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The Islamic holy books (Kutub) are the records believed by Muslims that were dictated by Allah (God) to prophets; they are the Suhuf-i-Ibrahim (commonly the Scrolls of Abraham), the Tawrat (Torah), the Zabur (commonly the Psalms), the Injil (commonly the Gospel), and the Qur'an. The Arabic word 'Kutub' literally means 'books' and the Qur'an uses this word to refer to revealed scriptures. Belief in all these books is a fundamental tenet of Islam.
Books
Other possible books or prophets
The Qur'an does not exclude the possibility that additional holy books were sent to other prophets, but does not specify which ones or to whom. It is standard Islamic belief that all holy scriptures except the Qur'an have been corrupted over time. The Qur'an mentions other prophets or messengers like Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Lot, Jacob, Joseph, Job, David, Solomon, Moses, Aaron, Jonah, Elisha, Zachariah, John and Jesus.
The Qur'an's Relationship to Earlier Books
Muslims believe in progressive revelation, that the revelation of Allah changed with time and different groups of people. Thus, the Qur'an specified that the Injil abrogated the Tawrat and the Qur'an abrogated all the other books. (It is silent in regards to the Zabur, but Muslims infer that the Zabur was abrogated by a successive revelation). As an example, while the Qur'an acknowledges that the Torah prohibited working on the Sabbath, the Qur'an allows working and overrules it. In Muhammad's earlier years he taught, "O People of the Book! Ye have no ground to stand upon unless ye stand fast by the Tawrat, (and) the Injil." Qur'an Surah 5.68. Thus he believed their conversion to Islam would begin by devoutly following the earlier holy books.
The Corruption of the Holy Books
Thorough comparison of the Qur'an with the modern texts of the other holy books shows obvious disagreements: The Torah disagrees in the narratives of Creation, Adam, Ishmael, and many others. The Gospel (the Injil) disagrees on whether Jesus is the Son of God and God incarnate, whether he died, and whether he is the way to salvation of the soul. All three books are written from a human perspective while the Qur'an says they were revealed from Allah's perspective.
The first known Muslim to recognize this was Ibn Hazm, vizier of Spain and writer against Christians. He concluded that because they were in disagreement, the Bible (containing the Torah, Zabur, and Injil) must be wrong. However, knowing that the Qur'an states "believe in what hath been revealed to thee and what (scripture) was revealed before thee (the Torah and the Injil)." Qur'an Surah 4.162, he concluded, "Therefore, the present text must have been falsified by the Christians after the time of Muhammad."
Some scholars, such as Al Ghazzali (?-1111 CE), disagreed. Ibn Kathir (1301-1372) wrote that the Jews did not alter the Torah, only their interpretation of the Torah:
- The phrase "* displace words from (their) right places" means that they misinterpret them and understand them in a way that Allah did not intend, doing this deliberately and inventing lies against Allah.
However, in the following two hundred years, most scholars came to agree with Ibn Khazem, but they pushed the date of change earlier, previous to the time of Muhammad. Paul and Constantine were often blamed. In more modern times, the belief of such conspiracy has been downplayed and replaced with the idea that corruption came through many small changes by many copyists in the second and third centuries CE for the Injil. The corruption of the Torah and Zabur was moved back to before the Common Era, before the earliest manuscripts known today. Today, the corruption of the holy books is a virtually undisputed belief.
See also
"Islamic Holy Books"