Compare the above with the Quranic account. In two locations the Quran mentions this miracle. In Surah 3:49, we read:
"And (appoint him) an apostle to the Children of Israel, (with this message): "'I have come to you, with a Sign from your Lord, in that I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, and breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by Allah's leave ...

Then in Surah 5:110 we read:
Then will Allah say: "O Jesus the son of Mary! Recount My favour to thee and to thy mother. Behold! I strengthened thee with the holy spirit, so that thou didst speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. Behold! I taught thee the Book and Wisdom, the Law and the Gospel and behold! thou makest out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, by My leave, and thou breathest into it and it becometh a bird by My leave ...

If Muhammad (peace be upon him) was copying from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, or reliant upon it even indirectly, why were its crucial details omitted? The Quran does not mention the "soft" clay, the "twelve sparrows," Jesus' "clapping of hands" and his "crying" to the sparrows: "Be off..." It does not mention Jesus (peace be upon him) asking the sparrows to remember him and the sparrows noisily flying. In fact, the entire framework of the story is absent in the Quran (the sabbath story).

If the Quran was dependent upon the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, why would its Author omit so much - He omitted everything except for mentioning the miracle of the clay-bird?


The Quran only states that Jesus made a bird from clay and it transformed into an actual bird when he breathed into it. The Quran then emphasizes that this was God's miracle, done through Jesus (peace be upon him). Thus, it is highly unlikely that Muhammad (peace be upon him) had a copy of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in his lap and was copying directly from it.


Could it be that Muhammad (peace be upon him) acquired this story indirectly, as it was circulating orally (with its ultimate source being the Infancy Gospel of Thomas)? This is "possible." Though one wonders, is it likely that the written story would later transmit orally in such a way that it was completely stripped from all the exciting details in its written form and a total absence of its framework? That seems quite improbable.


We may also compare the story about Jesus (peace be upon him) speaking in the cradle where it says in the Infancy Gospel:


"... Jesus spake when he was in the cradle, and said to his mother: "Mary, I am Jesus the Son of God, the Word, which thou didst bring forth according to the declaration of the angel Gabriel, and My Father hath sent me for the salvation of the world."


While in the Qur'an it states:


Surah 19:28-34


"O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. Then she pointed to him. They said: How can we talk to one who is a child in the cradle? He said: "I am indeed a servant of Allah. He has given me the Book and has made me a prophet. And has made me blessed wheresoever I may be, and has enjoined upon me prayer and almsgiving so long as I remain alive, And (has made me) dutiful toward her who bore me, and hath not made me arrogant, unblest. Peace on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive! Such was Jesus, son of Mary: (this is) a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt.


Notice that in the Infancy Gospel Jesus tells his mother that he is the Son of God. That is absent from the Qur'an. Christians may argue back that this is because Muhammad (peace be upon him) did not agree with this label, however notice that in the Infancy Gospel Jesus also tells his mother that he is the word. The Qur'an also refers to Jesus (peace be upon him) as a word from Allah. There's no reason why Muhammad (peace be upon him) wouldn't have had Jesus saying to his mother that he is a word from Allah if he was indeed plagiarizing, since that could be possibly harmonized with the Qur'an. There's also no mention of angel Gabriel in the Qur'an.


Similarity between the Quranic account and the story in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas would only be "problematic" for Muslims if the possibility of God's revelation is a priori dismissed. If it is not a priori dismissed, then we have no problem. Muhammad (peace be upon him) did receive this story, lacking all details added to it in the written Christian record, through revelation from Allah.


Notes:

[1] But there is an earlier reference from Irenaeus, as Cameron notes:


In his citation, Irenaeus first quotes a non-canonical story that circulated about the childhood of Jesus and then goes directly on to quote a passage from the infancy narrative of the Gospel of Luke (Luke 2:49). Since the Infancy Gospel of Thomas records both of these stories, in relative close proximity to one another, it is possible that the apocryphal writing cited by Irenaeus is, in fact, what is now known as theInfancy Gospel of Thomas. Because of the complexities of the manuscript tradition, however, there is no certainty as to when the stories of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas began to be written down. (cited here)



[2] In a footnote, Bowering writes:


60 To stress again, only a very small number of Qur'anic verses parallels small passages of the apocryphal gospels, and only one Qur'anic verse, Q 21:105, is a direct quotation from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), namely Psalm 37:29. The earliest known Muslim Arabic citation from the New Testament is the passage of John 15:23-16:1 which is presented in summary form by Ibn Ishaq (d. 767 CE) in Muhammad's biography, see F. Wüstenfeld (ed.), Das Leben Muhammeds nach Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, 1, 149-50. For the small harvest of parallels between Qur'anic passages and the Syriac liturgy, see E. Graf, "Zu den christlichen Einflüssen im Koran," Festschrift Joseph Henninger: Studia Instituti Anthropos Bonn, Al-Bahith 28, 1976, 121-44.


Recommended Reading

http://www.call-to-monotheism.com/do...s_credibility_


Appendix


Shamoun responds over here.
Shamoun states:
On what basis does Muhammad's subjective sincerity constitute proof for the divine origin of his teaching if the same conclusion does not hold for these other men?
This is nothing more than a red herring. I never argued that Muhammad's (peace be upon him) sincerity constituted proof for the divine origin of his teaching. Rather, I said that this at least illustrates that he didn't knowingly plagiarize something and attributed it directly to God as being spoken by Him. This is what I said:
In that case, it is difficult to imagine that the Prophet (peace be upon him) knowingly plagiarized material and included it into the Qur'an.
And:
Yes, one may think that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was sincerely wrong, however the point that I am trying to make is that it is most reasonable to assume that he was at least sincere.

