The Qurʾān, the Tawrah, and the Injīl
How Islamic Theology Contradicts the Quran’s Own Representation
Introduction
One of the central pillars of Islamic self-definition is its claim to continuity: that the Qurʾān confirms and completes a sequence of revelations given to earlier prophets—particularly Moses and Jesus. The Qurʾān explicitly names their revelations, the Tawrah and the Injīl, as divine scripture. Yet, paradoxically, Islamic theology later came to reject the reliability of those very texts, alleging that Jews and Christians had corrupted their scriptures.
This essay demonstrates that the Qurʾān itself does not claim such textual corruption. Rather, it consistently affirms the authenticity, availability, and authority of the Tawrah and Injīl in Muhammad’s own time. The doctrine of taḥrīf al-naṣṣ (textual corruption) emerged centuries later as an apologetic device to shield Islam from contradiction with the Bible. This later theology not only lacks Qurʾānic basis but in fact contradicts the Qurʾān’s own representation of previous revelation.
1. The Qurʾān’s Declared Continuity with Previous Revelation
From its opening chapters, the Qurʾān situates itself within a pre-existing chain of revelation. In Q 3:3, we read: “He sent down upon you the Book in truth, confirming what was before it; and He revealed the Torah and the Gospel.” ¹ The verb ṣaddaqa (“to confirm”) recurs throughout the Qurʾān’s self-description. It frames the Qurʾān not as a replacement revelation but as a guardian (muhayminan ʿalayhi) over earlier scripture (Q 5:48).
To “confirm” necessarily implies the existence of an object that can be verified. A confirmation of a lost or corrupted text would be meaningless. Thus, when the Qurʾān calls itself a confirmation of the Tawrah and Injīl, it presupposes that those scriptures were available and recognizable to its first audience.
This assumption is consistent across the Meccan and Medinan revelations. The Qurʾān repeatedly invokes the Ahl al-Kitāb (“People of the Book”)—a term that presupposes their continued possession of divinely revealed texts. It does not call them “people who used to have a book,” nor accuse them of having destroyed or replaced it.
2. The Qurʾān’s Positive Description of the Tawrah and the Injīl
The clearest evidence of the Qurʾān’s affirmation of earlier scriptures lies in the way it describes them.
a. The Tawrah: Guidance and Light
In Q 5:44, the Qurʾān declares: “Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars, by that with which they were entrusted of the Book of God.” ²
The text describes the Tawrah not in the past perfect (“had contained”) but in the simple past-imperfect, implying continuing relevance: it contains guidance and light. The following verse extends this continuity: “So do not fear the people but fear Me, and do not exchange My revelations for a small price.” The command is meaningful only if those revelations are still accessible and authoritative.
b. The Injīl: Guidance and Light for the Christians
A similar formula appears in Q 5:46: “And We sent, following in their footsteps, Jesus son of Mary, confirming that which came before him of the Torah; and We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light, and confirming that which came before it of the Torah, and as guidance and admonition for the God-fearing.” ³
The repeated present-tense phrase fīhi hudan wa nūr (“in it is guidance and light”) cannot logically refer to a vanished or corrupted text. The Qurʾān not only affirms the divine origin of the Injīl but also describes it as a living source of moral and spiritual instruction.
3. The Qurʾānic Command to Judge by the Previous Scriptures
The affirmation reaches its most explicit form in Q 5:47: “Let the People of the Gospel judge by what God has revealed therein; and whoever does not judge by what God has revealed—it is they who are the disobedient.” ⁴
This verse is critical. It issues a normative command to Christians of Muhammad’s era to judge according to their Gospel. A command to judge by a corrupted or lost book would be nonsensical. The imperative wal-yaḥkum (“let them judge”) presupposes a valid, extant text containing mā anzala Allāh (“what God has revealed”).
In addition, Q 10:94 instructs Muhammad himself: “If you are in doubt about what We have revealed to you, then ask those who have been reading the Book before you.” ⁵ The phrase man yaqraʾūna al-kitāb is present continuous—“those who are reading the Book”—indicating an active textual tradition accessible for consultation. Once again, this only makes sense if the earlier scriptures were intact and trustworthy.
4. The Absence of Any Qurʾānic Claim of Textual Corruption
Muslim polemicists often cite Q 2:75, Q 2:79, and Q 3:78 as evidence of textual corruption (taḥrīf al-naṣṣ). Yet a close reading shows these verses refer to misrepresentation in interpretation or recitation, not alteration of the written text.
