Tahrif
Encyclopedia
Taḥrīf is an Arabic term used by Muslim
s with regard to irreparable alterations Islam
ic tradition claims Jews
and Christians
have made to Biblical manuscript
s, specifically those that make up the Tawrat
(or Torah
), Zabur
(or Psalms
) and Injil
(the New Testament
).
Traditional Muslim scholars
, based on Qur'anic and other traditions, maintain that Jews and Christian
s have changed the word of God
. Based on the current Textual Criticism
scholarly consensus, the most reliable editions of these documents available are:
writes about four types of tahrif:
(10th century), who argued against Mosaic authorship
and accused Ezra
of writing the Torah. He also arranged systematically and in scholarly detail the arguments against the authenticity of the Biblical text in the first (Tanakh
) and second part (New Testament
) of his book: chronological and geographical inaccuracies and contradictions; theological impossibilities (anthropomorphic expressions, stories of fornication and whoredom, and the attributing of sins to prophets), as well as lack of reliable transmission (tawatur) of the text. He explains how the falsification of the Torah
could have taken place while there existed only one copy of the Torah kept by the Aaronic priesthood
of the Temple in Jerusalem. Ibn Hazm's impact on later Muslim polemics was great, and the themes which he raised with regard to tahrif and other polemical ideas were updated only slightly by some later authors.
and the Zabur
. Muslims also believe that Jesus was taught and accepted the truth of the Tawrat and the Zabur during his lifetime. Therefore, any manuscripts of the Tawrat (Torah) or Zabur (Psalms) that can be dated prior to (or during) the life of Jesus are possibly without error.
Also Islamic tradition holds that the Gospel was available to Arabs as
narrated by 'Aisha:
These Hadiths suggest that in the late 700s Jews and Christians were still using an uncorrupted text. If this is the suggested time of corruption there would already be too many copies in circulation to change — not to mention the diversity of language as there were even texts in Arabic.
Absent from these writings is any sense that the Arabs were spurred by a new religion.
The Melkite
s, those who had lost their empire, ascribed the success of the Muslims to Christian sins. The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius
, written between 685 and 692 (Syriac version), state among other things that the Muslims were given to rule over the Christians for their punishment and purification.
The first Melkite example of doctrinal refutation is Anastasius of Sinai (d.c. 700).
The argument of tahrif is also refuted in an early polemical text attributed to the Byzantine Emperor Leo III
with the statement that Jews and Christians share the same, widely-known divine text, and that Ezra
, the covenantal architect of the Second Temple
, was a pious, reliable person. The same arguments appear in later Jewish writings.
Some modern Christian apologists have used these refutations of tahrif as a weakness of Islam.
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s with regard to irreparable alterations Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic tradition claims Jews
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and Christians
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
have made to Biblical manuscript
Biblical manuscript
A biblical manuscript is any handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Bible. The word Bible comes from the Greek biblia ; manuscript comes from Latin manu and scriptum...
s, specifically those that make up the Tawrat
Tawrat
Tawrat is the Arabic word for the Torah. Muslims believe it was a holy book of Islam given by Allah to Musa . The Hebrew word for their scripture, the Torah means instructions, that is why Tawrat does not refer to the entire Tanakh or Old Testament...
(or Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
), Zabur
Zabur
Zabur is, according to Islam, the holy book of Dawud , one of the holy books revealed by God before the Qur'an, alongside others such as the Tawrat of Musa and the Injil of Isa ....
(or Psalms
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
) and Injil
Injil
The Injil is the Arabic name for the original Gospel of Jesus, and one of the four Islamic Holy Books the Qur'an records as revealed by God, the others being the Zabur, Tawrat and Qur'an. The word Injil is derived from the Greek word and means 'good news'. Muslims believe this original Gospel...
(the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
).
Traditional Muslim scholars
Ulema
Ulama , also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...
, based on Qur'anic and other traditions, maintain that Jews and Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s have changed the word of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. Based on the current Textual Criticism
Textual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
scholarly consensus, the most reliable editions of these documents available are:
- the Biblia Hebraica QuintaBiblia Hebraica QuintaThe Biblia Hebraica Quinta is the fifth edition of the Biblia Hebraica and when complete will supersede the fourth edition, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia...
