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Islamic view of the Bible

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The Quran states that several prior writings constitute holy books given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel, in the same way the Quran was revealed to Muhammad. These include the Tawrat, believed by Muslims to have been given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel, the Zabur (used in reference to the Psalms)[1] revealed to David (Dawud); and the Injil revealed to Jesus (Isa).

The Islamic methodology of tafsir al-Qur'an bi-l-Kitab (Arabic: تفسير القرآن بالكتاب) refers to "interpreting the Qur'an with/through the Bible".[2] This approach adopts canonical Arabic versions of the Bible, including the Torah and Gospel, both to illuminate and to add exegetical depth to the reading of the Qur'an. Notable Muslim commentators (mufassirun) of the Bible and Qur'an who weaved biblical texts together with Qur'anic ones include Abu al-Hakam Abd al-Salam bin al-Isbili of Al-Andalus and Ibrahim bin Umar bin Hasan al-Biqa'i.[2]

Quran

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The term "Bible" is not found in the Quran; instead the Quran has particular terms to refer to the Torah (توراة, Tawrah), Psalms (الزَّبُورُ, Zabur) and Gospel (إنجيل, Injil).[3]

Psalms

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Main articles: Zabur and Psalms

The Quran mentions the Psalms with the use of the term zubūr (Arabic: زبور "writings") in five verses.[4] and two of these mention that it was given to David (4:163; 17:55). The word zabūr is often viewed by scholars in the sense "psalter" as being a conflation of Arabic zabūr, "writing", with the Hebrew word for "psalm", mizmōr (Hebrew: מִזְמוֹר) or its Aramaic equivalent mazmūrā (Syriac: ܡܙܡܘܪܐ).[5] The word zubur may have also originally come from Sabaic, where the verb sbr (Ge'ez: ሰብር) means "to write" or "to sign" and the noun zbr (Ge'ez: ዘብር) means "writing" or "signed document".[6]

According to the Qur'an, The Psalms was revealed to David. Quran 21:105 says that in the Zabur there is a quote "the land is inherited by my righteous servants". This resembles the 29th verse of Psalm 37, which says "[t]he righteous shall inherit the land, and abide forever in it."[7][8] The Zabur is also mentioned in the Qur'an in metaphorical language describing how "The Mountains and Birds echo David's hymns."[9] This is similar to how David's son Solomon is described as capable of communicating with animals and Jinn.[10] Some companions of Muhammad such as Abu Aliya believed that the Sabians mentioned in the Qur'an were followers of the Psalms, similar to how Jews would follow the Torah and the Christians the Gospels.[11] Muhammad also described how David had mastered the Psalms, as narrated by Abu Huraira in Sahih Al Bukhari:

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "The reciting of the Zabur (i.e. Psalms) was made easy for David. He used to order that his riding animals be saddled, and would finish reciting the Zabur before they were saddled. And he would never eat except from the earnings of his manual work."

— Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:55:628

The Book of Psalms currently in the Bible is believed to have had contributions from multiple authors including Solomon, Asaph, Korah family and more.

Gospel

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Main articles: Gospel in Islam and Gospel

The term customarily translated as "Gospel" in the Quran, injīl, appears to be an Ethiopic loanword. It originates as a form of revelation delivered to Jesus, being referred to as being "taught" to Jesus or "sent down" to him. Like the Torah, with which it is frequently paired, the Gospel is exclusively mentioned in Medinan verses. The Quran argues that Christians must adjudicate by its content, that this content includes a prophecy of Muhammad, and that it includes a promise of paradise. Whereas "Gospel" is the most common translation, some historians have argued that that the term could encapsulate the entire Christian Bible or, perhaps, the content that might have been commonly assumed to be in the Christian Bible if direct access to its content was unavailable.[12] Some have speculated about the relationship between the singular use of "injīl" (Gospel) and the Bible's inclusion of four Gospels, however, it was common in late antiquity for Christians to speak of "the Gospel" (message) in unison. Likewise, some specific gospel harmonies, such as the Diatessaron of Tatian (which Tatian himself referred to as "the Gospel"), were produced; as such, unitary representations of the canonical Gospels would not have been unusual in late antiquity.[13]

Torah

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Main articles: Torah in Islam and Torah

