Questions and Answers on Islamic Doctrine

Chapter 1: Belief in Almighty God

Question 03: You Muslims claim that you worship One God, while in actual fact you resemble the Christians who say “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” for you say “In the name of God, the Merciful; the Compassionate.”  How would you account for this resemblance?

Answer 03: In the Christian creed, God is the Creator.  The Son is Jesus the Deliverer.  And the Holy Spirit is His life or one of His creations chosen by Him as a messenger and/or prophet imparting God’s inspiration or cosmic order to whoever He wishes.  Whatever the mission carried out by the Holy Spirit, the Christians believe in the above powers as three entities, three aspects, three qualities.  They say: “Oneness in Trinity and Trinity in Oneness.”  They are all phenomena of one God, etc.  Therefore, the One God, they claim, consists of three separate categories, which they call the Trinity.  As a matter of fact, God, as they take Him, is not one but three.  In the Qur’an God says: “Surely, disbelievers are those who said: ‘God is the third of the three (in a Trinity)’.” (Holy Qur’an: 5: 73).  The verse means that God the Creator is the third in relation to the Son and the Holy Spirit.

As for the Muslim dictum “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” it means three names of God which exceed ninety nine, all denoting one Entity.  A name is not separate from the named.  The Being named and described is not to be conceived except by His names and qualities, unlike the case of the Christian Entities, for they are three dimensional, but separate, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.