Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T18:00:50.324Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

20 - The Hebrew Bible in Islam

from Part V - Reception and use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2016

Walid A. Saleh
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Stephen B. Chapman
Affiliation:
Duke University, North Carolina
Marvin A. Sweeney
Affiliation:
Claremont School of Theology, California
Get access

Summary

The earliest Islamic creed preserved in the Qur'an states that Muslims ‘believe in God, His angels, His scriptures, and His messengers’ and that Muslims should make ‘no distinction among any of His messengers’ (Q. 2:285). The formulation of this creed has much to do with the introduction of monotheism to Arabia. Although neither scripture nor prophecy was given credence as a paradigm of human interaction with the gods by the pre-Islamic Arabs, they were to become essential elements of the new faith. Thus, much energy and time are devoted in the Qur'an to defending the existence of divinely revealed scriptures and the office of prophecy. This terse creed is used also in polemical retorts with the Jews and Christians who were telling Muslims to ‘become Jews or Christians, and you will be rightly guided’. The Muslims are asked to say, ‘No, ours is the religion of Abraham, the upright, who did not worship any god besides God. So say: “We believe in God and in what was sent down to us and what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes, and what was given to Moses, Jesus, and all the prophets by their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we devote ourselves to Him”’ (Q. 2:135–136). The creed asks Muslims to uphold the truth of the Scripture of Judaism but sees in that commitment no barrier to accepting the Qur'an as Scripture of the same status.

As a matter of faith, then, Muslims are supposed to believe that God sent revelation to humanity. The most important examples given in the Qur'an of such revealed Scriptures are the Torah of Moses (tawrāt), the Gospels of Jesus (injīl, here the Qur'an gives to Jesus what he never claimed to have), and the Psalms of David (zābūr). Many of the arguments in the Qur'an use the existence of these models as evidence for the divine origins of the new Scripture being revealed to the Arabs. Indeed, the nature of the Qur'an as Scripture is understood in the self-presentation of the Qur'an to be the same as that of the Torah and the Gospels.

Attempting to characterise the position of the Qur'an towards the Hebrew Bible is anything but simple.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bell, Richard. The Origin of Islam in Its Christian Environment: The Gunning Lectures, Edinburgh University, 1925. London: Macmillan, 1926.
Birkeland, Harris. The Lord Guideth: Studies on Primitive Islam. Oslo, Norway: H. Aschehoug, 1956.
Bravmann, M. M. The Spiritual Background of Early Islam: Studies in Ancient Arab Concepts. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1972.
Cook, Michael. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Déroche, François. La transmission écrite du Coran dans les débuts d l'islam: le codex Parisino-petropolitanus. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2009.
Donner, Fred M. Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1998.
Jeffery, Arthur. The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’ān. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
Neuwirth, Angelika. Der Koran als Text der Spätantike: ein europäischer Zugang. Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen, 2010.
Nöldeke, Theodor, Schwally, Friedrich, Bergsträsser, Gotthelf and Pretzl, Otto. The History of the Qur’ān. Edited and translated by Behn, Wolfgang H.. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2013.
Speyer, Heinrich. Die biblischen Erzählungen im Qoran. Hildesheim, Germany: G. Olms, 1961.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×