ABSTRACT
Muslims in the early and medieval periods of the Islamic tradition denied Christian beliefs about the Trinity, Jesus’ divinity and sonship, the Incarnation and Jesus’ death and atonement. One the earliest extant Muslim rejections of Christian doctrines, apart from the Qurʾān itself, is found in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik commissioned in 692. The inscriptions on the Dome’s arcade cite the qurʾānic affirmation of God’s unity: ‘Say! He is God, One, God, everlasting. He does not beget, and He is not begotten. There is no equal to him’ (Q 112), and they include qurʾānic denials of Christian teachings: ‘The Messiah, Jesus, Son of Mary was only a messenger of God and His word, which He cast into Mary, and a spirit from Him. So, believe in God and His messengers, and do not say “three”. Desist! It is better for you. God is one deity only, and He is above having a son’ (Q 4:171), ‘It was not for God to take a son, glory be to Him. When He decrees a matter, He only says “Be!” and it is’ (Q 19:34), and ‘Praise be to God who did not take a son and has no partner in sovereignty’ (Q 17:111) (trans. adapted from Donner 2010: 234–5). These inscriptions, along with the location of the Dome of the Rock within sight of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, indicate that at least part of the reason for constructing the Dome was to distinguish Islam from Christianity and condemn its Trinitarian and Christological doctrines. It is sometimes suggested that qurʾānic verses such as those found in the Dome reject Christian heresies instead of Christian orthodoxy (e.g. Parrinder 1995: 133–7). However, Gerald Hawting (1999) has argued that these verses, and probably even the qurʾānic texts against idolatry and polytheism (shirk), were directed against orthodox Christianity. Either way, the Dome of the Rock clearly deploys the Qurʾān against the Nicene orthodoxy symbolised by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