In the Quran, the Tawrāh, customarily translated as "Torah", refers to the divine scripture revealed to Moses as guidance for the Children of Israel. It contained laws, commandments, and stories of earlier prophets.[14] The Quran explains that the Gospel revealed to Jesus confirmed the Torah which came before it.[14] The Torah found in the Hebrew Bible and Christian Bible is a compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.[15] The Torah is known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses by Christians. However the Quran explains that the Torah, was a revelation and not a text written by Moses himself. The Quran elaborates by explaining that the Children of Israel did not preserve the Torah in its original form.[16] Hadiths on exegesis of the Quran also detail how companions of Muhammad such as Ibn Mas'ud narrated from Muhammad that the Children of Israel had abandoned the Original Torah and wrote a separate book and followed it.[17] Similar views were held by many early Islamic scholars such as Ibn Abbas and Al Qasim bin Ibrahim.[18][19] There are a number of verses in the Quran which allude to a historical textual corruption and misinterpretation of the Torah over time by the Children of Israel.[20][21]

Before the 19th century

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Popularity

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There is some dispute over the level of familiarity that pre-modern Islamic commentators had with biblical literature. The minimalist position is that Islamic authors had a limited or superficial familiarity until the fifteenth century or later.[22][23] Against this and as part of a maximalist position, Martin Accad published a four-part paper marshalling a non-comprehensive list of 648 Gospel quotations across 23 works,[24][25][26][27] and others have pointed out the more engaged use of the Bible in Al-Biruni (d. 1050)[23] and al-Biqāʿī.[28] More recently, a middle-grounded approach has acknowledged the use of biblical texts in a number of writers, but also views more engaged writers such as al-Biqāʿī to be rare exceptions, while also arguing that Gospel and other biblical quotations were reserved to widely reused canonical quotation lists that do not evince direct engagement with the Bible itself.[29] In this view, familiarity with the Bible only becomes widespread in the nineteenth century and later.[30] To address the impasse of opposing views, unlikely to be resolved by specialized analysis of a few titles of the large volume of commentary (tafsir) literature, the application of computational methods on digitized Arabic texts across a range of genres (encyclopedias, madrasa textbooks, tafsir, etc) has shown that some biblical texts were known in literature belonging to interfaith polemic and apologetics, whereas use of the Bible in commentaries was nearly non-existent (with isolated exceptions) until a sharp rise in their usage in the late 19th century. This survey covered nearly all of the 50 most historically significant commentaries, along with 129 other titles, of which roughly 60% of extant commentaries are a copy.[31] Further analysis of these quotations demonstrate that (1) an author of a commentary with little quotation of the Bible may have a more abundant set of quotations in their interfaith writings; (2) use-cases are largely second-hand, often erroneous, and lacking in direct familiarity with the biblical text. For example, Abu Bakr al-Razi believed that the Gospels assert God has a thousand names, and authors like Al-Baghawi (d. 1122), Al-Khazin (d. 1340), and Al-Shawkani (d. 1834) believed that the first verse of the Torah was the Islamic phrase known as the Basmala ("In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate").[31]

Doctrine of corruption/taḥrīf

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Views differ about how medieval Islamic authorities understood the doctrine of the corruption (taḥrīf) of biblical texts. According to Martin Accad, doctrines of corruption primarily referred to corruption of the meaning and interpretation of the biblical scriptures among Jews and Christians, as opposed to the text itself.[32] However, more recently, Reynolds has argued that while corruption of meaning (taḥrīf al-maʿānī) was often invoked by interpreters, this was done for the rhetorical purpose of arguing against Jewish and Christian interpretations of their own scripture, while Islamic authors typically did also believe in the corruption of the text itself (taḥrīf al-naṣṣ).[33]

Today, Muslims may take references to individuals manipulating scripture, such as in Q 2:79, as indications of the textual corruption of texts like the Torah. By contrast, the exegete Al-Tabari referred to the Torah in his words as "the Torah that they (the Jews) possess today".[34]

One Islamic interpretation holds that "Gospel" references in the Quran are to the original divine revelation Jesus Christ, as opposed to the canonical Gospels in the New Testament.[35]

Interpretation

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Ninth century Islamic commentators who invoked significant sections of the Bible in their writings include Ibn Qutaybah (d. 889) and his translation of Genesis 1–3, and Al-Qasim al-Rassi (d. 860) who included a large portion of the Book of Matthew in his Refutation of Christians.[36]

Muhammad and the Bible

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Main article: Muhammad and the Bible

Deuteronomy 18:18

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And the LORD said unto me: 'They have well said that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee; and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.'