Q 2:75: “Do you hope that they will believe you when a party of them used to hear the words of God and then distort them after understanding them, while they knew?” The verb yuḥarrifūn (“they distort”) is directed at oral behavior: distorting “after understanding,” not rewriting scripture.
Q 3:78: “And indeed, among them is a group who twist their tongues with the Book so that you think it is from the Book, but it is not from the Book.” The distortion here is explicitly verbal—layy bi-alsinatihim—“twisting their tongues.”
Early exegetes such as al-Ṭabarī (d. 923) acknowledged this nuance. He interpreted taḥrīf primarily as misinterpretation or misplacement of words’ meanings rather than physical alteration. ⁶ Only later—particularly with Ibn Ḥazm of Córdoba (d. 1064)—did the strong doctrine of textual corruption gain dominance, largely in response to Christian polemic during the medieval period.
Thus, the Qurʾān’s own usage of taḥrīf supports the notion of interpretive distortion, not textual falsification. It criticizes certain Jews or Christians for misrepresenting divine words while affirming the divine origin and ongoing validity of their scriptures.
5. Logical Implications of the Qurʾānic Description
The Qurʾān’s affirmation yields a straightforward syllogism:
If the Qurʾān describes a scripture as guidance and commands people to judge by it, that scripture must be valid and extant.
The Qurʾān describes the Tawrah and Injīl in precisely those terms.
Therefore, according to the Qurʾān, both are valid and extant in Muhammad’s time.
The later claim of textual corruption directly contradicts premise (3). One cannot simultaneously assert that God ordered Christians to judge by the Gospel (Q 5:47) and that the Gospel was already corrupted beyond reliability. Either the Qurʾān issued a meaningless command, or the later theology misrepresents the Qurʾān’s position.
Given that the Qurʾān also insists “there is no changing the words of God” (Q 10:64, Q 6:115), the contradiction deepens: if the Tawrah and Injīl were God’s words, they fall under this guarantee of preservation. To claim they were later corrupted is, by Qurʾānic logic, to deny the Qurʾān’s own assertion of divine protection.
6. The Historical Emergence of the Corruption Doctrine
The doctrine of taḥrīf al-naṣṣ did not originate in the Qurʾān or the earliest Muslim community. Its evolution can be traced through early Islamic literature:
1st–2nd centuries AH (7th–8th centuries CE): Early commentators like Mujāhid, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, and al-Ṭabarī generally interpreted taḥrīf as distortion of meaning.
3rd–4th centuries AH (9th–10th centuries CE): Polemical exchanges with Christian scholars such as John of Damascus and the Christian Arab al-Kindī compelled Muslims to address contradictions between the Qurʾān and the Bible.
5th century AH (11th century CE): Ibn Ḥazm systematized the claim that Jews and Christians had deliberately altered their texts. In Kitāb al-Fiṣal, he argues that only a corrupted Bible could explain discrepancies with the Qurʾān. ⁷ His formulation became foundational for later orthodoxy.
In other words, the doctrine of textual corruption arose as a defensive measure. Faced with irreconcilable differences between the Qurʾān and the Bible, Muslim scholars chose to impugn the latter’s textual integrity rather than re-examine the Qurʾān’s claims. This apologetic move solved a theological embarrassment but at the cost of contradicting the Qurʾān’s own statements.
7. Evaluating the Qurʾānic Concept of “Confirmation” (taṣdīq)
The Qurʾān’s concept of taṣdīq (“confirmation”) demands consistency. When the Qurʾān claims to “confirm what was before it,” it identifies itself as the same truth, not a contradiction of that truth. The Qurʾān accuses earlier communities of neglecting or misinterpreting divine guidance, not of erasing it.
If we interpret taṣdīq logically, it implies identity of essence between the Qurʾānic message and the moral-theological core of previous revelation. The Qurʾān therefore presents itself as coherent with the Tawrah and Injīl. Only post-Qurʾānic theology created a rupture by redefining “confirmation” as “replacement after corruption.”
This shift violates the Law of Identity: a thing cannot simultaneously be both a confirmation of X and a denial of X’s authenticity. The Qurʾān’s language affirms; later theology negates. Hence, Islamic theology’s corruption doctrine is self-contradictory within Qurʾānic logic.
8. The Qurʾān’s Practical Reliance on the Previous Scriptures
Beyond theoretical statements, the Qurʾān’s narrative presupposes access to authentic prior texts. It appeals to the Tawrah and Injīl as sources that its audience recognizes. Examples include:
Q 7:157: “Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered prophet, whom they find written about in the Torah and the Gospel that they have.”
