Christian Apocryphal Literature as a Source of Quranic Narratives: A Historical and Critical Study of W. St. Clair Tisdall’s Arguments

Abstract

This research article presents a historical and critical analysis of the arguments proposed by the British orientalist and missionary, William St. Clair Tisdall (1859–1928), regarding the influence of Christian apocryphal literature on Quranic narratives. Tisdall, a key figure in the Church Missionary Society, argued in his seminal work, The Original Sources of the Qur'an, that Islamic scriptures were not divinely revealed but were a compilation of earlier Jewish and Christian traditions. The study specifically scrutinizes Tisdall’s claims that the Quranic accounts of Mary (AS) and Jesus (AS)—including the service in the Temple, the birth under a palm tree, and the miracle of speaking in the cradle—were derived from non-canonical texts such as the Protoevangelium of James, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and the Arabic Gospel of Infancy. By evaluating the manuscript traditions,  chronological dating of these apocryphal works, this paper exposes significant historical discrepancies in Tisdall’s hypotheses. The findings suggest that many of these apocryphal texts were either compiled or significantly redacted after the advent of Islam, indicating that the Quranic text stands as an independent, divine corrective rather than a derivative work. The research further refutes the alleged Gnostic influences on Quranic Christology, concluding that Tisdall’s methodology was primarily driven by missionary polemics rather than objective historiography.