two natures; they maintain that the Messiah is divine—indeed, that He is God. Those who speak of indwelling say that the Word, which is the Son, came to dwell in him, and that this Word is likewise God, though in another respect, as we shall explain.
Furthermore, His words,
“the third of three” (1)
do not refer to Allah, the divinity (lahūt) within the Messiah, and the Messiah’s body; for no Christian counts the Messiah’s divinity and humanity (nāsūt) as two gods or separates the humanity from the divinity. Whether he speaks of union or of indwelling, the humanity is, in their view, subordinate to the divinity.
Likewise, His statements about the Christians:
“Do not say, ‘Three.’” (2)
and
“They have certainly disbelieved who say, ‘Allah is the third of three.’” (3)
It has also been said (4) that what is intended is their formula, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit…”
(1) Surah al-Ma’idah, 5:73.
(2) Surah an-Nisa, 4:171.
(3) Surah al-Ma’idah, 5:73.
(4) Some exegetes note that this doctrine was widespread among Christians. Ibn Jarir al-Tabari—may Allah have mercy on him—in his Tafsir (vol. 6, p. 313) states: “They, according to what we have received, used to say: al-ilah al-qadeem (the Ancient Deity) is one substance encompassing three aqanīm (persons or hypostases): a Father, unbegotten; a Son, begotten yet not singular; and a consort perpetually moving between them.”
Ibn Kathir, in his Tafsir (vol. 2, p. 81), quotes Ibn Jarir and others to the effect that the three sects—the Melkites, the Jacobites, and the Nestorians—uphold these hypostases. He adds: “They differ in this matter in markedly divergent ways.”
Al-Qurtubi—may Allah have mercy on him—in al-Jamiʿ li-Ahkam al-Qur’an (vol. 6, p. 249) records that these groups say: “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God, and they do not say ‘three gods,’ which is the essence of their doctrine; yet they avoid the explicit term ‘persons,’ which is intrinsic to their belief.”
Muhammad Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi, in Mahasin al-Ta’wil (vol. 5, pp. 677, 680), reports: “In their current officially printed ecclesiastical teachings there is the following statement: ‘The most special mystery of Christianity is the mystery of the Trinity, which is one God in three hypostases: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and they are not three.’”