In Part 2 of this series, we examined Ahmed Deedat’s claim that Muhammad appears by name in Song of Solomon 5:16. We found that the argument, while clever, could not withstand lexical, grammatical, or contextual scrutiny.
Now we turn to what is perhaps Deedat’s central argument: that Jesus’s promise of the “Comforter” or “Spirit of Truth” in John 14–16 refers not to the Holy Spirit, but to the Prophet Muhammad.
This claim has persuaded many Muslims—and bewildered many Christians encountering it for the first time. It deserves careful examination.
The Claim in Two Parts
Deedat’s argument about the Comforter actually contains two distinct claims, and we must address them separately.
First, he asserts that the original Greek word spoken by Jesus was not Parakletos (Comforter/Advocate) but Periklytos (The Praised One)—which, he argues, is the Greek equivalent of the Arabic name “Ahmad,” a variant of Muhammad. On this view, Christian scribes deliberately altered the text to conceal Muhammad’s name.
Second, even granting that the word is Parakletos, Deedat argues that the description of this figure fits Muhammad better than the Holy Spirit. He points to the masculine pronouns, the condition of Jesus’s departure, and the promise of “guiding into all truth.”
Let us examine each in turn.
Part One: The Periklytos Theory
A Conspiracy Without Evidence
Deedat’s foundation for this prophecy rests on a claim of textual corruption. He asserts that early Christians changed Periklytos (“The Praised One”) to Parakletos (“Comforter”) to hide the prophecy of Muhammad.
This is an extraordinary claim. And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
The evidence, however, runs entirely in the opposite direction.
There are over 5,700 extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, ranging from early papyri like P66 and P75 (dating to the late second or early third century) through later uncial codices and minuscules. These manuscripts were copied by scribes across the Mediterranean world—in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Rome, North Africa—speaking different languages and belonging to different ecclesiastical traditions.
Not a single one of these 5,700 manuscripts contains the reading Periklytos.
Every textual witness, without exception, reads Parakletos.
This includes manuscripts that predate Islam by centuries. It includes translations into Syriac, Coptic, Latin, and other languages made independently across the ancient world. It includes quotations from Church Fathers writing long before Muhammad was born.
The Impossibility of Universal Alteration
For Deedat’s theory to be true, we must posit a conspiracy of unprecedented scope. Scribes across the entire Mediterranean world—with no central authority capable of coordinating such an effort, belonging to communities often in theological conflict with one another—would have had to alter every single copy of John’s Gospel. They would have had to eradicate Periklytos from all manuscripts, all translations, all lectionaries, all Patristic quotations, without leaving a single trace.
This did not happen. It could not have happened.
When genuine textual variants exist in New Testament manuscripts—and thousands do—we can trace them through the manuscript tradition. We see where variant readings emerged, which families of manuscripts preserve them, how they spread or died out. The discipline of textual criticism exists precisely because manuscripts differ and those differences leave traces.
Periklytos leaves no trace because it was never there.
A Philological Anomaly
There is another problem. While periklytos appears in classical Greek literature (Homer, Hesiod), it is completely absent from the New Testament and the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament that New Testament authors frequently quote). Its sudden appearance in Johannine vocabulary would be philologically jarring.
By contrast, parakletos fits perfectly into the legal and forensic context of John’s Gospel, where the Spirit functions as a witness and advocate in what scholars call the “cosmic trial”—the ongoing judgment regarding the identity and mission of Jesus.
The Periklytos theory is not merely unproven; it is contradicted by every piece of available evidence.
Part Two: The Comforter as Muhammad
Deedat recognizes that the manuscript argument faces difficulties. His stronger case—the one that resonates with many hearers—concerns the description of the Comforter. Even granting that the word is Parakletos, he argues, the figure described in John 14–16 fits Muhammad better than an incorporeal Spirit.
Let us examine his specific arguments.
The Masculine Pronouns
Deedat emphasizes that John 16:13 uses masculine pronouns—“He,” “Him,” “Himself”—eight times in a single verse to describe the Spirit of Truth. He argues that since the Greek word for “spirit” (pneuma) is grammatically neuter, the use of masculine pronouns proves the subject is a human male, not a ghost.
