Galilee, the hill country around the lake that the Gospels call the Sea of Galilee, is where Jesus spent most of his ministry. Four places there still draw pilgrims: Capernaum, Cana, Tabgha and Mount Tabor. Each is tied to a story in the Gospels, and two of those stories have echoes in the Qur’an.
In this article
Capernaum, his own town
Matthew says that Jesus left Nazareth and settled in Capernaum, a fishing town on the north shore of the lake, and Mark places his first teaching in its synagogue.1 The white limestone synagogue that visitors see today was built in the fourth or fifth century over the black basalt foundations of an older one. Nearby, a modern church stands over the remains of a house that early Christians venerated as the home of Peter.
Cana and the wedding
At a wedding in Cana, John’s Gospel says, Jesus turned water into wine, the first of his signs.2 Two villages have claimed the site; most pilgrims visit Kafr Kanna, a few kilometres north-east of Nazareth, where Catholic and Orthodox churches mark the tradition.
Tabgha and the table from heaven in Galilee
At Tabgha, on the lakeshore between Capernaum and Magdala, a church preserves a fifth-century mosaic of a basket of loaves between two fish. It marks the feeding of the five thousand, the only miracle of Jesus told in all four Gospels.3 A smaller church beside the water recalls the risen Jesus’s breakfast with his disciples on the shore.
The Qur’an tells of a meal sent from heaven at the request of Jesus’s disciples, and names a whole chapter after it, al-Māʾidah (ٱلْمَائِدَة, the table spread).4
قَالَ عِيسَى ٱبْنُ مَرْيَمَ ٱللَّهُمَّ رَبَّنَآ أَنزِلْ عَلَيْنَا مَآئِدَةً مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ تَكُونُ لَنَا عِيدًا لِّأَوَّلِنَا وَءَاخِرِنَا وَءَايَةً مِّنكَ ۖ وَٱرْزُقْنَا وَأَنتَ خَيْرُ ٱلرَّٰزِقِينَ ١١٤
Said Jesus, the son of Mary, “O Allāh, our Lord, send down to us a table [spread with food] from the heaven to be for us a festival for the first of us and the last of us and a sign from You. And provide for us, and You are the best of providers.”
Qur’an 5:1145
Mount Tabor
Mount Tabor rises alone from the plain of Jezreel at the south-western edge of Galilee. Christian tradition since the fourth century has placed the Transfiguration on its summit, where the Gospels say Jesus was seen in glory with Moses and Elijah.6 The Basilica of the Transfiguration on the summit was completed in 1924.
The verse sets the Galilee of the Gospels within the Qur’an’s own story of Jesus. In the Qur’an the table is a sign that Jesus asks of God, and God sends it: the miracle is God’s answer to a prophet’s prayer. Muslims who visit Tabgha can recognise there the memory of a meal that their own scripture honours, as provision from the One who is the best of providers.
Further reading: Jesus across the traditions, The Messiah in three traditions, Places.