Page 155 - World Religions I - Islam

portent for you, if ye are to be believers. (I have come to you), to attest the Law which was
before me. And to make lawful to you part of what was (Before) forbidden to you; I have come
to you with a Sign from your Lord. So fear Allah, and obey me. - Al-Imran (The Family of Imran)
3:48-50
• Muslim tradition holds that the Gospel was available to Arabs during the time of Muhammad (see Al-
Bukhari 4:55:605, 6:60:478, and Sahih Muslim 1:301).
o Since the Qur'an implies that the Scriptures were valid up to the time of Qur'anic revelation, the
alleged corruption had to have taken place after AD 632. In the first four centuries after
Muhammad (600-1000 AD) no Muslim theologian seriously contended that the Gospel text were
not authentic. The charge of corruption and falsification began with the writings of Ibn-Khazem
in the 11th Century and was later asserted by others until it became a fixed ingredient of
Muslim apologetics.
 Such a suggested corruption would have been impossible given the wide
disbursement of copies in circulation, not to mention the diversity of languages in
which the texts were available.
• Rejection of tahreef is based on five broad arguments:
o There is little physical manuscript evidence of alteration to the Biblical texts. Also devotion of
the Jewish people to the Torah and the meticulous copying of text by the Massoretes runs
against Muslim charges. The oldest Dead Sea Scrolls versions circa 250 BC - AD 70 match current
usage with only minor variations.
o There is no satisfactory answer to why Jews and Christians would change their text.
o Jews and Christians were hostile to each other. Little agreement could have been achieved. For
example in the 1st century, Paul was regularly attacked by the Jews (Acts 23:12) and anti-Jewish
attacks were a regular occurrence by AD 372.
o Differing new sects would have disagreed with mainline groups over changes. Thus no uniform
set of alterations could be made as the Muslim claims.
o Former Jews and Christians who became Muslims never mentioned any possibility of
deliberate corruption—something critics could definitely expect if it were true.

Conclusion
These points refute the doctrine of tahreef using only Islamic sources and logic. The Qur'an and Hadith do a
sufficient enough job to discount the claim that the Jewish and Christian scriptures were corrupt - much less in
need of abrogating - without having to resort to the overwhelming historical and manuscript evidence for the
authenticity of the Bible.
Muslims should not attack the reliability of the Bible since their own holy book, the Qur'an, upholds it

Therein lies the crux of the issue. If the prior Scriptures were not corrupted in a massive and conspiratorial
fashion, Islam cannot be trusted. Correcting the Torah and the Gospels, setting the record mission. If the
Scripture was not garbled, then Islam loses its justification. straight, and returning to the true religion, were
central to Muhammad's mission. If the Scripture was not garbled, then Islam loses its justification.

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