Did Jesus pray to God? For anyone who has actually read the Gospels closely, the answer is not really in doubt. Jesus is shown praying constantly, in public and alone, in joy and in agony, from his baptism to his final breath. What is worth sitting with is not whether he prayed, but what that prayer tells us about who he understood himself to be, and who he understood God to be.
We will walk through the clearest examples in the New Testament, look at the context each one sits in, and then bring in what the Quran says about the very same Prophet, Isa, peace be upon him, and prayer.
Yes: Jesus prayed constantly, according to the Gospels themselves
This was not an occasional habit. Luke describes it as Jesus’s regular pattern:
“And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.” (Luke 5:16, KJV)
Mark records the same pattern the morning after a long night of healing the sick:
“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” (Mark 1:35, KJV)
The Gospels also place him in prayer before major decisions: before choosing his twelve disciples (Luke 6:12), before Peter’s confession of faith (Luke 9:18), and at his own baptism (Luke 3:21). This is a man who prayed as a discipline, not only in crisis.
Jesus taught his followers to pray “Our Father”
When his disciples asked him how to pray, Jesus did not teach them to pray to himself. He gave them this:
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9-10, KJV)
Read that carefully. The prayer he taught addresses “our Father,” asks for God’s kingdom and God’s will, not for anything directed at Jesus. If prayer is worship, and the Lord’s Prayer is Jesus’s own model for it, then Jesus modelled worship of the Father, not of himself.
Gethsemane: pleading with God, submitting to His will
The night before his arrest, Matthew describes Jesus praying with visible distress:
“O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matthew 26:39, KJV)
He repeated this prayer a second time, in almost the same words (Matthew 26:42). This is a man asking God to reconsider a coming event, and then submitting his own will to God’s. If Jesus and the Father he addressed were simply identical in every sense, this scene raises an honest question: whose will was being submitted to whose?
His final prayer, on the cross
According to Luke, Jesus’s very last words were also a prayer:
“And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.” (Luke 23:46, KJV)
Matthew and Mark both record an earlier cry from the cross, quoting Psalm 22 directly: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, KJV). From his first recorded prayer to his last words, the pattern in the Gospels does not change. Jesus prayed to a Father, and he prayed to his God.
The Quran’s answer: yes, and it was commanded of him
The Quran gives the exact same answer, from a different angle. Speaking as a newborn to defend his mother’s honour, the Quran records Jesus saying:
“Indeed, I am the servant of Allah. He has given me the Scripture and made me a prophet. And He has made me blessed wherever I am and has enjoined upon me prayer and zakah as long as I remain alive.” (Surah Maryam 19:30-31)
Prayer was not something Jesus performed as God receiving worship. It was something enjoined on him, a duty given to him, in the same way it was given to every Prophet before and after him. Later in the Quran, Jesus is recorded telling his own followers directly who that prayer was owed to:
“Indeed, Allah is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him. That is the straight path.” (Surah Ali ‘Imran 3:51)
My Lord and your Lord. Not a claim to be Lord himself, but an instruction to worship the one Lord shared by Jesus and his followers alike.
Prayer as worship of the One God
Set side by side, the Bible and the Quran describe the same picture from two different scriptures: a Prophet who prayed, who called on God as his Father and his Lord, who submitted his will to that God’s will, and who taught others to direct their own worship there too, not toward himself. This is the same starting point Jesus reached for when asked about the greatest commandment: “the Lord our God is one Lord” (Mark 12:29), and the same starting point of the Quran’s declaration in Surah Al-Ikhlas: “Say, He is Allah, who is One.”
For contemplation
A few honest questions worth sitting with, rather than rushing past:
- If prayer is an act of worship directed at a higher authority, what does it mean that Jesus prayed, repeatedly, over a lifetime?
- When Jesus asked in Gethsemane that “this cup” pass from him, and then submitted his will to another’s, what does that tell you about the relationship between the one praying and the one being prayed to?
- Jesus taught his own followers to pray “Our Father,” not to pray to him. Why would he do that if he intended to be prayed to himself?
- If both the Gospels and the Quran describe Jesus praying to a God distinct from himself, what would it take to reconcile that with worshipping Jesus as that same God today?
Where to take this question next
If this question has stayed with you, do not leave it unexamined.
- Read the fuller comparison in What Jesus Taught vs What Christians Practice Today.
- Understand what Islam actually teaches about him in What Muslims Believe About Jesus.
- Go deeper on the underlying question of God’s identity in Difference Between Allah and God: What’s the Real Answer?
- Start with the basics on our What is Islam? page.
- Come and visit a mosque, with no commitment and no pressure, or book a free guided tour in English, French or Spanish.
- Send this exact question to us directly through Ask About Islam.
- Muslims who want to learn how to discuss questions like this one respectfully can start with our Getting Started guide.
Jesus prayed as a young man before dawn, prayed in anguish the night before his death, and prayed with his last breath on the cross. Every prayer recorded in the Gospels is addressed outward, to a Father, to a God. That is what the record shows. What you make of it is worth thinking through honestly, rather than assuming.