- the Hebrew Bible (TanakhTanakhThe Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
), or Old TestamentOld TestamentThe Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
. - the Novum Testamentum Graecae - the New TestamentNew TestamentThe New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
, a document either of or relating to the InjilInjilThe Injil is the Arabic name for the original Gospel of Jesus, and one of the four Islamic Holy Books the Qur'an records as revealed by God, the others being the Zabur, Tawrat and Qur'an. The word Injil is derived from the Greek word and means 'good news'. Muslims believe this original Gospel...
.
Types of tahrif
Amin Ahsan IslahiAmin Ahsan Islahi
Amin Ahsan Islahi was a Pakistani Muslim scholar, famous for his Urdu exegeses of Qur'an, Tadabbur-i-Qur’an—an exegesis that he based on Hamiduddin Farahi's idea of thematic and structural coherence in the Qur'an.-Early life:...
writes about four types of tahrif:
- To deliberately interpret something in a manner that is totally opposite to the intention of the author. To distort the pronunciation of a word to such an extent that the word changes completely. For example, the word ‘مروه’ was changed to ‘موره’ or ‘موريا’.
- To add to or delete a sentence or discourse in a manner that completely distorts the original meaning. For example, according to Islam, the Jews altered the incident of the migration of the Prophet Abraham in a manner that no one could prove that Abraham had any relationship with the Ka‘bah.
- To translate a word that has two meanings in the meaning that is totally against the context. For example the Hebrew word that is equivalent to the Arabic ‘ابن’ was translated as ‘son’ whereas it also meant ‘servant’ and ‘slave’.
- To raise questions about something that is absolutely clear in order to create uncertainty about it, or to change it completely.
Ibn Hazm
The theme of tahrif found its first detailed elaboration in the writings of Ibn HazmIbn Hazm
Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥazm ) was an Andalusian philosopher, litterateur, psychologist, historian, jurist and theologian born in Córdoba, present-day Spain...
(10th century), who argued against Mosaic authorship
Mosaic authorship
Mosaic authorship is the traditional attribution of the first five books of the Old Testament to Moses. The tradition is first definitively stated in the Babylonian Talmud, an encyclopedia of traditional Jewish learning compiled around the middle of the 1st millennium CE...
and accused Ezra
Ezra
Ezra , also called Ezra the Scribe and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem...
of writing the Torah. He also arranged systematically and in scholarly detail the arguments against the authenticity of the Biblical text in the first (Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
) and second part (New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
) of his book: chronological and geographical inaccuracies and contradictions; theological impossibilities (anthropomorphic expressions, stories of fornication and whoredom, and the attributing of sins to prophets), as well as lack of reliable transmission (tawatur) of the text. He explains how the falsification of the Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
could have taken place while there existed only one copy of the Torah kept by the Aaronic priesthood
Kohen
A Kohen is the Hebrew word for priest. Jewish Kohens are traditionally believed and halachically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from the Biblical Aaron....
of the Temple in Jerusalem. Ibn Hazm's impact on later Muslim polemics was great, and the themes which he raised with regard to tahrif and other polemical ideas were updated only slightly by some later authors.
Tahrif of the Old Testament
In the Quran, descriptions befit God. He does not eat, drink, sleep etc. In the Bible, God is ignorant, wrestles with Jacob and loses, sleep, and many more descriptions in the Bible would be considered as blasphemous in the Quran.Tahrif of the New Testament
In the Quran, the Injil (good news or Gospel in English) is a revelation to Jesus as a prophet. It was not a revelation about Jesus to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter or any other person. It is believed among Muslims that Jesus' sayings in the Gospels are part of Jesus' revelation, that was never noted down.From The Bible
Many things in the Bible are considered by Muslims to be proof of tahrif. Things from contradictions and historical or scientific errors to propetic testimonies. Things like Jeremiah's words are considered by Muslims as key points for proof of tahrif.'How can you say, "We are wise,
for we have the law of the LORD",
when actually the lying pen of the scribes
has handled it falsely?
At or before c. 33 AD
Muslims believe that holy revelations prior to the life of Jesus were contained in the Suhuf Ibrahim, the TawratTawrat
Tawrat is the Arabic word for the Torah. Muslims believe it was a holy book of Islam given by Allah to Musa . The Hebrew word for their scripture, the Torah means instructions, that is why Tawrat does not refer to the entire Tanakh or Old Testament...
and the Zabur
Zabur
Zabur is, according to Islam, the holy book of Dawud , one of the holy books revealed by God before the Qur'an, alongside others such as the Tawrat of Musa and the Injil of Isa ....