— Deuteronomy 18:17–18[37]

Deuteronomy 18:18 has often been considered a prophecy of the coming of Muhammad by Muslim scholars.[38] Al-Samawal al-Maghribi, a medieval Jewish mathematician who converted to Islam, pointed to Deuteronomy 18:18 in his book Confutation of the Jews as a prophecy fulfilled by the appearance of Muhammad.[39] Samawal argued in his book that since the children of Esau are described in Deuteronomy 2:4–6[40] and Numbers 20:14[41] as the brethren of the children of Israel, the children of Ishmael can also be described the same way.[42] Some Muslim writers, like Muhammad Ali and Fethullah Gülen, have interpreted several verses in the Quran as implying that Muhammad was alluded to in Deuteronomy 18:18, including Quran 46:10[43] and 73:15.[44][45][46]

Christians interpret Deuteronomy 18:18 as referring to a future member of the community of Israel who re-enacts the function of Moses, serving as a mediator for the covenant between God and the Israelites. Walter Brueggemann writes that "The primary requirement for the prophet, like the king in 17:15, is that he or she must be a member of Israel, thoroughly situated in the traditions and claims of God's covenant."[47] The Gospels of Matthew and John both present Jesus as being the "prophet like Moses" from Deuteronomy 18[48] and Acts 3:15–23[49] states that Jesus is the one Moses was talking about in Deuteronomy 18:18.

Paraclete

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Main article: Paraclete

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (παράκλητος), to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

— John 14:16–17, New Revised Standard Version[50]

Many Muslim scholars have argued that the Greek words paraklytos ('comforter') and periklutos ('famous'/'illustrious') were used interchangeably, and therefore, these verses constitute Jesus prophesying the coming of Muhammad; but neither of these words are present in this passage (or in the Bible at all), which instead has παράκλητος "Paracletos", that is, Paraclete, Advocate.[51]

The Paraclete, or "Advocate," or "Comforter," is mentioned five times in the Gospel of John,[52] and once in 1 John 2:1 as referring directly to Jesus Christ. The Advocate, called the "Spirit of truth", is considered to be the Holy Spirit; the replacement for Jesus in the world and within believers after His resurrection.[53][citation needed] John says that the world cannot receive the Spirit, although the Spirit abides with and in the disciples (14:17). The Spirit will convict the world of sin (16:8–9) and glorify Jesus (16:13–14).[54]

Biblical figures in Islam

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Main articles: List of people in both the Bible and the Quran, Biblical and Quranic narratives, Biblical people in Islam, and Prophets and messengers in Islam

