Surah Al-Baqarah, Ayah 117

Refuting the Claim that Allah has begotten a Son

This and the following Ayat refute the Christians, may Allah curse them, and their like among the Jews and the Arab idolators, who claimed that the angels are Allah's daughters. Allah refuted all of them in their claim that He had begotten a son. Allah said,

سُبْحَـنَهُ

(Glory is to Him.)

meaning, He is holier and more perfect than such claim;

بَل لَّهُ مَا فِي السَّمَـوَتِ وَالاٌّرْضِ

(Nay, to Him belongs all that is in the heavens and on earth,) meaning, the truth is not as the disbelievers claimed, rather, Allah's is the kingdom of the heavens and earth and whatever and whoever is in, on and between them. Allah is the Supreme Authority in the heavens and earth, and He is the Creator, Provider and Sustainer Who decides all the affairs of the creation as He wills. All creatures are Allah's servants and are owned by Him. Therefore, how could one of them be His son The son of any being is born out of two comparable beings. Allah has no equal or rival sharing His grace and greatness, so how can He have a son when He has no wife Allah said,

As the Holy Qur'an reports in some other verses, some of the Jews called the Prophet Uzayr (علیہ السلام) (Ezra) the son of God, as did the Christians in the case of Sayyidna ` Isa (Jesus علیہ السلام)~ and most of them still do, while the mushrikin مشرکین of Makkah considered the angels to be the daughters of God. These two verses show the absurdity of such assertions. For, even on rational grounds, it is totally impossible that God should have offspring. Were it at all possible, the situation would necessarily involve either of the two alternative characteristics -- the offspring would belong either to the same genus as the father does, or to a different genus. If it belongs to a different genus, that obviously is a defect, while God should in order to be God, be free of all defects -- as reason itself requires, and as Verse 116 affirms. If the offspring belongs to the same genus, that too is a contradiction in terms, for God has no equal and no existent can belong to the same genus as He does. Let us explain what we mean. God alone is the Necessary Being (Al-Dhat al-Wajib الذات الواجب ), and hence necessarily carries within Himself the Attributes of Perfection which are peculiar to Him alone and which cannot exist in any one other than God. Now, if we deny a necessary attribute to a certain being, we automatically deny the existence of that being. So, no one other than God can be a necessary being. Insofar as "necessity" is in itself the essence of the Ultimate Reality, or an inalienable quality of the Ultimate Reality, anyone other than God cannot share the Reality with Him. Hence, it would be a plain and simple contradiction in terms of claim that anyone other than God can belong to the same genus.

To the Israelites the criterion of truth was their association with the prophets and saints. That was why they believed that their community was in the right while other communities were in the wrong. As for the Christians, they considered themselves unique in that God’s ‘beloved son’ had been sent to them. Even the polytheists of Makkah thought of themselves as superior to others, basing their claim on the fact that they were the guardians of God’s Sacred House. Thus every nation had set its own self-styled religious standards, according to which they themselves inevitably appeared to be in the right, and everyone else in the wrong. Their actions, however, did not substantiate their claims. For one thing, they had become divided into sects, though all of them swore allegiance to the divine scriptures. They took every opportunity to deny others the right to enter places of worship, though they would say that they were doing this to protect the sanctity of these places. In fact they were ruining them, for places of worship become derelict when people are denied the right of worship there. If a worshipper has the correct attitude, he will never deny the right to worship to those who come to do so; he will never persecute those who come to serve the Lord. When one is truly conscious of God’s greatness and one’s own helplessness before Him, one’s humility will show in one’s dealings with others: one will not seek to harm one’s fellow men in any way, let alone deny them their fundamental right to worship God.