. Muslims also believe that Jesus was taught and accepted the truth of the Tawrat and the Zabur during his lifetime. Therefore, any manuscripts of the Tawrat (Torah) or Zabur (Psalms) that can be dated prior to (or during) the life of Jesus are possibly without error.
From c. 33 AD to c. 700 AD
Sura 29:46 implies that up to the time of the Quranic revelation, the Christian scriptures were valid.'And dispute ye not with the People of the Book, except with means better (than mere disputation), unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong (and injury); but say, 'We believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you; our God and your God is One; and it is to Him we bow (in Islam).'
Also Islamic tradition holds that the Gospel was available to Arabs as
narrated by 'Aisha:
"The Prophet returned to KhadijaKhadijah bint KhuwaylidKhadījah bint Khuwaylid or Khadījah al-Kubra was the first wife of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. She was the daughter of Khuwaylid ibn Asad and Fatimah bint Za'idah and belonged to the clan of Banu Asad. She is important in Islam as Muhammad's first wife, and one of the "mothers of the believers"...
while his heart was beating rapidly. She took him to Waraqa bin NaufalWaraqah ibn NawfalWaraka Ibn Nawfal was the parental cousin of Khadija, the first wife of the prophet Muhammad, and was also the son of Muhammad's great-grandfather Hashim ibn 'Abd Manaf's half brother Nawfal ibn Abd Manaf...
who was a Christian convert and used to read the Gospels in Arabic. Waraqa asked (the Prophet), "What do you see?" When he told him, Waraqa said, "That is the same angel whom Allah sent to (the Prophet) Moses. Should I live till you receive the Divine Message, I will support you strongly."
... Khadija then took him to Waraqa bin Naufil, the son of Khadija's paternal uncle. Waraqa had been converted to Christianity in the Pre-lslamic Period and used to write Arabic and write of the Gospel in Arabic as much as Allah wished him to write...
... Khadija then took him to Waraqa b. Naufal b. Asad b. 'Abd al-'Uzza, and he was the son of Khadija's uncle, i.e., the brother of her father. And he was the man who had embraced Christianity in the Days of Ignorance (i.e. before Islam) and he used to write books in Arabic and, therefore, wrote Injil in Arabic as God willed that he should write...
These Hadiths suggest that in the late 700s Jews and Christians were still using an uncorrupted text. If this is the suggested time of corruption there would already be too many copies in circulation to change — not to mention the diversity of language as there were even texts in Arabic.
Qur'an and the claim of the distortion of the text itself
Gary Miller (Abdul-Ahad Omar) believes that the Qur'an criticizes the handling of scripture by some Jews and Christians rather than their holy books. According to Gary Miller, Qur'an only makes the following three accusations:- "The Qur'an says some of the Jews and Christians pass over much of what is in their scriptures."
- "Some of them have changed the words, and this is the one that is misused by Muslims very often giving the impression that once there was a true bible and then somebody hid that one away, then they published a false one. The Qur'an doesn’t say that. What it criticizes is that people who have the proper words in front of them, but they don’t deliver that up to people. They mistranslate it, or misrepresent it, or they add to the meaning of it. They put a different slant on it."
- "Some people falsely attribute to God what is really written by men."
Early criticism
Among the earliest Christian documents on Islam in retrospect are the letter Maximus the Confessor wrote between the year 634 and 640 to Peter the Illustrious and the three writings of Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (d. 639) ranging from 634 till 637.Absent from these writings is any sense that the Arabs were spurred by a new religion.
The Melkite
Melkite
The term Melkite, also written Melchite, refers to various Byzantine Rite Christian churches and their members originating in the Middle East. The word comes from the Syriac word malkāyā , and the Arabic word Malakī...
s, those who had lost their empire, ascribed the success of the Muslims to Christian sins. The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius
Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius
The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius is a 7th-century apocalypse that shaped the eschatological imagination of Christendom throughout the Middle Ages. The work was written in Syriac in the late 7th century, in reaction to the Islamic conquest of the Near East, and is falsely attributed to the...
, written between 685 and 692 (Syriac version), state among other things that the Muslims were given to rule over the Christians for their punishment and purification.
The first Melkite example of doctrinal refutation is Anastasius of Sinai (d.c. 700).
The argument of tahrif is also refuted in an early polemical text attributed to the Byzantine Emperor Leo III
Leo III the Isaurian
Leo III the Isaurian or the Syrian , was Byzantine emperor from 717 until his death in 741...
with the statement that Jews and Christians share the same, widely-known divine text, and that Ezra
Ezra
Ezra , also called Ezra the Scribe and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem...