So wouldn't this then according to Christian standards serve as evidence that the Prophet (peace be upon him) did not plagiarize?
Even Shamoun is aware of this, for he said earlier in his article:
Nor does it follow that Muhammad's sincerity proves that the Quran is from God, as even Zawadi realizes.
So Shamoun earlier in his article states that I realize that Prophet Muhammad's (peace be upon him) sincerity isn't proof that the Qur'an is the word of God. Then a few paragraphs later, Shamoun asks:
On what basis does Muhammad's subjective sincerity constitute proof for the divine origin of his teaching if the same conclusion does not hold for these other men?
This is extremely confusing! Why is Shamoun asking this question when he already acknowledges that I never made this claim? Shamoun is very confused and needs to make up his mind what he wants to argue!
Shamoun said:
Finally, the issue is not that Muhammad plagiarized the Arabic Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Rather, the argument is that Muhammad heard Christians referring to this story and therefore decided to include it in his Quran since he erroneously assumed that it was an actual miracle performed by the historical Jesus.
But that is precisely the problem. If the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was truly sincere then he couldn't have done that! The Qur'an is not like the Bible. If it was then someone could argue that Muhammad (peace be upon him) sincerely believed that he was inspired to write the contents of the Qur'an. But that is not the case. Rather, Islam teaches that the actual words in the Qur'an were spoken by God. Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught this. If the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught that Allah spoke the Qur'an, but then he went ahead and wrote it himself knowingly, then this just goes to show that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) wasn't sincere. However, I have argued that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was indeed sincere, hence we must rule plagiarism and knowingly writing the Qur'an from his own mind out of the question. The critic would need to offer another explanation instead.
Shamoun said:
There is actually no need to disprove this since in actuality it is not that Satan made sure that the story of Jesus speaking in the cradle wasn't written in any first century documents. Rather, my conviction is that Satan may have actually influenced Muhammad to adopt fables such as this one from these Christian apocryphal sources in order to dupe Christians of Muhammad's time to believe that the Quran acknowledges the miraculous life and ministry of Jesus.
Shamoun is free to have his "convictions", but the point is that he cannot prove them nor could he disprove the Biblical mimicry argument.
Shamoun mentions the story found in Ibn Ishaq:
The names of the fourteen principal men among the sixty riders were: 'Abdu'l-Masih the 'Aqib, al-Ayham the Sayyid; Abu Haritha b. 'Alqama brother of B. Bakr b. Wa'il; Aus; al-Harith; Zayd; Qays; Yazid; Nubayh; Khuwaylid; 'Amr; Khalid; 'Amr; Khalid; 'Abdullah; Johannes; of these the first three named above spoke to the apostle. They were Christians according to the Byzantine rite, though they differed among themselves in some points, saying He is God; and He is the son of God; and He is the third person of the Trinity, which is the doctrine of Christianity. They argue that he is God because he used to raise the dead, and heal the sick, AND DECLARE THE UNSEEN; AND MAKE CLAY BIRDS AND THEN BREATHE INTO THEM, SO THAT THEY FLEW AWAY; and all this was by the command of God Almighty, 'We will make him a sign to men.' They argue that he is son of God in that they say he had no known father; AND HE SPOKE IN THE CRADLE and this is something that no child of Adam has ever done. They argue that he is the third of three in that God says: We have done, We have commanded, We have created and We have decreed, and they say, If He were one he would have said I have done, I have created, and so on, but He is He and Jesus and Mary. Concerning all these assertions the Quran came down.
Ibn Ishaq said that Muhammad bin Ja'far bin Zubair bin Al Awaam told him the story, but Muhammad bin Ja'far came a generation after the Prophet's death and we have not been informed where Muhammad bin Ja'far got this story from and how accurate its wording really is.
Shamoun said:
The foregoing explains why Muhammad's version of this apocryphal fable lacks "the exciting details" found in the "written form" and why "its framework" is missing.
Well, as I already stated this is technically speaking a "possibility":
Could it be that Muhammad (peace be upon him) acquired this story indirectly, as it was circulating orally (with its ultimate source being the Infancy Gospel of Thomas)? This is "possible."

Shamoun then says:
The problem that Zawadi faces is that the Islamic sources which were just cited emphatically prove that Muhammad took the very exact story which he heard from this Christian group and included it within the Quran. This explains why the Quran's story of Jesus creating clay birds is identical to the version narrated by the Christians from Najran, i.e. Muhammad acquired his information directly from the Christians who had obviously derived it from the apocryphal Christian Gospels which they had either read or heard.
"Emphatically prove"? This is where Shamoun's bias clearly kicks in, since he assumes that Muhammad (peace be upon him) is a false prophet and isn't willing to grant the possibility that the Qur'an revealed the story of Jesus in response to the Najrani Christians and would very likely word it the same way the Najrani Christians would.
This is also assuming that the story is reliable. Furthermore, Ibn Ishaq is not presenting the actual words of the Najrani Christians, but is ONLY SUMMARIZING what they said and talked about with the Prophet. How could Shamoun say with any shred of confidence that "the Quran's story of Jesus creating clay birds is identical to the version narrated by the Christians from Najran"?
Shamoun proceeds on to the second part of his article, however I haven't seen Shamoun presenting any real arguments with any measure of substance that would call for responding to them. This is because Shamoun's arguments are based on the assumption that Muhammad (peace be upon him) wasn't sincere and knowingly includes information into the Qur'an, while claiming to the people that they are the direct words uttered by God. Unless, Shamoun illustrates that the Prophet (peace be upon him) wasn't sincere I see no reason to interact with arguments based on false assumption.