Women
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.[4:171]
O People of the Book! Commit no excesses in your religion: Nor say of God
aught but the truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) an apostle of
God, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him:
so believe in God and His apostles. Say not "Trinity" : desist: it will be better for you:
for God is one God: Glory be to Him: (far exalted is He) above having a son. To Him
belong all things in the heavens and on earth. And enough is God as a Disposer of
affairs.
* v.171 : Just as a foolish servant may go wrong by excess of zeal for his master, so in religion people’s excesses may lead them to blasphemy or a spirit the very opposite of religion. The Jewish excesses in the direction of formalism, racialism, exclusiveness, and rejection of Christ Jesus have been denounced in many places. Here the christian attitude is condemned, which raises Jesus to an equality with Allah: in some cases venerates Mary almost to idolatry: attributes a physical son to Allah: and invents the doctrine of the Trinity, opposed to all reason, which according to the Athanasian Creed, unless a man believes, he is doomed to hell for ever. Let our Muslims also beware lest they fall into excesses either in doctrine or in formalism.
* Christ’s attributes are mentioned: (1) that he was the son of a woman, Mary and therefore a man; (2) but a messenger, a man with a mission from Allah, and therefore entitied to honour; (3) a Word bestowed on Mary, for he was created by Allah’s word "Be" (kun), and he was: iii. 59; (4) a spirit proceeding from Allah, but not Allah: his life and his mission were more limited than in the case of some other Messengers, though we must pay equal honour to him as a Prophet of Allah. The doctrines of Trinity, equality with Allah, and sonship, are repudiated as blasphemies. Allah is independent of all needs and has no need of a son to manage His affairs. The Gospel of John (whoever wrote it) has put in a great deal of Alexandrian and Gnostic mysticism round the doctrine of the Word (Greek, Logos), but it is simply explained here.