, the covenantal architect of the Second Temple
Second Temple
The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...
, was a pious, reliable person. The same arguments appear in later Jewish writings.
Further Modern Christian criticism
Modern Christian rejection of tahrif is based on five broad arguments:- 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 ScrollsDead Sea scrollsThe Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...
versions c. 280 BCE – 68 CE match current usage with only minor variations. - There is no satisfactory answer to why Jews and Christians would change their text.
- Jews and Christians were hostile to each other. Little agreement could have been achieved. For example in the 1st century St Paul was regularly attacked by the Jews (Acts 23v12) and anti-Jewish attacks were a regular occurrence by 372CE.
- Differing new sects would have disagreed with mainline groups over changes. Thus no uniform set of alterations could be made as the Muslim claims.
- Former Jews and Christians who became Muslims never mentioned any possibility of deliberate corruption—something critics could definitely expect if it were true.
Some modern Christian apologists have used these refutations of tahrif as a weakness of Islam.
See also
- Categories of New Testament manuscriptsCategories of New Testament manuscriptsNew Testament manuscripts in Greek are categorized into five groups, according to a scheme introduced in 1981 by Kurt and Barbara Aland in Der Text des Neuen Testaments. The categories are based on how each manuscript relates to the various text-types. Generally speaking, earlier Alexandrian...
- Historical JesusHistorical JesusThe term historical Jesus refers to scholarly reconstructions of the 1st-century figure Jesus of Nazareth. These reconstructions are based upon historical methods including critical analysis of gospel texts as the primary source for his biography, along with consideration of the historical and...
- Historicity of JesusHistoricity of JesusThe historicity of Jesus concerns how much of what is written about Jesus of Nazareth is historically reliable, and whether the evidence supports the existence of such an historical figure...
- The Bible and historyThe Bible and historyThe Bible from a historical perspective, includes numerous fields of study, ranging from archeology and astronomy to linguistics and methods of comparative literature. The Bible may provide insight into pursuits, including but not limited to; our understanding of ancient and modern culture,...
- Development of the New Testament canonDevelopment of the New Testament canonThe Canon of the New Testament is the set of books Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting the New Testament of the Christian Bible. For most, it is an agreed-upon list of twenty-seven books that includes the Canonical Gospels, Acts, letters of the Apostles, and Revelation...
- Biblical InerrancyBiblical inerrancyBiblical inerrancy is the doctrinal position that the Bible is accurate and totally free of error, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact." Some equate inerrancy with infallibility; others do not.Conservative Christians generally believe that...
- Internal consistency of the Bible
- Textual variants in the New TestamentTextual variants in the New TestamentTextual variants arise when a copyist makes deliberate or inadvertent alterations to a text being reproduced. Some common alterations include the deletion, rearrangement, repetition, or replacement of one or more words when the copyist's eye returns to a similar word in the wrong location of the...
- Documentary HypothesisDocumentary hypothesisThe documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
- Biblical Minimalism
External links
- Is The Bible In Our Hands The Same As During The Time Of Muhammad(P)?
- Corruption in the Bible: The Muslim Stance
- Is The Bible Corrupted?
- What the Gospels Mean to Muslims
- What the Qur'an and other very early Muslim sources say about the Bible
- Is the Qur’an Corrupted? Shi’ites’ View
See also
- Islamic holy booksIslamic holy booksIslamic holy books are the texts which Muslims believe were dictated by God to various Islamic prophets throughout the history of mankind. All these books, in Muslim belief, promulgated the code and laws of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur'an, the final holy scripture, was sent because all the...
- InjilInjilThe Injil is the Arabic name for the original Gospel of Jesus, and one of the four Islamic Holy Books the Qur'an records as revealed by God, the others being the Zabur, Tawrat and Qur'an. The word Injil is derived from the Greek word and means 'good news'. Muslims believe this original Gospel...
- TawratTawratTawrat is the Arabic word for the Torah. Muslims believe it was a holy book of Islam given by Allah to Musa . The Hebrew word for their scripture, the Torah means instructions, that is why Tawrat does not refer to the entire Tanakh or Old Testament...
- SupersessionismSupersessionismSupersessionism is a term for the dominant Christian view of the Old Covenant, also called fulfillment theology and replacement theology, though the latter term is disputed...
- Satanic VersesSatanic VersesThe Satanic Verses was a purported incident where a small number of apparently pagan verses were temporarily included in the Qur'an by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, only to be later removed...