Recently, some Christians that I encountered have alleged
that the Qur'an does not actually know the Bible. Although I have written on
this topic before, the following is my latest response to this issue.
by Ibn Anwar
In critiquing the Qur'an, Christian apologists
often accuse it of having no knowledge of actual Christian scriptures, i.e.,
the Bible(s). They allege that the Qur'an often misrepresents what Christians
believe or simply fails to address Christian doctrines and that to them
indicate the Qur'an's supposed unawareness of Christianity and its holy book,
the Bible. This is absolutely false. It can be demonstrated rather convincingly
that the Qur'an has intimate awareness and knowledge of not only what
Christians believe but what their scriptural books contain. Consider the
following examples of how the Qur'an exhibits familiarity with the Bible(s):
1. The Bible famously claims that God created
the heavens and the earth but that astronomical task taxed the Almighty:
"By the seventh day God had finished the
work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his
work." (Genesis 2:2)
The above is repeated in Exodus 21:11:
"For in six days the LORD made the heavens
and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh
day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
Seeing the apparent difficulty in saying that
the All-Powerful needed to rest after a hard week's worth of work, the
Christian apologist would typically claim that the 'rest' meant in those verses
is not the 'rest' that means a 'break from exhaustion,' but it is the kind of
'rest' that means 'to stop' or 'to cease' from doing something, e.g., "the
car rested on the road abruptly when he pulled the breaks." This
amelioratory attempt might work if Exodus 31:17 didn't actually define 'rest'
in those verses to actually mean "exhaustion":
"It will be a sign between me and the
Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth,
and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.'"
The above is rather self-explanatory and it
evidently refutes the excuse that the Christian apologist suggested. The
'resting' that is meant is clearly that of relaxation after tiresome work as
the word 'refreshed' indicates. Also, Psalm 44:23 which describes God as being
'asleep' ("Awake, why do you sleep, O Lord?) certainly doesn't help the
Christian apologist's case.
Refuting all of the above biblical texts that
impugn on God's divine nature as the One that is All-Powerful, the Qur'an
declares:
"We created the heavens, the earth, and
all that is between them in six days without experiencing any fatigue."
(Qur'an, 50:38)
One does not need theological training to
notice that the Qur'an in the verse above is clearly addressing the biblical
texts that speak of God having experienced fatigue or tiredness after creating the
heavens and the earth in six days. And refuting Psalm 44:23 which suggests God
sleeps, the Qur'an unambiguously declares the following:
"Neither slumber nor sleeps overtakes Him
(God)." (Qur'an, 255)
2. The Bible has a knack at tarnishing the
characters of God's messengers and prophets. One such prophet whose dignity was
violated by the Bible was Solomon. The Bible claims that even after God had
appeared to Solomon, he turned to other gods thereby becoming a disbeliever:
"For when Solomon was old his wives turned
away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord
his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth
the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the
Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not
wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high
place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of
the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his
foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods." (1 Kings
11:4-8)
Rescuing and exonerating Prophet Solomon a.s.
from such a horrendous and abominable allegation as disbelief and idolatry, the
Qur'an declares concisely that Solomon a.s. never fell into such
blameworthiness:
"And follow that which the devils falsely
related against the kingdom of Solomon. Solomon disbelieved not; but the devils
disbelieved, teaching mankind magic and that which was revealed to the two
angels in Babel, Harut and Marut. Nor did they (the two angels) teach it to
anyone till they had said: We are only a temptation, therefore disbelieve not
(in the guidance of Allah). " (Qur'an, 2:102)
Indeed, the holy messengers of God are free
from the indignities that the Bible falsely attributes to them.
There are many other Qur'anic texts that
showcase the Qur'an's great familiarity with the Christian scriptures, but the
two examples given above sufficiently demonstrate our point. Confirming that
the Qur'an does indeed illustrate that it is well acquainted with Christian
scriptures and refuting the Christian apologists that allege that it is not,
respected Christian scholar Professor Sidney Griffith, who is professor of
Early Christian Studies at the Catholic University of America, writes:
"The Qur'an is very conscious of the Bible
and sometimes presents itself as offering once again a revelation previously
sent down in the Torah and the Gospel...One of the first things that the
historian of Arabian Judaism and Christianity notices on approaching the Qur'an
is that for all its obviously high degree of biblical awareness, the Qur'an
virtually never actually quotes the Bible." [1]
Professor Griffith's observation is quite
clear: That although the Qur'an does not directly quote the Bible, it,
nevertheless, betrays great familiarity with the contents of the Bible.
It is quite clear, then, that the Christian
apologists' allegation against the Qur'an lies on a gossamer and it is
doubtless a very fragile gossamer that is easily ruined by the slightest swipe
of a hand.
Notes:
[1] Griffith, S. H. (2013). The Bible in
Arabic: The Scriptures of the "Pople of the Book" in the Language of
Islam. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 51-56
