He’s not!” in what meaningful theological sense can we say that both religions worship the same God?
I realize that someone could still argue that Christians and Muslims are attempting to worship the same Creator, even though one religion misunderstands His identity. In that limited sense, I get what they’re saying. After all, there aren’t two actual creators of the universe. There’s only one God. But I still think it would be misleading and inaccurate to agree with the claim that since there’s only one Creator, then every monotheistic religion worships the same God.
From a biblical perspective, you cannot separate the identity of God from Jesus Christ. In John 14:6, Jesus said:
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
A few verses later, He said:
He who has seen Me has seen the Father.
John 14:9
That’s how the Bible describes God. When the Muslim says, “But that’s not who my god is,” then we conclude we do not worship the same God. Jesus is not an optional addition to our understanding of God. He is essential to knowing who God is. When Muslims misrepresent Him by saying that He was merely a prophet and that He was never crucified, then we must conclude we are talking about two different people.
Saying that Christianity and Islam have fundamentally different claims about God does not mean that Christians should be unkind or hostile toward Muslims. Quite the opposite. If we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for our sins, and that salvation is found only through Him, then we ought to want everyone, including our Muslim neighbors, to know Him.
Muslims are our neighbors, and Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors. But that does not mean that Muslims are our brothers and sisters in faith. That relationship is found only through the true Jesus Christ, not simply through a shared belief that there is one Creator.
We can love people without agreeing with their theology. In fact, love compels us to correct their theology. We can respect their sincerity without accepting their religious conclusions. And we must never become so afraid of offending people that we become unwilling to speak the truth.
Ultimately, the most important question isn’t simply whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God. It’s whether we truly know God through Jesus Christ, His Son. Jesus Christ who claimed over and over, “I am God; worship Me.” Are you ready to study that claim? Check it out here.
- This article was inspired by Question 13 in Qureshi, Nabeel. Answering Jihad: A Better Way Forward. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016. ↩︎
- George W. Bush, “President Bush, Prime Minister Hold Joint Press Conference,” Office of the Press Secretary, White House, November 20, 2003, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/11/text/20031120-3.html ↩︎
- Larycia Alaine Hawkins, Facebook post, December 10, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/larycia/posts/10153326773658481 ↩︎
- Volf, Miroslav. “Wheaton Professor’s Suspension Is about Anti-Muslim Bigotry, Not Theology.” The Washington Post, December 17, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/12/17/wheaton-professors-suspension-is-about-anti-muslim-bigotry-not-theology/. ↩︎
- Qur’an quotations from quran.com. ↩︎