American scholar Gabriel Said Reynolds argues that the Qur’an took shape in a context deeply permeated by Christianity, challenging the theory that it emerged in a predominantly pagan environment
Last update: 2026-07-07 14:42:15
Gabriel Said Reynolds, Christianity and the Qur’an. The Rise of Islam in Christian Arabia, Yale University Press, New Haven & London 2025
In Christianity and the Qur’an: The Rise of Islam in Christian Arabia, Gabriel Said Reynolds, Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology at the University of Notre Dame, challenges the dominant theory that the Qur’an emerged in a predominantly pagan environment and advances the hypothesis that it took shape in a context deeply permeated by Christianity (p. 38). Reynolds grounds his argument on an analysis of Qur’anic discourse and on recent epigraphic discoveries in the Arabian Peninsula.
By examining the Qur’anic references to the New Testament, as well as to various Christian legends and narratives, Reynolds shows that monotheism—and Christianity in particular—was already widespread in the Hijaz before Muhammad’s preaching. If the Qur’an had emerged in a pagan environment, as the traditional biographies of the Prophet suggest, it would be difficult to explain the presence in the sacred text of so many references rooted in Christian tradition (p. 49).
According to the author, the Qur’an is engaged in an intense dialogue with Christianity—at times polemical, at others more conciliatory. Reynolds emphasizes that Islam’s sacred text does not merely recount or comment on biblical episodes; rather, it reworks already familiar traditions in order to propose a new understanding of God and the relationship between God and humanity. The Christian expressions cited in the Qur’an, Reynolds observes, were already part of the linguistic and cultural heritage of Arabic-speaking groups in the Hijaz and could therefore be adopted and reinterpreted in a new way (p. 50).
Two of the examples discussed in the book are particularly significant. The first concerns the role that the Qur’an recognizes to Jesus, who is presented as the one announcing a prophet named “Ahmad”—“the much-praised”—later identified with Muhammad. As Reynolds points out, if Islam accords such a central role to Jesus, this suggests that he was already a well-known and significant figure among the audience of the earliest Islamic preaching.
The second example is centred on the story of Adam and the fall of Iblis, recounted in several suras of the Qur’an and in particularly detailed form in Suras 15 and 38. The Qur’anic narrative closely follows the version found in The Cave of Treasures, a Syriac text composed about a century before the rise of Islam. According to this account, God commanded the angels to prostrate themselves before Adam, but Iblis refused and was therefore expelled from Paradise. Iblis justified his disobedience by arguing that he had been made of fire, whereas Adam had been created from clay.
As Reynolds points out, in the Syriac text the prostration—or more specifically the kneeling—of the angels before Adam prior to his fall, when he still bore the unblemished image of God, recalls Philippians 2:10–11: “Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” From this perspective, the image of Adam in the Cave of Treasures is Christological (p. 67).
Drawing on a well-known Pauline motif, Adam is the first man, whereas Christ is the “second man,” the new Adam: “The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47). The Qur’an adopts the story but clearly does not share this typological interpretation. In the Islamic sacred text, the narrative serves primarily to warn humanity against Iblis (p. 67). Nevertheless, in Reynolds’s analysis, the very presence of this tradition reflects the cultural influence of Christianity on the milieu in which the Qur’an emerged.
According to Reynolds, the presence of Christian communities in the Hijaz and their interaction with the earliest Muslims are also reflected in the way the Qur’an instructs believers on how to engage with the People of the Book. Such guidance presupposes prior direct contact with the two communities included in this category—Jews and Christians. The Qur’anic text also makes frequent references to monks and monasticism, at times in laudatory terms and at others in a more polemical vein, confirming their significance within the religious landscape of the period. Although Christians (nasārā) are mentioned explicitly only fifteen times, “a concern for Christianity appears consistently throughout the Qur’an,” Reynolds states (p. 142).