This argument sounds compelling to those unfamiliar with Greek grammar. But it fundamentally confuses grammatical gender with biological sex.
In Greek (as in many languages), nouns possess grammatical gender—masculine, feminine, or neuter—that does not necessarily correspond to the biological sex or physical nature of the thing described. The word for “table” might be feminine; the word for “book” might neuter; neither has reproductive organs.
The masculine pronouns in John 16:13 follow a basic rule of Greek syntax: pronouns agree in gender with their antecedent noun. The antecedent here is Parakletos, which is a masculine noun. Therefore the pronouns must be masculine (ekeinos), regardless of whether the entity referred to is human, divine, or spiritual.
This is not interpretation; it is grammar.
Moreover, the Johannine writings sometimes use masculine pronouns for the Spirit even when pneuma is the immediate antecedent. Scholars call this constructio ad sensum—construction according to sense rather than strict grammatical concord. The masculine forms emphasize the personhood of the Spirit (as an agent with will and action), distinguishing the Spirit from an impersonal force. But personal agency does not require biological humanity.
If grammatical gender determined biological sex, then in verses where neuter pneuma is the subject, the Holy Spirit would be an “it”—neither male nor female. The masculine language conveys the Spirit’s personal nature, not physical anatomy.
The Condition of Departure
Deedat points to Jesus’s words in John 16:7: “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.” He argues this condition rules out the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit was already present throughout biblical history—filling Elizabeth, empowering John the Baptist, descending on Jesus at his baptism. If the Spirit was already active, why would Jesus’s departure be necessary for the Spirit’s coming?
The Comforter, Deedat concludes, must be someone new—someone whose arrival genuinely depended on Jesus leaving. Muhammad fits this description; the Holy Spirit does not.
This argument overlooks a crucial theological distinction that the Gospel of John itself makes explicit.
In John 7:39, the author explains: “For the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
The distinction is between the Spirit’s temporary activity in the Old Testament—coming upon prophets, judges, and kings for specific tasks—and the permanent indwelling of the Spirit in the New Covenant. Christian theology holds that while the Spirit empowered individuals throughout biblical history, the universal, abiding presence of the Spirit within all believers became possible only after Jesus’s atoning death, resurrection, and ascension.
This is what Jesus means by the Spirit “coming” in a new way. It is not that the Spirit previously did not exist, but that a new mode of the Spirit’s presence—personal, internal, permanent—would be inaugurated through Jesus’s completed work.
Furthermore, Deedat’s argument requires ignoring what the text explicitly states. In John 14:26, Jesus says: “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.”
The text identifies the Comforter directly. To seek a different referent requires reading against the plain statement of the passage.
Attributes That Exclude Muhammad
Perhaps the most decisive evidence against identifying the Comforter with Muhammad comes from the specific attributes John ascribes to this figure. Deedat focuses on the “Prophet” aspect while passing over descriptions that make a human interpretation impossible.
Indwelling: “He shall be in you.”
Jesus promises that the Spirit of Truth “dwelleth with you and shall be in you” (John 14:17). This describes an interior presence—the Spirit dwelling within the disciples themselves.
Muhammad was a human being. Whatever his prophetic office, he could not physically dwell inside the disciples. He was born in Mecca six centuries after Jesus spoke these words. He never met the disciples. He could not be “in” them in any meaningful sense.
Invisibility: “The world seeth him not.”
Jesus says of the Spirit: “The world cannot receive him, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him” (John 14:17).
Muhammad was a visible, public figure. He was seen by thousands. He was known throughout Arabia and beyond. He led armies, governed communities, negotiated treaties. Whatever else may be said of him, he was not invisible to the world.
The Spirit, by contrast, is invisible—known by believers through internal experience, but not perceived by the unbelieving world as a visible presence.
Permanence: “He may abide with you forever.”
Jesus promises that the Father will give another Comforter “that he may abide with you forever” (John 14:16).
Muhammad died in 632 AD. He did not remain with the disciples forever. He did not remain with anyone forever. He was a mortal man with a mortal lifespan.