Some of the people revered or mentioned in both the Quran and the Bible include: Aaron, Abel, Abraham, Adam, Cain, David, the disciples of Jesus, Elias, Elisha, Enoch, Eve, Ezra, Goliath, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Jesus, John the Baptist, Jonah, Joseph, Lot, Mary, Moses, Noah, the Pharaohs of Egypt, Samuel, Saul, Solomon, and Zachariah.[55][56][57]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "The Bible - Google Books". Retrieved 2022-09-24.
  2. ^ a b McCoy, R. Michael (2021-09-08). Interpreting the Qurʾān with the Bible (Tafsīr al-Qurʾān bi-l-Kitāb). Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-46682-1.
  3. ^ Jane Dammen McAuliffe. "Bible". Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an. Vol. 1. p. 228.
  4. ^ Qur'an 3:184 Qur'an 4:163 Qur'an 17:55 Qur'an 21:105 Qur'an 35:25
  5. ^ Horovitz, Josef (1999). "mazmour". In Bearman, P. J. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Islam. Vol. XI (2nd ed.). Leiden: Brill. pp. 372–373.
  6. ^ Sinai, Nicolai (2023). Key terms of the Qur'an: a critical dictionary. Princeton (N.J.): Princeton university press. pp. 364–367. ISBN 978-0-691-24131-9.
  7. ^ "Psalms 37:29". www.sefaria.org.
  8. ^ "Psalm". The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford University Press. 2003. ISBN 978-0-19-512558-0. Arabic zabur. In the Quran the Psalms of David are said to be revelation sent to David, who is considered a prophet (4:163; 17:55; 21:105). In Urdu Christians even sing these Zabur's in their worship to God. God is considered the author of the psalms. Surah 21:105 is a direct counterpart of the biblical Psalm 37:29.
  9. ^ "Surah Saba - 10". Quran.com. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  10. ^ "Surah An-Naml - 17". Quran.com. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  11. ^ "Sahih al-Bukhari 344 - Rubbing hands and feet with dust (Tayammum) - كتاب التيمم - Sunnah.com - Sayings and Teachings of Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سلم)". sunnah.com. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  12. ^ Sinai, Nicolai (2023). Key terms of the Qur'an: a critical dictionary. Princeton (N.J.): Princeton university press. pp. 103–107. ISBN 978-0-691-24131-9.
  13. ^ Lindstedt, Ilkka (2023). Muhammad and his followers in context: the religious map of late antique Arabia. Islamic history and civilization. Leiden Boston: Brill. pp. 246–247. ISBN 978-90-04-68712-7.
  14. ^ a b Shah, Mustafa, Abdel Haleem, Muhammad (2020). The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies. Oxford University press. p. 146. ISBN 9780191081415.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ "Torah | Definition, Meaning, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 2024-06-05. Retrieved 2024-06-22.
  16. ^ Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, et al. The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary. United States, HarperCollins, 2015: Pg. 674-675 ISBN 9780062227621
  17. ^ "إن بني إسرائيل كتبوا كتابا فاتبعوه و تركوا التوراة" "When the time of the Children of Israel was long and hard, they invented and invented a book of their own. "Muhammad Nasir al-Din Al Albani. سلسلة احاديثا صحيحة (Series of Authentic Narrations). جامع الكتب الإسلامية (Jamaat of Islamic Books Library) Volume 6 Pg 193. He quotes from Abū al-Qāsim Sulaymān ibn Aḥmad, aṭ-Ṭabarānī's book: Muj'am Al Kabir
  18. ^ Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm al-Juʿfī al-Bukhārī. Sahih Al Bukhari Hadith: 2685, 7523, 7363
  19. ^ Schaffer, Ryan. The Bible through a Qur'ānic Filter: Scripture Falsification (Tahrif) in 8th- and 9th-Century Muslim Disputational Literature. United States, Ohio State University, 2016: Pg.247
  20. ^ Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, et al. The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary. United States, HarperCollins, 2015: Pg.113 ISBN 9780062227621
  21. ^ Qur'an 2:75 Qur'an 2:79 Qur'an 2:59 Qur'an 3:78 Qur'an 4:46 Qur'an 5:13,41
  22. ^ Latsarus-Yafeh, Ḥaṿah (2014). Intertwined worlds: medieval Islam and Bible criticism. Princeton Legacy Library. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. pp. 113–114, 129. ISBN 978-0-691-07398-9.
  23. ^ a b Adang, Camilla (1996). Muslim writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: from Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm. Islamic philosophy, theology, and science. Leiden: Brill. p. 249. ISBN 978-90-04-10034-3.
  24. ^ Accad, Martin (2003). "The Gospels in the Muslim Discourse of the Ninth to the Fourteenth Centuries: An exegetical inventorial table (part I)". Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations. 14 (1): 67–91. doi:10.1080/09596410305261. ISSN 0959-6410.
