The Quran

171

يا أَهلَ الكِتابِ لا تَغلوا في دينِكُم وَلا تَقولوا عَلَى اللَّهِ إِلَّا الحَقَّ ۚ إِنَّمَا المَسيحُ عيسَى ابنُ مَريَمَ رَسولُ اللَّهِ وَكَلِمَتُهُ أَلقاها إِلىٰ مَريَمَ وَروحٌ مِنهُ ۖ فَآمِنوا بِاللَّهِ وَرُسُلِهِ ۖ وَلا تَقولوا ثَلاثَةٌ ۚ انتَهوا خَيرًا لَكُم ۚ إِنَّمَا اللَّهُ إِلٰهٌ واحِدٌ ۖ سُبحانَهُ أَن يَكونَ لَهُ وَلَدٌ ۘ لَهُ ما فِي السَّماواتِ وَما فِي الأَرضِ ۗ وَكَفىٰ بِاللَّهِ وَكيلًا

Muhammad Asad

O FOLLOWERS of the Gospel! Do not overstep the bounds [of truth] in your religious beliefs,¹ and do not say of God anything but the truth. The Christ Jesus, son of Mary, was but God's Apostle - [the fulfilment of] His promise which He had conveyed unto Mary - and a soul createdby Him.² Believe, then, in God and His apostles, and do not say, "[God is] a trinity". Desist [from this assertion] for your own good. God is but One God; utterly remote is He, in His glory, from having a son: unto Him belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth; and none is as worthy of trust as God.

I.e., by raising Jesus to the rank of divinity. Since here the Christians are addressed specifically, I render the term kitab as "Gospel".
Lit., "His word which He conveyed unto Mary and a soul from Him". According to Tabari, the "word" (kalimah) was "the announcement (risalah) which God bade the angels to convey to Mary, and God's glad tiding to her" (a reference to 3:45) - which justifies the rendering of kalimatuhu as "[the fulfilment of] His promise". (See also note on 3:39.) As regards the expression, "a soul from Him" or "created by Him", it is to be noted that among the various meanings which the word ruh bears in the Qur'an (e.g., "inspiration" in 2:87 and 253), it is also used in its primary significance of "breath of life", "soul", or "spirit": thus, for instance, in 32:9, where the ever-recurring evolution of the human embryo is spoken of: "and then He forms him [i.e., man] and breathes into him of His spirit" - that is, endows him with a conscious soul which represents God's supreme gift to man and is, therefore, described as "a breath of His spirit". In the verse under discussion, which stresses the purely human nature of Jesus and refutes the belief in his divinity, the Qur'an points out that Jesus, like all other human beings, was "a soul created by Him".