WHAT THE QUR’AN AND ISLAMIC TRADITION SAY ABOUT THE BIBLE By Jose Luis Dizon
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WHAT THE QUR’AN AND ISLAMIC TRADITION SAY ABOUT THE BIBLEBy Jose Luis Dizon
Four Possible ScenariosThe Qur’an teaches Biblical Corruption
The Qur’an does not teach Biblical Corruption
The Bible has been corrupted 1. Christianity is
falsified; Islam is vindicated
3. Christianity and Islam are both falsified
The Bible has not been corrupted
2. Christianity is vindicated; Islam is falsified
4. Christianity is vindicated; Islam is falsified
Biblical Narrative and the Qur’an• “Muslims in the first century of their religious history inevitably had to rely on the Bible for the background of the salvific history that the Qur'an was claiming to inherit. Moreover, the abbreviated manner in which the Qur'an related stories from the Jewish and Christian traditions was scarcely sufficient for the stories to function independently. The Qur'an needed a narrative background for it to become comprehensible. . . . They naturally turned to biblical lore (the Bible, midrash, and Christian literature) to provide that narrative background.”
• Walid Saleh, “A Muslim Hebraist: Al-Biqai’s Bible Treatise and His Defence of Using the Bible to Interpret the Qur’an,” Speculum 83, 632-633.
Biblical Narrative and the Qur’an• Surat Yunus, 10:94: “If you are in doubt as to what we have revealed to you, ask those who read the book before you; the truth has come to you from your Lord: so never be among the doubters.”
Biblical Narrative and the Qur’an• Hadith narrated by al-Biqa’i: “Do not hesitate to narrate from the Sons of Israel.”
• Cited in Saleh, “A Muslim Hebraist,” 644.
Two Key Words
•Tasdīq (تصديق) – “Confirmation”•Taḥrīf (تحريف) – “Corruption”
Tasdīq (تصديق)• From the Arabic verbصدّق (saddaqa, “to confirm”)• Usually appears in the active participle form (musaddiq) ُمَصدِّق
• Has the connotation of verifying or proving something to be true (cf. Lane’s Lexicon)
• Appears in Q 2:41, 2:89, 3:3, 3:48, 5:48
Tasdīq (تصديق)• Surat Āl Imrān, 3:3: “He has sent down upon you the Book in truth, confirming what was before it [literally, what is between its hands]. And He revealed the Torah and the Gospel.”
Tasdīq (تصديق)• Surat al-Baqarah, 2:41: “Believe in what I reveal, confirming what is with you and be not the first to disbelieve in it. And do not sell My signs for a small price, and fear Me.”
Taḥrīf (تحريف)• From the Arabic verb حّرف (“to corrupt”)• Found in Q 2:75, 4:46, 5:13 and 5:41• Related verbs: بدّل (“to change”) and لّي (“to distort”)
Taḥrīf (تحريف)• Surat al-Baqarah, 2:75: “Do you hope that they would believe for you while a party of them used to hear the words of Allah and then corrupt it after they had understood it while they were knowing?”
Taḥrīf (تحريف)• Two types of Taḥrīf: 1. Taḥrīf al-Mana (Corruption of meaning)2. Taḥrīf al-Nass (Corruption of the text)• Most modern Muslim preachers and apologists advocate the latter
• The Qur’an, however, appears to be teaching the former
Taḥrīf (تحريف)• Surat Āl Imrān, 3:78: “There is among them a party who distort the Book with their tongues that you may consider it to be of the Book, and they say, It is from Allah, while it is not from Allah, and they tell a lie against Allah whilst they know.”
Taḥrīf (تحريف)• “According to the linguists of Arabic, taḥrīf means corruption of meaning, not of text. So, four verses mentioned above [Q 2:75, 4:46, 5:13, 5:41] claim that Jews misinterprets [sic] their holy books. On the other hand, in the usage of some Muslim commentators of the Qur'an, the word derived an expanded meaning including corruption of text.”
