“That Jesus should recite a Qur’anic verse would not be at all unnatural in a Muslim context; the Qur’an, after all, is the Book and all prophets in the Qur’an are Muslims.”
Khalidi, p. 56, commenting on no. 9
I can certainly understand the Islamic proposition that all of the prophets were Muslims, and thus were familiar with the teachings of God regarding prayer and morality. But for Jesus to quote from the Qur’an would appear to directly contradict Islamic teaching that the Qur’an was the word of God that was dictated by the angel Gabriel directly to Muhammad. It was certainly my assumption that even within Islamic belief, Jesus had predated Muhammad by several hundred years. How would it be possible, then, to claim that it would be normal for Jesus to quote from the Qur’an?
Perhaps one might posit that because the Qur’an was revealed by God in His own timing, and because Jesus was a prophet, God could have revealed to Jesus pieces of the wisdom that would be included in the Qur’an in the future. That would be a plausible argument were it not for the fact that the author writes that “he recited the following [Quranic] verse…” (author’s interpolation). The fact that it was recognized as a verse at the time of al-Mubarak indicates that there is some sort of understanding of the Qur’an as an intact body of literature from which Jesus was reciting, which would be anachronistic.
At the same time, Qur’an 5:5 refers to certain women as “those who were given the Scripture before you”. What is the meaning of this in light of the traditional narrative of the transmission of the Qur’an?
Is there some other way that Muslims would be able to account for Jesus (explicitly) quoting from the Qur’an without being anachronistic?
Paul Elhallal 
Thank you, Paul for this reflection. I am also interested in understanding your question on women as “those who were given the Scripture before you”. while I question, I am so glad that it is women who were given that Scripture. I wonder whether your last question would find and answer in the other sources of Islam theology such as Hadith and the Sunna.
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Hm, I agree, you raise an interesting question here, Paul. It does seem to me as well that it would be more straightforward not to say that what Jesus or others before Muhammad received was the Qur’an. At first, I wondered if what is meant by “Qur’an” is revelation or word of God, rather than strictly the text of the Qur’an. But, as you seem to indicate, given the status of even the specific language and wording of the Qur’an, this perhaps is not plausible. This then raises a larger question for me. Is it consistent and logical to hold the Qur’an in such esteem (even down to the specific language and wording) while also allowing the revelation that Jesus received certain credence? Does the fact that Jesus or any previous prophets did not speak Arabic but still received revelation not slightly undermine the elevation of Arabic as a privileged language?
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