Reynolds’s hypothesis is that the Qur’an was conceived as a response to Christian ideas. Even the Fātiḥa, its opening sura, appears to reflect this logic. Its opening verse, the basmala—“In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful”—echoes the Christian Trinitarian invocation, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Likewise, the closing verses (6–7)—“Guide us in the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast blessed, not of those against whom Thou art wrathful, nor of those who are astray”—refer to Jews and Christians, a reading that is also found in classical Islamic exegesis (pp. 144–145).
The presence of Christian communities in the Hijaz is also supported by recent epigraphic discoveries. Reynolds cites in particular the work of Ahmad al-Jallad and Laila Nehmé, whose research has made a decisive contribution to the study of ancient inscriptions from the Arabian Peninsula, especially in what is now Saudi Arabia. As Reynolds writes, their findings “suggest that Islam emerged from a context in which Arabic speakers had largely set aside polytheism and adopted monotheism, and Christianity above all” (p. 95).
Epigraphic evidence indicates that, beginning in the fourth century CE, pagan inscriptions in the southern Arabian Peninsula gradually gave way to monotheistic ones; a similar process can be observed in the north from the sixth century onward. In the inscriptions discovered in the south, the monotheistic God is generally designated by the term rhmn, which recalls the Qur’anic expression al-Rahmān (“the Most Merciful”). In those found in the north, God is referred to as al-ilāh, a form closely related to the Qur’anic name Allāh.
According to Reynolds, al-ilāh likely derives from the Greek ho theos, although it also bears a close resemblance to the Aramaic alāhā. Aramaic was widely used throughout the Arabian Peninsula at the time, serving as the official written language of the Nabataean Kingdom, whose territory extended as far as Hegra and Dumat al-Jandal, located approximately 150 and 800 kilometers respectively from present-day Medina, while the spoken language was a form of Arabic. This bilingual environment helps explain the presence of numerous Aramaic loanwords in Arabic vocabulary, including in the Qur’an.
Many monotheistic inscriptions are generic and do not allow scholars to determine whether they belong to Judaism or Christianity. Some inscriptions, however, can be more clearly identified on the basis of the names they contain. Reynolds highlights in particular a Paleo-Arabic stone inscription dating from the late sixth or early seventh century, recently discovered in Ta’if, about 65 kilometers from Mecca. Located roughly 100 meters from a mosque believed to have been built by ‘Alī, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad and the fourth “Rightly Guided” caliph, the inscription reads: “I am Anzalah, [son of] ‘Abd ‘Amrw. I urge [you] to be pious towards God.” The absence of the basmala and the closing formula are typical features of monotheistic inscriptions. Al-Jallad identifies the individual mentioned as the companion of the Prophet Anzalah.
Islamic tradition helps clarify his identity. Anzalah was the son of a Christian monk from Yathrib (present-day Medina). Following the Islamic conquests, his father reportedly fled first to Mecca and later to Christian Syria rather than convert to Islam, whereas Anzalah embraced Islam and took part in the Battle of Uhud. The inscription, therefore, would have been composed by Anzalah before his conversion (pp. 115–116).
The presence of Christian communities in pre-Islamic Arabia is attested not only by epigraphic evidence, but also by the discovery of liturgical objects. At Dumat al-Jandal, archaeological excavations have uncovered a silver bell similar to those used by Eastern Christians in liturgical celebrations. The object was found in a Byzantine layer beneath the floor of a mosque traditionally attributed to ‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb, the second of the “Rightly Guided” caliphs. Since bells are prohibited in the Islamic tradition, the find suggests that the mosque may originally have been a church.
Christianity and the Qur’an is a rigorous and thoroughly documented study that offers an innovative perspective on the origins of the Qur’an and on the cultural and religious environment of the Arabian Peninsula at the dawn of the seventh century. Through a meticulous investigation that combines textual analysis with the latest epigraphic research, Gabriel Said Reynolds challenges long-standing theories with solid and persuasive arguments. The book stands out for its clarity of exposition and its ability to make complex issues accessible even to non-specialist readers. As such, it is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the origins of the Qur’an and the historical context in which it emerged.