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The Charge of Distortion of Jewish and Christian Scriptures
Author(s) -
Saeed Abdullah
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
the muslim world
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.106
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1478-1913
pISSN - 0027-4909
DOI - 10.1111/j.1478-1913.2002.tb03751.x
Subject(s) - distortion (music) , charge (physics) , judaism , citation , theology , religious studies , philosophy , law , political science , computer science , telecommunications , physics , amplifier , bandwidth (computing) , quantum mechanics
Asignificant point of tension between Muslims and those whom the Qufan calls "the People of the Book" (that is, Jews and Christians) is the Qur'anic accusation that the scriptures of Jews and Christians have been falsified, corrupted, altered and changed, and are therefore not to be relied on as the "word of God" in any matters of religion, faith or law. There are three broad approaches to this among Muslims: (a) the scriptures of Jews and Christians of which the Qur'an approves as uncorrupted are only those that were actually revealed to Moses (Tawmt or Torah) and Jesus Qnjtl or Gospel), not those that existed with the Jews and Christians at the time of the Prophet Muhammad or exist today; (b) significant parts of the scriptures that exist today are distorted and corrupted and it is difficult to know which these are; (c) there are no uncorrupted scriptures of Jews and Christians remaining today — those that the Qur'än refers to as Tawmt or Injtl have been obliterated. This last appears to be the most popular and widely-held view. Although the Qur'än makes clear its respect for both Tawmt and Injtl, these Muslims claim a number of Qur'anic verses as the basis for their conviction that these scriptures as they exist today have been corrupted. There is no doubt that the Qur'än refers to certain "distortions" of the scriptures by some groups of the People of the Book. Terms used for this vary, but the most obvious is tabrtf Scholars of tafstr have explored verses in which tabrtf and other related terms are used. Unlike the vast majority of Muslims, these tafstr scholars appear to be more cautious in their assessment of the issue of "distortion." This article briefly explores how a number of interpreters of the Qur'än, namely Tabarï, Qurtubï, Râzï, Ibn Taymiyya and Qutb, have treated this issue.