The phrase ʿindahum (“that they have”) unmistakably asserts that Jews and Christians of Muhammad’s time possessed those writings.Q 28:43: refers to “the Scripture which We gave to Moses” and assumes its ongoing existence.
In rhetorical function, these appeals are proofs: the Qurʾān challenges its audience to verify Muhammad’s prophethood in their own texts. Such an appeal presupposes the texts’ authenticity. Otherwise, the argument collapses.
9. The Theological Consequences of Misrepresentation
By asserting textual corruption, later Islamic theology unintentionally undermines the Qurʾān’s own credibility. The Qurʾān portrays itself as standing within an unbroken line of revelation. If that line was broken—if previous scriptures were irretrievably corrupted—then the Qurʾān no longer confirms earlier revelation; it replaces it. But a replacement is not a confirmation, and thus the Qurʾān’s self-description as muṣaddiq becomes false.
Furthermore, the Qurʾān’s command to the Ahl al-Kitāb to judge by their scriptures (Q 5:47) would become a command to judge by forgeries—an absurdity inconsistent with divine wisdom.
The later doctrine of taḥrīf al-naṣṣ thus creates a theological paradox:
To defend the Qurʾān’s uniqueness, theologians denied the reliability of the very revelations the Qurʾān endorses.
In doing so, they rendered the Qurʾān’s confirmation of those revelations meaningless.
10. Early Muslim Awareness of Biblical Authenticity
Some early Muslim voices implicitly recognized this tension. Al-Ṭabarī noted that taḥrīf meant “to change the meaning of speech or alter its context,” not to rewrite divine books. Al-Rāzī (d. 1209) observed that no community could plausibly corrupt a text as widely diffused as the Jewish and Christian scriptures. ⁸ Even al-Qurṭubī (d. 1273), though upholding the corruption doctrine, admitted that “some of the People of the Book preserved the truth.”
These acknowledgments show that the question remained contested. The later unanimity around textual corruption was not an inherited Qurʾānic teaching but an evolved consensus driven by polemical necessity.
11. The Law of Identity and the Qurʾānic Self-Consistency
Applying the Law of Identity (A = A) clarifies the logical problem.
The Qurʾān identifies itself as a confirmation (taṣdīq) of earlier revelation.
If those earlier revelations are genuine, confirmation is possible (A = A).
If they are corrupted or lost, confirmation is impossible (A ≠ A).
Therefore, the doctrine of corruption transforms the Qurʾān’s self-definition into a contradiction. A book cannot both confirm and contradict the same revelation. Hence, either the Qurʾān misrepresented itself, or later theology misrepresented the Qurʾān. The latter is the only consistent conclusion.
12. Synthesis and Comparative Note
When compared with the historical record, the Qurʾān’s representation aligns with reality far more closely than later theology does.
The Tawrah (Pentateuch) and the Gospels were extant, translated, and widely circulated centuries before Islam. The Dead Sea Scrolls (1st century BCE) and Codex Sinaiticus (4th century CE) confirm textual stability long before Muhammad.
The Qurʾān’s descriptions match that historical situation: the Jews and Christians of Arabia did possess their scriptures.
Hence, from both historical and textual perspectives, the Qurʾān’s positive portrayal is accurate, while later Islamic denials are historically unsustainable.
Conclusion
The Qurʾān’s own text portrays the Tawrah and Injīl as divine revelations containing “guidance and light,” extant and authoritative in the 7th century. It commands their adherents to judge by them, invites Muhammad to verify his message through them, and never claims that their texts were corrupted.
By contrast, the post-Qurʾānic doctrine of taḥrīf al-naṣṣ arose only when later Muslim scholars confronted contradictions between the Qurʾān and the Bible and sought to defend Islamic dogma. This doctrine has no Qurʾānic warrant and, when imposed upon the text, generates internal contradictions: it negates the Qurʾān’s affirmation, nullifies its appeal to earlier scripture, and undermines its own claim to continuity.
Therefore, the later Islamic theology of textual corruption misrepresents the Qurʾān’s teaching. The Qurʾān itself aligns with historical fact: the Tawrah and Injīl were genuine, enduring revelations—unchanged in essence and still recognized as guidance and light by those who possessed them. The Qurʾān affirms them; Islamic theology contradicts them.
Notes
Q 3:3.
Q 5:44.
Q 5:46.
Q 5:47.
Q 10:94.
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, commentary on Q 2:75.
Ibn Ḥazm, Kitāb al-Fiṣal fī al-milal wa-al-ahwāʾ wa-al-niḥal.
Al-Rāzī, Tafsīr al-kabīr, commentary on Q 3:78.
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