The Qurʾānic Torah and Injīl and the Doctrine of Taḥrīf

A Text-Critical Analysis of Qurʾānic Claims and Later Islamic Theology

Abstract

A common claim in modern Islamic apologetics holds that the Qurʾānic references to the Tawrāt (Torah) and Injīl (Gospel) do not refer to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures known today, but instead to pristine revelations that were later corrupted or lost. This article argues that such a claim is not grounded in the Qurʾān itself. Through close analysis of Qurʾānic discourse, early tafsīr, and formative ḥadīth material, it demonstrates that the Qurʾān presupposes the existence, accessibility, and normative authority of the Torah and Gospel as possessed by Jews and Christians in the Prophet’s milieu. The later doctrine of textual taḥrīf is shown to be a post-Qurʾānic theological development arising in response to unresolved doctrinal conflicts rather than a teaching embedded in the Qurʾān.

1. Introduction

The referent of the Qurʾānic terms Tawrāt and Injīl has long been contested in Muslim-Christian polemics. Contemporary Islamic theology frequently asserts that these terms designate lost or unrecoverable revelations distinct from the Bible transmitted by Jews and Christians. According to this view, the Qurʾān affirms original divine Scriptures while rejecting the textual integrity of the Bible as it exists today.

This article challenges that claim on strictly Qurʾānic and early Islamic grounds. It argues that the Qurʾān consistently depicts the Torah and Gospel as extant, readable texts in the possession of Jews and Christians, capable of being consulted, recited, and used for legal and theological judgment. The later assertion that the Bible is not the Qurʾānic Torah and Injīl represents a theological solution developed after the Qurʾān, not a conclusion demanded by the Qurʾān’s own rhetoric.

2. Qurʾānic Presuppositions: Presence and Authority of Earlier Scripture

2.1 The Torah as a Judicial Authority (Q 5:43)

The Qurʾān rebukes Jewish interlocutors for seeking Muhammad’s judgment:

“Why do they come to you for judgment while they have the Torah, in which is God’s judgment?”¹

This rhetorical question presupposes the ongoing existence of the Torah as a functioning legal authority. The verse loses coherence if the Torah were already corrupted beyond use or replaced by an entirely different text. Classical exegetes understood the verse in precisely this way. Ibn Kathīr explicitly connects it to the well-known narrative in which Jewish leaders attempt to conceal the stoning law found in the Torah, not because it is missing, but because it is inconvenient.²

2.2 The Injīl as a Normative Text (Q 5:47)

Similarly, Christians are commanded:

“Let the People of the Gospel judge by what God has revealed therein.”³

Al-Jalālayn interprets this as a direct injunction to judge by the contents of the Gospel itself (mā anzala Allāh fīhi).⁴ The verse assumes that the Injīl is both present and sufficiently intact to serve as a standard of accountability.

2.3 Appeal to the Readers of Scripture (Q 10:94)

Perhaps the most epistemologically decisive passage is Q 10:94:

“If you are in doubt concerning what We have revealed to you, ask those who read the Scripture before you.”⁵

The Qurʾān directs Muhammad to those who read the earlier Scripture (alladhīna yaqraʾūna al-kitāb). Even when exegetes soften the verse as rhetorical or hypothetical, they still identify these readers as Jews and Christians in possession of textual Scripture capable of confirming Qurʾānic claims.⁶ Appealing to corrupted or unreliable texts would undermine the Qurʾān’s own logic of confirmation (taṣdīq).

3. Taḥrīf in the Qurʾān: Interpretation, Not Manuscript Corruption

3.1 Qurʾānic Language of Distortion

The Qurʾān accuses some among the People of the Book of “distorting words from their places” (e.g., Q 4:46). Crucially, the Qurʾān never specifies how this distortion occurs. It does not claim that the Torah or Injīl were rewritten, replaced, or lost. Rather, the accusations are consistent with interpretive manipulation, selective concealment, or misapplication of Scripture.

3.2 The Rajm Narrative as an Interpretive Case Study

In classical Islamic tradition, the stoning narrative is paradigmatic. Jewish leaders are portrayed as covering a verse in the Torah to avoid its legal implications. When uncovered, the verse is shown to be present and authoritative.⁷ This narrative presupposes a Torah text that exists and is consulted, even if misused.

4. Prophetic Practice in Early Ḥadīth

Early ḥadīth material reinforces the Qurʾānic picture. In one report, the Torah is physically brought before Muhammad, placed on a cushion, and he declares:

“I believe in you and in Him who revealed you.”⁸

In another widely transmitted report, the Prophet orders the enforcement of the Torah’s stoning law after it is read aloud.⁹ These traditions depict the Torah not as a corrupted relic but as a revered divine book operative within the Prophet’s juridical context.

5. The Emergence of Textual Taḥrīf as a Later Doctrine

5.1 Theological Pressure Points

The Qurʾān simultaneously affirms the Torah and Injīl as guidance and light (Q 5:44–46) while contradicting central biblical claims—most notably concerning the crucifixion and the nature of Christ. As Muslim scholars increasingly encountered the Bible as a fixed textual corpus, tensions arose that could not be resolved by interpretive taḥrīf alone.

5.2 Medieval Polemical Development

By the medieval period, some Muslim polemicists articulated a stronger doctrine of textual taḥrīf, claiming that Jews and Christians altered their Scriptures through addition and deletion. Ibn Ḥazm is often cited as a representative figure in this development.¹⁰ Modern academic studies describe this shift as a move from taḥrīf al-maʿnā (corruption of meaning) to taḥrīf al-naṣṣ (corruption of text).¹¹

This development, however, goes beyond what the Qurʾān itself states. The Qurʾān never distinguishes between an “original” Torah and an entirely different extant Bible, nor does it identify a lost Injīl distinct from the canonical Gospels.

Conclusion

The Qurʾān’s discourse presupposes a world in which the Torah and Injīl are living texts—read, consulted, and invoked as authoritative revelation. Early tafsīr and ḥadīth literature reinforce this assumption rather than undermine it. The later claim that the Bible is not the Qurʾānic Torah and Injīl reflects a theological accommodation to doctrinal conflict rather than a conclusion demanded by the Qurʾān.

On Qurʾānic grounds alone, the Torah and Injīl referenced in the Qurʾān must correspond substantially to the Scriptures possessed by Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity. To deny this is to impose a later theological construct onto the Qurʾān rather than to read the Qurʾān on its own terms.

Endnotes

       1.           Qurʾān 5:43.

       2.           Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, on Q 5:43.

       3.           Qurʾān 5:47.

       4.           Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, on Q 5:47.

       5.           Qurʾān 10:94.

       6.           Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, on Q 10:94.

       7.           Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr, on Q 5:43; cf. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, no. 3635.

       8.           Sunan Abī Dāwūd, no. 4449.

       9.           Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, no. 3635.

       10.        See discussion of Ibn Ḥazm in modern studies of Muslim biblical polemic.

       11.        Ryan Schaffner, The Bible through a Qurʾānic Filter: Scripture Falsification (Taḥrīf) in 8th- and 9th-Century Muslim Disputational Literature (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 2016).