The Prophethood of Muhammad in Christian Scripture

One of the most discussed sections of al-Jawab al-Sahih is Ibn Taymiyyah's argument that the original scriptures of the prophets contained explicit prophecies of the coming of Muhammad, and that traces of these prophecies remain even in the textually altered versions of the Bible that exist today. The Quran itself makes this claim: it states that Jesus gave glad tidings of a messenger who would come after him, 'whose name shall be Ahmad' (61:6), and that the prophethood of Muhammad is mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel (7:157). Ibn Taymiyyah takes these Quranic assertions as his starting point and then examines the actual text of the Christian scripture to identify where such prophecies might be found.

The most prominent text he discusses is the series of passages in the Gospel of John where Jesus promises the coming of the Paraclete (parakletos in Greek). This term has been translated in Christian Bibles as 'Comforter,' 'Helper,' or 'Advocate,' and has been interpreted by mainstream Christianity as referring to the Holy Spirit. Ibn Taymiyyah argues, following earlier Muslim scholars, that the original word was not parakletos (one who comes alongside to help) but periklytos (the praised one, the glorified one), which is the exact Greek equivalent of the Arabic name Ahmad. He contends that the substitution of parakletos for periklytos was a deliberate or inadvertent textual change that obscured the direct prediction of Muhammad by name in the Gospel.

Ibn Taymiyyah supports this reading with several observations. The Paraclete passages describe someone who 'will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak' and who 'will not come unless I go away.' These characteristics fit a human prophet receiving divine revelation far more naturally than they fit the Holy Spirit as understood in Trinitarian theology, particularly the phrase 'whatever he hears he will speak,' which echoes the Quranic description of Muhammad as a prophet who recites what is revealed to him. The prediction that 'he will guide you into all truth' and 'will declare to you the things that are to come' also fits the role of a legislative prophet more naturally than a divine spirit already present within the disciples.

Ibn Taymiyyah is careful not to rest his entire argument about Muhammad's prophethood on this textual identification alone. He argues more broadly that the pattern of prophetic succession throughout the scriptures, including the entire Old Testament pattern of promise and fulfillment, points toward a culminating prophet who will bring the final and complete divine guidance. The Quranic claim that Muhammad is mentioned in earlier scriptures (7:157) is understood not only as a prediction of his name but as the entire prophetic tradition's orientation toward the culminating mission that he fulfills. This framing situates the argument about the Paraclete within a broader theology of prophetic history in which Islam is not a new religion but the completion and correction of the earlier Abrahamic revelations.