4.171 – People of the Book! . . . The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary
This verse directly addresses the People of the Book, commanding them not to go beyond “the limits in your religion.” On the Quran’s approach to the People of the Book, see the comments at 98.1.
What follows is a list of affirmations and denials about the identity of ‘Īsā, the quranic Jesus. Here ‘Īsā is the Messiah, son of Mary, a messenger of Allah and his word (kalima), which he gave to Mary, and a spirit (rūḥ) from him. At the same time, this ‘Īsā is not the son (walad) of Allah, nor is he one of three persons in the divine Trinity. On the name ‘Īsā, see the explanation at 2.87, and on “Messiah,” see 3.45.
The concern in this verse is explicitly theological. The verse commands the People of the Book to tell the truth about Allah. For the Quran, the issue is the perception that Christians confess the deity of Jesus. This is the verse’s reason for prohibiting the saying of “Three,” and the exclamation of horror at the thought that Allah should have a son.
Two affirmations in the verse that have attracted a lot of discussion are that ‘Īsā is the word of Allah and “a spirit from Him.” This has led many readers to think of the opening verse of the Gospel according to John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In fact, the translation on John 1:1 in the Arabic Bible uses exactly the same term for “word,” kalima. From the earliest available Christian responses to Islam, Christian writers used these quranic affirmations to make a case for the Trinity as Allah, his Word, and his Spirit. Whatever the intention of kalima in 4.171, however, readers need to take this verse together with other quranic passages about the deity of ‘Īsā. See an analysis of the Quran’s denials of the deity of ‘Īsā at 43.59.
Interestingly, the words of 4.171–72 are found in the inscription in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, considered by some scholars to be the earliest record we have of the developing Islamic beliefs (AD 691). This suggests that these details of the identity of ‘Īsā were issues of great theological concern from the earliest years of the emergence of Islam. For readers who would like to get a taste of Muslim interpretation, a translation of the commentary of Zamakhsharī (d. 1144) on this verse is provided in the helpful collection The Qur’ān and its Exegesis by Helmut Gätje.