The Spirit, Christian theology affirms, abides with believers permanently—not temporarily visiting as prophets come and go, but dwelling within the Church across all generations.
These three attributes—indwelling, invisibility, and permanence—form an insuperable barrier to the identification of the Comforter with any human figure, Muhammad included.
The “Spirit Means Prophet” Argument
Anticipating the objection that the text explicitly calls this figure a “Spirit,” Deedat appeals to 1 John 4:1: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: for many false prophets are gone out into the world.”
He argues this verse demonstrates that biblical language uses “spirit” synonymously with “prophet”—a true spirit is a true prophet; a false spirit is a false prophet. Therefore, calling the Comforter a “Spirit” does not preclude Muhammad.
But this reads far more into the text than it can bear. First John 4 warns believers to test spiritual influences and teachings, recognizing that false prophets operate under demonic inspiration. The “spirits” being tested are the spiritual forces behind prophetic claims—hence the immediate mention of “false prophets.” The passage does not establish that “spirit” and “prophet” are interchangeable terms; it recognizes that prophetic speech has spiritual sources, whether divine or demonic.
More fundamentally, Jesus does not merely call the Comforter a “spirit” in some general sense. He calls him “the Holy Spirit” (John 14:26)—the same Spirit who appeared at Jesus’s baptism, who is mentioned throughout the Old and New Testaments, who is the third person of the Trinity in Christian theology.
What About “Guiding Into All Truth”?
Deedat’s final move is pragmatic. He argues that the Holy Spirit has given no “new truth” in two thousand years. What concrete guidance has the Spirit provided that Jesus did not already teach?
By contrast, Deedat claims, Muhammad “guided mankind into all truth” by providing practical solutions to persistent social problems: total abstinence solving alcoholism, Islamic prayer integrating the races, polygamy providing for “surplus women.”
This argument redefines “truth” to mean something John never intended.
In Johannine theology, “truth” (aletheia) refers to the revelation of God in Christ—not civil legislation or social policy. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). The Spirit’s role is defined as “glorifying Me” (John 16:14) by revealing the significance of Jesus’s person and work.
The “many things” the disciples could not yet bear (John 16:12) concerned the theological meaning of the Cross—realities that would only become comprehensible after the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension actually occurred. The Spirit would guide them into understanding these events as the fulfillment of God’s redemptive plan.
This is precisely what we see in the apostolic writings. The epistles and early Christian preaching take the historical events of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection and unfold their significance for salvation, ethics, and hope. The Spirit illuminated what had already happened in Christ—not by providing new legislation, but by revealing the depth of what God accomplished.
To evaluate the Spirit’s work by whether Christianity produced successful prohibition laws is to measure apples by the standards of oranges.
Conclusion: The Text Speaks for Itself
Deedat’s argument about the Comforter is more sophisticated than the Song of Solomon claim, which explains why it persuades more people. But upon examination, it too fails at multiple points:
The Periklytos theory has zero manuscript support. Not one of 5,700 Greek manuscripts contains this reading. The conspiracy required to alter every copy across the ancient world is historically impossible.
The grammatical argument confuses grammatical gender with biological sex, ignoring basic rules of Greek syntax.
The departure argument overlooks John’s explicit distinction between the Spirit’s previous activity and the new indwelling inaugurated at Pentecost.
The descriptive attributes—indwelling, invisibility, permanence—make human identification impossible.
The “Spirit means prophet” argument misreads 1 John 4 and ignores that Jesus explicitly identifies the Comforter as “the Holy Spirit.”
The “all truth” argument redefines Johannine truth as social legislation rather than christological revelation.
The Gospel of John tells us who the Comforter is: “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name.” Christians have read it this way for two thousand years—not because they are hiding something, but because that is what the text says.
To find Muhammad in this passage requires erasing manuscript evidence, misunderstanding grammar, ignoring explicit identifications, and redefining key terms. It requires the text to mean something other than what it plainly states.
The Comforter has come. He dwells within believers. He testifies to Christ. He guides into truth. He has been doing so since Pentecost.
Next in this series: Part 3b: The Litmus Test — examining Deedat’s claim that Muhammad passes the test of 1 John 4:1–2 for identifying true prophets.