Was the Bible Corrupted? The Qur'an and Early Muslims on Tahrif

Tahrif is a real word in this argument. The useful question is what the texts say was done to the book: a rewritten Bible, a twisted reading, a hidden line, or a page someone wrote and then called God’s.

The question

Ask a Muslim neighbor whether the Bible can be trusted, and the usual answer is that it was corrupted. The Arabic word in the discussion is tahrif, from the verb the Qur’an uses when it says people distort words. Christians sometimes answer as if every Muslim meant the same thing: that the text was swapped and the original is gone. That is one view. It is not the only way the Qur’an and the early reports talk. This page quotes both, and then says what a Christian does with them. The companion question, whether the Qur’an treats the earlier books as present and still authoritative, is Does the Qur’an confirm the Bible Christians read today?.

What Muslims say

Many Muslims, including much modern dawah, say Jews and Christians changed the wording of the Torah and the Gospel. The proof texts are the verses about distorting words, writing “scripture” with their own hands, and forgetting a portion of what they were reminded of. Sahih al-Bukhari 7363 is then cited for Ibn Abbas: the People of the Scripture changed their scripture, distorted it, and wrote it with their own hands.

A second account, also Muslim, says the books themselves were not erased. What went wrong was concealment, misreading, or explaining the text in a way that hid its meaning. On this account the Torah could still be brought into a room and read, and the fault was a hand over a verse, or a tongue twisting a sentence, not a Bible that no longer existed. Both accounts appeal to early material. A fair page does not pick the one that is easier to answer and call it “what Islam teaches.”

What the Qur’an says

Saheeh International is the translation. Brackets are the translators’ words.

Qur’an 2:75 (1) speaks of a party who heard God’s words and then distorted them after they had understood them:

Do you covet [the hope, O believers], that they would believe for you while a party of them used to hear the words of Allāh and then distort it [i.e., the Torah] after they had understood it while they were knowing?

The distortion comes after understanding. Saheeh International glosses “it” as the Torah. The verse says a party did this, not that every copy in the world was replaced.

Qur’an 2:79 is the verse that sounds most like forged writing:

So woe to those who write the “scripture” with their own hands, then say, “This is from Allāh,” in order to exchange it for a small price. Woe to them for what their hands have written and woe to them for what they earn.

People wrote something, called it from God, and sold it. That is a real charge of false scripture. It describes people producing a text and marketing it. It does not, by itself, say that the Torah already in circulation was edited until Moses’ book disappeared.

Qur’an 3:78 locates the trick in the mouth:

And indeed, there is among them a party who alter the Scripture with their tongues so you may think it is from the Scripture, but it is not from the Scripture. And they say, “This is from Allāh,” but it is not from Allāh. And they speak untruth about Allāh while they know.

They alter the Scripture with their tongues so a hearer will think the spoken words are in the book. The contrast only works if there is a Scripture the spoken words are not actually from.

Qur’an 4:46 and Qur’an 5:13 use the phrase about distorting words from their places. Saheeh International glosses that as “usages.”

Among the Jews are those who distort words from their [proper] places [i.e., usages] and say, “We hear and disobey” and “Hear but be not heard” and “Rāʿinā,” twisting their tongues and defaming the religion. And if they had said [instead], “We hear and obey” and “Wait for us [to understand],” it would have been better for them and more suitable. But Allāh has cursed them for their disbelief, so they believe not, except for a few.

So for their breaking of the covenant We cursed them and made their hearts hardened. They distort words from their [proper] places [i.e., usages] and have forgotten a portion of that of which they were reminded. And you will still observe deceit among them, except a few of them. But pardon them and overlook [their misdeeds]. Indeed, Allāh loves the doers of good.

The examples in 4:46 are spoken twists: “We hear and disobey,” and a word used as an insult. Qur’an 5:41 is the same family of complaint. They “distort words beyond their [proper] places,” and they shop for a judgment: if you are given this, take it; if you are not, beware. Qur’an 5:13 adds that they have forgotten a portion of what they were reminded of. Forgetting a portion is a moral and practical loss. The same verse still speaks of a few who are excepted, and it tells Muhammad to pardon them. It is not a report that the book was withdrawn from the earth.

Read as a set, these verses accuse some people of distorting words, twisting speech, hiding or forgetting part of what they were given, and writing their own pages and calling them God’s. They also keep talking as if the Scripture is still there to be twisted away from. That is why Muslims who say “the meaning was corrupted, not the text” and Muslims who say “the text was corrupted” can both point at this surah. The verses are not a single modern theory with one conclusion.

What early reports say

Sahih al-Bukhari 7363 (2) is the report on the textual side. Muhammad Muhsin Khan’s translation:

Narrated Ubaidullah: Ibn `Abbas said, “Why do you ask the people of the scripture about anything while your Book (Qur’an) which has been revealed to Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) is newer and the latest? You read it pure, undistorted and unchanged, and Allah has told you that the people of the scripture (Jews and Christians) changed their scripture and distorted it, and wrote the scripture with their own hands and said, ‘It is from Allah,’ to sell it for a little gain. Does not the knowledge which has come to you prevent you from asking them about anything? No, by Allah, we have never seen any man from them asking you regarding what has been revealed to you!”

