The Quran

۞ فَلَمّا أَحَسَّ عيسىٰ مِنهُمُ الكُفرَ قالَ مَن أَنصاري إِلَى اللَّهِ ۖ قالَ الحَوارِيّونَ نَحنُ أَنصارُ اللَّهِ آمَنّا بِاللَّهِ وَاشهَد بِأَنّا مُسلِمونَ

Muhammad Asad

And when Jesus became aware of their refusal to acknowledge the truth,¹ he asked: "Who will be my helpers in God's cause?" The white-garbed ones² replied: "We shall be [thy] helpers [in the cause] of God! We believe in God: and bear thou witness that we have surrendered ourselves unto Him!

This relates to a later time, when Jesus was being opposed by the majority of his people, and particularly the Pharisees.
Al-hawariyyun (sing. hawari) is the designation applied in the Qur'an to the disciples of Jesus. Many interpretations of this term (derived from hawar, "whiteness") are given by the commentators, ranging from "one who whitens clothes by washing them" (because this was allegedly the occupation of some of Jesus' disciples) to "one who wears white garments", or "one whose heart is white", i.e., pure (cf. Tabari, Razi, Ibn Kathir). It is, however, most probable - and the evidence provided by the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls strongly supports this view - that the term hawari was popularly used to denote a member of the Essene Brotherhood, a Jewish religious group which existed in Palestine at the time of Jesus, and to which, possibly, he himself belonged. The Essenes were distinguished by their strong insistence on moral purity and unselfish conduct, and always wore white garments as the outward mark of their convictions; and this would satisfactorily explain the name given to them. The fact that the Prophet once said, "Every prophet has his hawari " (Bukhari and Muslim) does not conflict with the above view, since he obviously used this term figuratively, recalling thereby Jesus' "helpers in God's cause".