  25. ^ Accad, Martin (2003). "The Gospels in the Muslim Discourse of the Ninth to the Fourteenth Centuries: An exegetical inventorial table (part II)". Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations. 14 (2): 205–220. doi:10.1080/0959641032000085585. ISSN 0959-6410.
  26. ^ Accad, Martin (2003). "The Gospels in the Muslim Discourse of the Ninth to the Fourteenth Centuries: An exegetical inventorial table (part III)". Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations. 14 (3): 337–352. doi:10.1080/09596410305270. ISSN 0959-6410.
  27. ^ Accad, Martin (2003). "The Gospels in the Muslim Discourse of the Ninth to the Fourteenth Centuries: An exegetical inventorial table (part IV)". Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations. 14 (4): 459–479. doi:10.1080/0959641032000127605. ISSN 0959-6410.
  28. ^ Latsarus-Yafeh, Ḥaṿah (2014). Intertwined worlds: medieval Islam and Bible criticism. Princeton Legacy Library. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. pp. 128–129. ISBN 978-0-691-07398-9.
  29. ^ Ross, Samuel (2024). Qur'an Commentary and the Biblical Turn: A History of Muslim Exegetical Engagement with the Biblical Text. De Gruyter. pp. 13–16.
  30. ^ Griffith, Sidney Harrison (2013). The Bible in Arabic: the Scriptures of the "People of the Book" in the language of Islam. Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the ancient to the modern world. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. p. 202. ISBN 978-0-691-15082-6.
  31. ^ a b Ross, Samuel (2024). Qur'an Commentary and the Biblical Turn: A History of Muslim Exegetical Engagement with the Biblical Text. De Gruyter. pp. 19–43.
  32. ^ Accad, Martin (2003). "Corruption and/or misinterpretation of the Bible: the story of the Islâmic usage of "taḥrîf"". Near East School of Theology Theological Review. 24 (2).
  33. ^ Reynolds, Gabriel Said (2010). "On the Qurʾanic Accusation of Scriptural Falsification (taḥrīf) and Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 130 (2): 189–202. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 23044514.
  34. ^ Adang, Camilla (1996). Muslim writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: from Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm. Islamic philosophy, theology, and science. Leiden: Brill. p. 231. ISBN 978-90-04-10034-3.
  35. ^ Oliver Leaman The Qur'an: An Encyclopedia Taylor & Francis 2006 ISBN 978-0-415-32639-1 page 298
  36. ^ Ziolkowski, Eric Jozef (2017). The Bible in folklore worldwide: a handbook of biblical reception in Jewish, European Christian, and Islamic folklores. Handbooks of the Bible and Its reception. Berlin Boston (Mass.): De Gruyter. p. 311. ISBN 978-3-11-028671-7.
  37. ^ Deuteronomy 18:17–18
  38. ^ McAuliffe, Jane Dammen. "Connecting Moses and Muhammad" in Books and Written Culture of the Islamic World: Studies Presented to Claude Gilliot on the Occasion of his 75th Birthday (Brill 2014): 335.
  39. ^ al-Maghribi, Al-Samawal; Confutation of the Jews (in Arabic). Syria: Dar Al Qalam, 1989, 75
  40. ^ Deuteronomy 2:4–6
  41. ^ Numbers 20:14
  42. ^ al-Maghribi, Al-Samawal; Confutation of the Jews (in Arabic). Syria: Dar Al Qalam, 1989, 77
  43. ^ [Quran 46:10]
  44. ^ [Quran 73:15]
  45. ^ Muhammad Ali and Zahid Aziz, English Translation of the Holy Quran: With Explanatory Notes, Revised 2010 edition, 627, 732
  46. ^ Gülen, Fethullah. The messenger of God Muhammad: An analysis of the Prophet's life. Tughra Books, 2000, 11. Link[dead link‍]
  47. ^ Brueggemann, Walter. Deuteronomy. Abingdon Press, 2001, 192–197
  48. ^ Barton, John, and John Muddiman, eds. The Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press, 2007, 866, 963.
  49. ^ Acts 3:15–23
  50. ^ John 14:16–17
  51. ^ Zepp, Ira G. A Muslim Primer: Beginner's Guide to Islam. Vol. 1. University of Arkansas Press, 2000, 50–51
  52. ^ John 14:16–17; John 14:26; John 15:26–27; John 16:7–11; John 16:13–17
  53. ^ Barnes, Albert. "Notes on the Bible by Albert Barnes: John: John Chapter 14". sacred-texts.com. Retrieved 20 January 2024.
  54. ^ Barton, John, and John Muddiman, eds. The Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press, 2007, 987–990
  55. ^ Johns, Anthony (2020). "Prophets and Personalities of the Qur'an". In Shah, Mustafa Akram Ali; Haleem, Muhammad Abdel (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford university press. ISBN 978-0-19-969864-6.
  56. ^ Wheeler, Brannon M.; Wheeler, Brannon M. (2002). Prophets in the Quran: an introduction to the Quran and muslim exegesis. Comparative Islamic studies (1. publ ed.). London: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-4956-6.
  57. ^ Tottoli, Roberto; Robertson, Michael; Tottoli, Roberto (2002). Biblical prophets in the Qurʾān and Muslim literature. Curzon studies in the Qurʾān (1. publ ed.). Richmond: Curzon. ISBN 978-0-7007-1394-3.
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