Ibn Abbas, as Bukhari records him, says the People of the Scripture changed their scripture and distorted it, and wrote scripture with their own hands. A Muslim who cites this hadith for textual change is citing a real report. Christians should not pretend he only meant “they misunderstood a verse.” The words are “changed” and “wrote.”

The same collection also records reports in which the Torah is present and readable. Sahih al-Bukhari 7362 (3):

The people of the Book used to read the Torah in Hebrew and then explain it in Arabic to the Muslims. Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said (to the Muslims). “Do not believe the people of the Book, nor disbelieve them, but say, ‘We believe in Allah and whatever is revealed to us, and whatever is revealed to you.’ “

The caution is about their explanation. The Torah is being read in Hebrew. Sahih al-Bukhari 7543 (4) is the report of a Torah brought for a case of adultery. A reader covers a place with his hand. Muhammad tells him to lift it. The English continues:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “Lift up your hand!” He lifted his hand up and behold, there appeared the verse of Ar-Rajm (stoning of the adulterers to death). Then he said, “O Muhammad! They should be stoned to death but we conceal this Divine Law among ourselves.”

The verse appears when the hand moves. The man says they conceal the ruling among themselves. Concealment is the charge in the report, and the text is still on the page. Sunan Abi Dawud 4449 (5) has the Torah brought, placed on a cushion, and answered with “I believed in thee and in Him Who revealed thee.” The fuller wording is on the confirmation page.

Early Muslim material, then, includes Ibn Abbas’s strong sentence about changing and writing, and reports in which the Torah is carried in, read, and trusted as revealed. A Christian who quotes only the second set is hiding 7363. A Muslim who quotes only 7363 is hiding the reports in which the book is still a book.

A Christian response

Christians should grant the plain sense of each text. Some people did twist words. Some people did write pages and call them scripture. The Bible’s own prophets accuse Israel of mishandling God’s word. That is not an embarrassment for a Christian to wave away. It is also not a history of the manuscript tradition. A party that distorts words from their places, a tongue that makes you think something is in the book when it is not, and a hand laid over a line are all faults that require the book.

The Christian claim is that the books the church received — the Law, the Prophets, the Writings, the Gospels, and the apostolic letters — were not replaced by a different Bible between Jesus and Muhammad, or after. Communities that did not share a pope or a printing press were already reading those books in more than one language. Where copyists differed, the differences are studied in the open, and Christian Bibles say so when a line is uncertain. That is the opposite of a hidden original. The charge that matters is a specific one: show the passage that was not in the Torah or the Gospel the Qur’an tells people to uphold, and show the edition that put it there. A general “it was corrupted” does not name the verse, the century, or the copy.

Does the Qur’an confirm the Bible Christians read today? is the other half. The Qur’an tells the People of the Gospel to judge by the Gospel, and it tells a doubter to ask people who have been reading the earlier Scripture. Those orders sit in the same book as the tahrif verses. They are why Christians say the corruption passages cannot mean “throw the Bible away and wait for a lost original.”

Common objections

No one can change God’s words, so how can Muslims say the Bible was changed? Qur’an 6:115 says, “None can alter His words.” Qur’an 18:27 says, “There is no changer of His words.” Qur’an 6:34 and Qur’an 10:64 say none can alter God’s words, and Saheeh International glosses “words” there as “decrees.” Muslims often take 6:34 and 10:64 as God’s decrees rather than as every previous book, and they take Qur’an 15:9 as a promise about the Qur’an in particular: “Indeed, it is We who sent down the message [i.e., the Qur’ān], and indeed, We will be its guardian.” That reading should be stated. It is also fair to notice that 6:115 and 18:27 are broader on their face, and that the Qur’an has already called the Torah and the Gospel guidance and a place of God’s judgment. If those books are God’s words, “none can alter His words” is a hard verse to put next to a lost Bible. Christians say the same kind of thing in their own scriptures: God’s word stands. They do not need the Qur’an to prove it. They do ask Muslims not to quote 15:9 as if it cancelled 5:43–47.

Ibn Abbas settled it: the book was changed. Sahih al-Bukhari 7363 should be quoted, not dodged. It does not erase Bukhari’s reports of a Torah read in Hebrew and a verse uncovered on the page. Ibn Abbas is also giving a reason not to take the People of the Book as teachers over the Qur’an. The sentence about writing scripture with their own hands matches Qur’an 2:79, which is about a false document, not a dated edition of Deuteronomy.

The Gospels were written by unknown later editors. That is a different argument from these verses. The Injil page asks what book the Qur’an is talking about. The Christian texts themselves are quoted on the resurrection of Jesus and the deity of Christ.

Christians changed the Bible at a council. These Qur’an verses do not mention a council. They mention tongues, places of words, a forgotten portion, and people writing a scripture by hand. A council claim needs its own evidence. It is not what 4:46 describes.

Keep reading

• Does the Qur’an confirm the Bible Christians read today?
• What is the Injil?
• How was the Qur’an compiled and preserved?
• Jesus in the Qur’an and the Gospels