Skip to main content

Has the Qur'an Abrogated the Torah and Gospel?

When the Muslim steed fails in the arena of discussion, lacking proof and evidence, having to accept the proposition that the Torah and Gospel are free from corruption and change, as well as being sent down from an All-wise God, to be guidance and light to all men, he resorts to the charge that the Qur'an has abrogated the Torah and Gospel. However, this is an unsupported charge and a grave slander, because the Qur'an itself does not claim this. On the contrary, it proclaimed over every head, in clear Arabic, that it was sent down confirming the Torah and Gospel and keeping watch over them, as you will see from the following verses:

And believe in that I have sent down, confirming that which is with you (Sura al-Baqara 2:38).

Confirming what was before it (Sura al-Baqara 2:91).

Then there shall come to you a Messenger confirming what is with you (Sura al Imran 3:75).

He has sent down upon thee the Book with the truth, confirming what was before it (Sura al Imran 3:2).

You who have been given the Book, believe in what We have sent down, confirming what is with you (Sura al-Nisa' 4:50).

This Qur'an could not have been forged apart from God; but it is a confirmation of what is before it, and a distinguishing of the Book (Sura Yunis 10:38).

And We have sent down to thee the Book with the truth, confirming the Book that was before it, and assuring it (Sura al-Ma'ida 5:52).

Say: People of the Book, you do not stand on anything, until you perform the Torah and the Gospel (Sura al-Ma'ida 5:72).

The prudent will not embark on a charge, unless he is confident that he is able to prove it by a thousand proofs. Some of our Muslim brethren approach this matter without thought. If we tell them: Produce your evidence if you are truthful, they bring us empty and feeble reasons such as: The later abrogates the earlier. In other words, the Qur'an came after the Torah and Gospel, therefore it abrogates them! Others say that, since the Qur'an contains the Torah and Gospel, we no longer need them. I don't think, with due respect to the reader's intelligence, that I need to challenge such feeble evidences, especially since the Qur'an itself has spared me this effort. The previous seven verses, like tens of others, demonstrate unequivocally that the Qur'an came attesting to the veracity of the Torah and Gospel, confirming them and watching over them as a guardian and preserver. It never claimed that it was sent to abrogate their precepts and there is no trace in the Qur'an of such a claim; indeed, one understands the opposite, for, in addition to confirming and attesting them, it exhorts the Jews and Christians openly, saying: People of the Book, you do not stand on anything until you perform the Torah and the Gospel.

Had the idea of abrogation been true, we would not have seen Muhammad urging the Jews and Christians to keep the commandments of the Torah and Gospel. Also, we would not have seen him asking the Muslims to believe in them. Nowhere does the Qur'an state that it contains the Torah and Gospel, so that the Muslim could say that he has no need of them. In fact, the Qur'an does state the contrary, as one can see in Sura al-Shu'ara' 26:193-196:

Brought down by the Faithful Spirit upon thy heart, that thou mayest be one of the warners, in a clear, Arabic tongue. Truly it is in the Scriptures of the ancients (the Torah and Gospel).

So, the last quotation confirms that the Torah and Gospel contain the Qur'an, truly it is in the Scriptures of the ancients. How strange it is that our Muslim friends allege that the Qur'an encompasses them, without giving proof.

Even assuming that the Qur'an failed to affirm the Torah and Gospel, one cannot argue from silence that it has abrogated them and that they are no longer needed. God be thanked, it did no such thing, but instead, sought to establish its own words on their authority and placed itself alongside the Torah and Gospel, Say: 'Bring a Book from God that gives better guidance than these (the Qur'an and the Bible), and follow it, if you speak truly'  (Sura al-Qasas 28:49). And many a time the Qur'an tried to convince the Arabs of the truthfulness of the Bible's message and how badly they needed it, by mentioning that the Torah and Gospel came down in foreign languages to a foreign nation, and a guide to every people (Sura al-Ra'd 13:8). And since the Arabs could not understand those languages, the Qur'an says that God sent down the Qur'an, in the same way (as the Torah and Gospel) in your own language, in a clear Arabic tongue: Yet before it was the Book of Moses for a model and a mercy; and this is a Book confirming, in Arabic tongue, to warn the evildoers, and good tidings to the good-doers (Sura al-Ahqaf 46:11).

External Link: www.the-good-way.com

  • Hits: 4439