• Muhammet Tarakci and Suleyman Sayar, “The Quranic View of the Corruption of the Torah and the Gospels,” The Islamic Quarterly 39/3, 230.
Taḥrīf (تحريف)• “In the Qur’anic context, tahrif is principally an ambiguous accusation raised against the Jews. Moreover, [the tahrif verses] more readily lend themselves to being understood as accusations of taḥrīf mana, rather than textual corruption, taḥrīf lafz. One should not therefore too quickly conclude, as most do today, that these verses were automatically understood in the sense of textual corruption of the whole Bible, for this would represent an anachronism.”
• Martin Accad, “Corruption and/or Misinterpretation of the Bible: The Story of the Islamic Usage of Tahrif,” Theological Review 24/2 (2003), 71.
Muslim Scholarly Opinions• “Someone might come out against this tradition with the argument that it occurs only in the Torah which, as is well known, was altered by the Jews. The reply to this argument would be that the statement concerning the alteration of the Torah by the Jews is unacceptable to thorough scholars and cannot be understood in its plain meaning, since custom prevents people who have a revealed religion from dealing with the divine scriptures in such a manner.”
• Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, Vol. I, trans. Franz Rosenthal (Princeton University Press, 1967), 20.
Muslim Scholarly Opinions• “In no verse in the Qur’an is there a denigrating remark about the scriptures of the Jews and Christians. Instead, there is respect and reverence. Any disparaging remarks were about the People of the Book, individuals or groups, and their actions.”
• Abdullah Saeed, “The Charge of Distortion of Jewish and Christian Scriptures,” The Muslim World 92 (Fall 2002): 429.
The Evolution of Taḥrīf• “…it quickly became the practice in debates between Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the tenth century onwards for Muslim scholars to impugn the authenticity of the Bible text as Jews and Christians actually have it and interpret it.”
• Sidney H. Griffith, The Bible in Arabic: The Scripture of the “People of the Book” in the Language of Islam (Princeton University Press, 2013), 178.
The Evolution of Taḥrīf• Camilla Adang surveyed ten Muslim writers from Ibn Rabban (9th century) to Ibn Hazm (11th century), and found that the 1st explicit reference to textual corruption among them was from al-Maqdisi (10th century). But the idea wasn’t fully developed until Ibn Hazm.
• Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 223-248.
The Evolution of Taḥrīf• It is generally accepted in scholarly circles that the main thrust behind the shift towards textual corruption seems to be the 11th century polemicist Ibn Hazm, of whom Gabriel Said Reynolds says that he “is distinguished from earlier Muslim authors... more by his unfailingly hostile rhetoric than by the method or content of his arguments against Christianity.”
• Gabriel Said Reynolds, “Review of S.M. Behloul, Ibn Ḥazm’s Evangelienkritik: Eine methodische Untersuchung,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 124 (2004), 116.
The Evolution of Taḥrīf• For more information, see my article, “Muslim writers on Taḥrīf,” at the following link:
• bit.ly/ontahrif
The Deleted Description• “Al-Kalbi mentioned, through the above-mentioned chain of transmission: ‘They had changed the description of Allah’s Messenger, Allah bless him and give him peace, in their Scripture. They made him white and tall while the Prophet, Allah bless him and give him peace, was brown and of medium height. They had said to their followers and companions: ‘Look at the description of the prophet who will be sent at the end of time; his description does not match that of this [man].’”
• Al-Wahidi, Asbāb al-Nuzūl, trans. Mokrane Guezzou (Amman: Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought), 3.
Four Possible Scenarios, RevisitedThe Qur’an teaches Biblical Corruption
The Qur’an does not teach Biblical Corruption
The Bible has been corrupted 1. Christianity is
falsified; Islam is vindicated
3. Christianity and Islam are both falsified
The Bible has not been corrupted
2. Christianity is vindicated; Islam is falsified
4. Christianity is vindicated; Islam is falsified
END OF PREESENTATION
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