Spotlight On Islam

If the Qur’an Is the Sole Standard, Then Most of the Previous Scriptures Must Be Rejected

Muslims often say:

“We accept what agrees with the Qur’an, reject what contradicts it, and suspend judgment on what it doesn’t mention.”

Sounds modest — but let’s do the math.

Here’s just a short list of major areas where the Torah and Gospels flatly contradict the Qur’an:

Topic	Bible	Qur’an
Crucifixion of Jesus	Affirmed in all 4 Gospels	Denied (4:157)
Jesus is the Son of God	Central claim of NT	Rejected (9:30, 4:171)
God is Father	Common phrase throughout	Explicitly denied
Original Sin	Affirmed in Genesis and Romans	Denied (6:164)
Atonement / Blood Sacrifice	Central to Leviticus and Gospel	Entirely absent
David’s moral failings (Bathsheba)	Honestly narrated	Sanitized in Qur’an
Abraham’s near-sacrifice	Isaac named (Gen 22)	Implied to be Ishmael (37:101–112)
Sabbath as eternal covenant	Commanded in Torah	Broken by Jews (4:154)
Prophets can fail morally	Bible is realistic	Qur’an tends to idealize them
The Covenant with Israel	Eternal in Torah	Superseded in Islam (2:40–61)
Divine rest on 7th day	Genesis 2:2–3	Denied (50:38)

This isn’t about obscure interpretations — this is core theology, law, and narrative.

In simple terms:

The Qur’an rewrites or denies most of the theological foundation, historical record, and salvific message of the previous scriptures.

While we can’t put an exact number on it, we can make a conservative estimate:

The entire New Testament (especially Paul’s epistles) is in doctrinal conflict.
Major portions of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus) are rejected or reinterpreted.
Key stories in the prophets, Psalms, and writings are altered or sanitized.

🧮 Realistically, this means at least 2/3 to 3/4 of the content would be:

So yes — your intuition is dead on:

If Muslims use the Qur’an as the standard, they must reject the majority of the Torah and Gospel.

🧠 The Logical Problem

Now ask the obvious question:

How can the Qur’an claim to “confirm” previous scripture, while disagreeing with most of it?

You can’t "confirm" something you override, contradict, and discard.

You can't say:

“This book confirms the previous one… except for the parts we threw out — which is most of it.”

That’s not confirmation — that’s replacement masquerading as affirmation.

And that breaks the Qur’an’s own repeated claim:

“It confirms what is with them.” (5:48, 3:3, 10:37)

You can’t confirm what you don’t allow to stand.

The “Qur’an-only” standard leads to a self-made trap:

That’s not a divine validation of earlier scripture — that’s a theological shell game.

You're absolutely right:

Using the Qur’an as the filter inevitably results in discarding the vast majority of the earlier scriptures.

Which means:

The Qur’an’s claim of “confirmation” becomes hollow.
The supposed continuity of revelation collapses.
And the divine authorship of the Qur’an becomes impossible to test, because its verifying documents have been functionally shredded.

That’s why the Qur’an needs the previous scriptures to stand, not fall.