Where are the Islamic Christians?

Irenaeus of Lyons – An Early follower of Christ who was definitely not a Muslim

My greatest critique of Islam is that it is an ahistorical religion.  Their key text, the Quran, re-writes religious and secular history.  As a Christian, when I dialogue with a Muslim, I focus on the character of Christ.  According to the Quran, the earthly disciples of Christ were Muslims.  In Surah 5:111 we read:

And when I inspired the disciples, (saying): Believe in Me and in My messenger, they said: We believe. Bear witness that we have surrendered (unto Thee) “we are muslims”.

In Surah 61:14 we read:

O you who have believed, be supporters of Allah, as when Jesus, the son of Mary, said to the disciples, “Who are my supporters for Allah?” The disciples said, “We are supporters of Allah.” And a faction of the Children of Israel believed and a faction disbelieved.  So we supported those who believed against their enemy, and they became dominant.

We can see here that the Quran says that Jesus had Muslim disciples and that they became dominant over the Children of Israel who denied Christ.  This obviously didn’t happen in the lifetime of the disciples.  The last disciple was John who died in the year 100 AD.  In the year 100 AD, Jews outnumbered the Christians in every way.  It was not until the fourth century that the Christians became dominant over the Jews and these Christians were anything but Islamic.

Here is my question to the Muslims:  Where are the Islamic Christians?

According to the Quran, they existed and became dominant over the Jews.  Leaving becoming “dominant” aside, where are the Islamic Christians?  In the 600 years between Christ and Muhammad, there were many unorthodox and heretical groups but none of them were Islamic.  It is true that we don’t have most of the writings from these heretical groups but we have Christian polemics against them and their beliefs.  With these polemics, we can identify what they believed.  None of these groups believed in Islam, contrary to the words inserted into their mouths in the Quran.

Many like to point to the Ebionites.  They are not Muslims because they believed in the crucifixion and the resurrection.  They also denied the Virgin Birth of Christ which is a doctrine treasured by both Muslims and Christians.  The Arians are sometimes brought up but they’re just far away from Islam as well.  While they affirmed the Virgin Birth, they believed in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.  The only groups that believed Christ was not crucified were second century Docetists.  The only reason that they denied the crucifixion was that they believed that Christ didn’t have a body.  It’s hard to crucify someone if they don’t have a physical body.  The Quran testifies to Christ having a physical body since Christ makes birds out of clay and brings them to life.  One cannot make clay into birds without physical hands.

We could go through every heretical group from Christ to Muhammad and we would find no evidence that Islamic Christianity existed, let alone that this group was made dominant over the Jews.

Many Islamic apologists read this page.  Muslims apologists are good at studying higher criticism of Christian scripture and early Church history.  In other words, Islamic apologists are very educated and well read.  I believe that it’s vital for them to answer my question.

Let me repeat my question for the Muslims:  Where are the Islamic Christians?