What Is Islam? (eBook)

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THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are monotheistic religions. This means that Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship one God, the Creator. They believe that God has revealed his word in the form of books known as the Holy Scriptures: the Bible and the Qur’an.

For Christians the Bible is divided into two main parts: the Old Testament (written before Jesus Christ) and the New Testament (written in the first century after Jesus Christ).3 According to the Qur’an, God revealed the Torah to Moses, the Zabur (i.e., the Psalms) to David, and the Injil (i.e., the Gospel) to Jesus before he finally conveyed the Qur’an to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. This is why Jews and Christians are described in the Qur’an as “the People of the Book.”4

Muslims believe that the Bible has been altered. This is how they account for the discrepancies that exist between the Qur’an and the Bible. These discrepancies do not represent a real problem for Christians since they do not accept the Qur’an as God’s revealed word.

FALSIFICATION THEORIES

Taḥrif is the Arabic word for falsification. The verb ḥarrafa (“to falsify”) occurs four times in the Qur’an (2:75; 4:46; 5:13, 41). The meaning of these texts is unclear. We have no idea as to when the falsification happened (in the time of Moses, Jesus, or Muhammad?), what “Word” was falsified (the Torah, Gospel, or Qur’an itself?), who did it (Jews and Christians, Jews only, or just some of them?), where (in Israel, Arabia, or somewhere else?), and how (orally or textually?). Muslim scholars trying to answer these questions are divided into two main groups, each comprising highly respected theologians.

The first group contends that the text of the Bible has been corrupted. Proponents include Ibn Hazm (d. 456/1064), Juwayni (d. 478/1085), and Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328).5 When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and its temple (in the sixth century BC), they say, the Hebrew Scriptures were also destroyed. It was only after some Jews returned from their exile in Babylon that one of their leaders, Ezra, wrote the Torah. Because Ezra was not a prophet, his writing was defective. As for the New Testament, the distortion of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels is attributed to two “gaps,” namely, a language gap (the Gospels were written in Greek whereas Jesus spoke in Aramaic) and a time gap (the Gospels were written several decades after the events had taken place). Those who believe in this alleged textual falsification assert that God revealed one Gospel to Jesus (according to the Qur’an) whereas Christians have four Gospels. None of these Gospels is ascribed to Jesus, and it is claimed that they often contradict each other. As for the other writings of the New Testament, Muslims do not know what to make of them since they were written by followers of Jesus who were not themselves prophets.6 Today the vast majority of Muslims believe in the textual falsification of the Bible. They are not even aware that an alternative view exists.

The second group contends that the meaning of the Bible, not the text itself, has been changed. Proponents include highly respected Muslim scholars such as Baqillani (d. 403/1013), Ghazali (d. 505/1111), Razi (d. 606/1209), and ‘Abduh (d. 1323/1905). Razi, in his Great Commentary, argues that God’s word must reflect God’s attributes. Therefore to say that God let his word (i.e., Torah and Gospel) become untruthful is to undermine God’s truthfulness and trustworthiness. Muhammad ‘Abduh uses a rational argument in his renowned Qur’anic commentary Tafsir al-Manar. The fact that the Scriptures were so widely spread made it impossible for Jews and Christians to modify them even if they wanted to. For this group of scholars, falsification can be understood only in terms of wrong interpretation of biblical texts about, for instance, Jesus Christ. Misinterpretations of the Torah and the Gospel can now be dispelled, Razi observes, since we find in the Qur’an the plain meaning of the Bible.

INSPIRATION VERSUS RECITATION

The Islamic charge against the reliability of the Bible raises some important issues. One issue is the difference between the Christian and the Islamic understandings of revelation.

INSPIRATION

Christians believe that God revealed his word by inspiration. This means God did not bypass the human writers of the Bible. On the contrary he led them by his Holy Spirit to write down his word, using their individual personalities and taking into account the historic and cultural contexts of the people for whom their writings were first intended (2 Pet 1:20–21).7 In other words the human authors of the Bible were actively involved in the process of writing down divine revelation. For instance, the gospel proclaimed by Jesus Christ is one message, yet it is written in four versions, namely, the four Gospels. Thus the gospel of Jesus Christ may be read in Matthew’s Gospel as well as in that of Mark, Luke, or John. Moreover, Jesus spoke with his disciples in Aramaic, which was the language spoken by Jews living in Palestine at that time. The four Gospels, however, were written in Greek because they were addressed to different ethnic groups who used Greek as their common language.

Consequently, the Bible is at the same time God’s word, which guarantees its trustworthiness, and the word of men, which underlines its humanness. The human authorship of Scripture means that we can study the Bible the way we study other books. We take into account what kind of text it is (historical, poetic, prophetic, narrative, legislative, apocalyptic, wisdom literature, etc.) and thus decide how we should go about interpreting it. The divine authorship of Scripture, on the other hand, means that we must also approach the Bible with due humility as we seek to understand and obey God’s word.

RECITATION

By contrast the Prophet Muhammad’s role was to learn the Qur’an by heart and to preach it to his fellow citizens in Mecca and Medina. It was communicated to him word for word. He was not to intervene in the shaping of the message but was to recite literally the words he heard. The verb qara’a usually means to read, whereas in a religious context, as here, it means to proclaim or to recite the word of God. The word qur’an comes from the same root and thus means the ritual recitation of the sacred text. By extension the word has come to refer to the text itself. The fact that the Qur’an was dictated to Muhammad in this way means that the Islamic Scripture is God’s word and God’s word alone. This is why the Qur’anic text is usually in the first person plural, this being the plural of divine majesty. Thus recitation, qira’a, indicates the way Muhammad received and transmitted God’s word.

Since Muhammad was an Arab, the Qur’an was revealed to him in Arabic. The difference between inspiration and recitation explains why for Muslim readers the Bible looks too much like a human book to be God’s word. It also accounts for the fact that the Bible remains God’s word when translated into other languages whereas the Qur’an is God’s word only in Arabic.

GOD HIMSELF VERSUS GOD’S WILL

The Islamic Scripture does not reveal who God is for fear of undermining his transcendence. The Qur’an discloses only God’s will expressed in his law in order to enable human creatures to obey their Creator and worship him. As one Muslim scholar puts it, “You may not have complete transcendence and self-revelation at the same time.”8 This is quite different from the way Christians think about their Scripture. The Bible claims to reveal God’s will as well as God himself.

For Christians, God’s revelation reached its climax two thousand years ago: Jesus Christ is God’s supreme revelation, God’s word manifested in the form of a human being (John 1:1, 10, 14). The Scriptures point to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ points to God (Rev 1:1–2; 19:10). God is both transcendent (radically different from his creation) and immanent (he revealed himself in a human person).

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES

The Bible is a collection of sixty-six books written by over thirty authors over at least thirteen centuries. By contrast the Qur’an was given to one man over twenty-three years. Each Scripture has its distinctive characteristics.

As far as possible one must understand each Scripture by itself before comparing it with the other Scripture. Common rules of interpretation apply to both Scriptures (e.g., respecting the historical context, interpreting Scripture by Scripture, taking into account various literary genres). One must attempt to understand the Scriptures without submitting them to a naturalistic form of human rationality. An open-minded, prejudice-free approach dispels many discrepancies between the Bible and the Qur’an. Some discrepancies, however, are irreconcilable.

EVIDENCE FOR THE RELIABILITY OF THE BIBLE

The charge that the Torah and the Gospel have undergone textual corruption contains serious flaws. Here are some arguments that show that the Bible is...