You might think there is an easy answer to this question, as the Qur’an on multiple occasions describes Jesus as al-masīḥ (Q 3:45; 4:157; 4:171-172; 5:17; 5:72; 5:75; 9:30-31). Jews are chastised, indeed ‘cursed’, for rejecting and seeking to kill him (Q 2:87;4:157; 5:78). But is al-masīḥ the same as ‘the Messiah’? The English word […]

PS: This article takes for granted that Christians have used the term ‘Gospel’ collectively to refer to the four Gospels (or more specifically, ‘The Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). For more, cf. Hengel, Martin. The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of […]

A number of times when discussing what the Qur’an has to say about the previous scriptures, I have instead been informed that what Islam ultimately teaches, or what the Qur’an must mean, can be revealed by a certain hadith. Supposedly the hadith make clear that the Qur’an does in fact accuse the former scriptures, the […]

It is common for Muslims to appeal to the work of Harald Motzki to convince non-Muslims of the reliability of the hadith. It is true that Motzki belongs to a group of scholars who are more optimistic about our ability to find authentic hadith. However let us read his own words, as he summarises the […]

I have by this point written a number of articles on different words and verses in the Qur’an that relate to the topic of whether or not the Qur’an affirms the textual reliability of the previous scriptures. The interested reader can find them here, under the heading ‘The Qur’an affirms the Torah and Gospel’s reliability. […]

Individual examples Nicolai Sinai (2017, 111) notes that a Muslim tradition (seemingly found in itself recognises a shift in Qur’anic terminology, seeing ‘O you who believe’ (yā-ayyuhā lladhīna āmanū) as a Medinan phrase, and ‘O you people’ (yā-ayyuhā l-nās) as a Meccan phrase. Nöldeke (2013[1860/1909], 99) claimed to detect a shift in the usage of […]

When Muslims think of the previous scriptures, one particular word may come to mind: Taḥrīf (‘corruption’, ‘altering’). They will often think of textual corruption; i.e. that the Torah and Gospel we have in our hands today cannot be trusted, because it has been textually corrupted in the past. The four ḥarrafa verses The Qur’an does […]

It is sometimes said that the Qur’an is a furqān, ‘criterion’, i.e. a criterion between authentic and inauthentic, and it therefore guides us as to what is authentic and inauthentic in the previous scriptures. But is this what the Qur’an says? Qur’anic texts There are seven instances of furqān in the Qur’an, which I list […]

As with my previous blog post, this article is a response to a couple of Youtube videos (here and here) released a while ago by Blogging Theology. In those videos Paul portrays the majority of Western scholarship as accepting that the Qur’an teaches that the previous scriptures are textually corrupted. In reading from entries in […]

This article is a response to a couple of Youtube videos (here and here) released a while ago (apologies for the slow rate of reply!) by Blogging Theology. In those videos Paul at Blogging Theology portrays the majority of Western scholarship as accepting that the Qur’an teaches that the previous scriptures are textually corrupted. But […]