Do the previous Scriptures still matter for Muslims today?

“Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah” (مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللهِ). This is one of the central convictions of Islam. Not only is “the Beloved” one messenger among many others, but he is seen as special. Muhammad is the most favored of mankind. He is, as the Islamic scholar Al-Tahawi expressed, “the Imam of the Godfearing and the most honored of all the Messengers and the Beloved of the Lord of all the worlds”.¹

According to some ahadith, Allah sent 124,000 prophets.². Islam holds that Muhammad is the greatest of those thousands of prophets. He is the last and the final prophet, superseding all previous messengers of God, including Ibrahim, Musa, and Isa. Thus, the Qur’an fittingly calls him, the “Seal of all Prophets”.³

While earlier prophets were only sent to specific tribes or nations (for example, Musa to the Jews), Muhammad came for the whole world. As a “Mercy to the Worlds”⁴, his message was intended to be the final, universal law code that would apply to all of humanity until the end of time, thereby ending the need for further revelation.

Since Allah’s revelations, as expressed in the Qur’an, are God’s final message to all humankind, the previous Scriptures Allah revealed—the Torah (given to Musa), the Zaboor (given to Dawud), and the Injil (given to Isa)—are considered less relevant today. Should a Muslim who has the Qur’an care about these books? Who would care about an old phone when he can have the latest, most advanced phone available on the market? Why be concerned with the old Scriptures when a newer one—the Qur’an—is available?

However, the earlier Scriptures are more relevant than one might suspect at first glance.

One example showing why the former Scriptures are still important is in Surah Ash-Shu’ara. The context of this surah is that the disbelievers of Makkah accused Muhammad of being a false prophet. Therefore, Allah vindicated him by revealing ayah 196:

وَإِنَّهُۥ لَفِى زُبُرِ ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ

And indeed, it [= the Qur’an] is [mentioned] in the scriptures of former peoples.

– Surah Ash-Shu’ara 26:196 –

Allah directed the disbelievers to the other Scriptures that were available in Muhammad’s time—the Torah, the Zaboor and the Injil. If the disbelievers read these books, they would know that the Qur’an was from Allah and that Muhammad was a true prophet.

That is why the disbelievers were held accountable and condemned in Surah Al-Baqarah for their disbelief—they did not follow Muhammad despite the evidence in their own Scriptures:

وَلَمَّا جَآءَهُمْ كِتَـٰبٌۭ مِّنْ عِندِ ٱللَّهِ مُصَدِّقٌۭ لِّمَا مَعَهُمْ وَكَانُوا۟ مِن قَبْلُ يَسْتَفْتِحُونَ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ فَلَمَّا جَآءَهُم مَّا عَرَفُوا۟ كَفَرُوا۟ بِهِۦ ۚ فَلَعْنَةُ ٱللَّهِ عَلَى ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ

Although they [= disbelievers] used to pray for victory ˹by means of the Prophet˺ over the polytheists, when there came to them a Book from Allah [= the Qur’an] which they recognized, confirming the Scripture they had ˹in their hands˺, they rejected it. So may Allah’s condemnation be upon the disbelievers.

– Surah al-Baqarah 2:89 –

But how would the disbelievers have recognized Muhammad as a true prophet if they had looked in the previous Scriptures? The answer can be given by two words: “stories” and “prophecies.”

1) The Stories of the Prophets

Surah Yunus 10:37 says:

وَمَا كَانَ هَـٰذَا ٱلْقُرْءَانُ أَن يُفْتَرَىٰ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ وَلَـٰكِن تَصْدِيقَ ٱلَّذِى بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ وَتَفْصِيلَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبِ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهِ مِن رَّبِّ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ

And it was not [possible] for this Qur’an to be produced by other than Allah, but [it is] a confirmation of what was before it and a detailed explanation of the [former] Scripture, about which there is no doubt, from the Lord of the worlds.

– Surah Yunus 10:37 –

According to this ayah, the Qur’an can be recognized as God’s revelation because it confirms the previous Scriptures and provides detailed explanations of it. However, detailed explanations of what?

To find an answer, we must look at the context of this ayah. Surah Yunus is full of stories about prophets, such as the story of Nuh and the Great Flood (ayat 71-73) and the incidence of Musa and Harun before the Fir’awn (ayat 75-92). These stories were first recorded in the Torah given to Musa. Therefore, we can conclude that the phrase ‘a detailed explanation of the [former] Scripture’⁵ means that the Qur’an confirms the details of the stories of the prophets contained in the Torah.

We find this idea again in Surah Yusuf 12:111:

لَقَدْ كَانَ فِى قَصَصِهِمْ عِبْرَةٌۭ لِّأُو۟لِى ٱلْأَلْبَـٰبِ ۗ مَا كَانَ حَدِيثًۭا يُفْتَرَىٰ وَلَـٰكِن تَصْدِيقَ ٱلَّذِى بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ وَتَفْصِيلَ كُلِّ شَىْءٍۢ وَهُدًۭى وَرَحْمَةًۭ لِّقَوْمٍۢ يُؤْمِنُونَ

There was certainly in their stories [= the stories of the prophets] a lesson for those of understanding. Never was it [the Quran] a narrated invention, but a confirmation of what was before it and a detailed explanation of all things and guidance and mercy for a people who believe.

– Surah Yusuf 12:111 –

Surah Yusuf reports the most detailed and longest continuous story of a prophet in the entire Qur’an: the story of Yusuf. In ayah 111, the Qur’an claims to confirm this story and other stories of the prophets in the previous Scriptures. The Qur’an is called ‘a detailed explanation of all things’, meaning that it faithfully reports the details of the stories of Yusuf and other prophets.

This is surprising because Muhammad was illiterate! How could an illiterate man have produced a book that was perfectly aligned in the details with the other Scriptures if he could not read and look them up? The unbelievers should have concluded that he could have only known these details by divine revelation.

2) Prophecies about Muhammad

The Qur’an not only claims that it confirms the details of the stories in the former Scriptures, but also that the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) could find Muhammad prophesied in their Scriptures at Muhammad’s time:

ٱلَّذِينَ يَتَّبِعُونَ ٱلرَّسُولَ ٱلنَّبِىَّ ٱلْأُمِّىَّ ٱلَّذِى يَجِدُونَهُۥ مَكْتُوبًا عِندَهُمْ فِى ٱلتَّوْرَىٰةِ وَٱلْإِنجِيلِ

˹They are˺ the ones who follow the Messenger, the unlettered Prophet, whose description they find in their Torah and the Gospel […].

– Surah Al-A’raf 7:157 –

If Muhammad had already been announced in previous Scriptures centuries before his birth, the disbelievers would have had compelling reasons to believe that he was indeed sent by God.

From what we have discussed so far, we must conclude that the claims of the authenticity and inspiration of the Qur’an, and by extension, Muhammad’s prophethood, are built upon the foundation of the previous Scriptures (see Figure 1 below).

However, some problems arise if someone wants to test the claims of Muhammad and the Qur’an by reading the Torah, the Zaboor and the Injil today. Many Islamic scholars⁶ say that the Injil has been lost, and as for the Torah and the Zaboor, many Muslims believe they are corrupted: At the time when Allah revealed those books, they were perfectly holy and blameless, but over time, people—or specifically the Jews—changed them and mixed in their own false human ideas. Therefore, the words of today’s Torah and Zaboor are not considered reliable.

Is that a reasonable conclusion? In the following article we will focus on what the Qur’an says about the reliability or unreliability of the Torah. To find out, we invite you, dear reader, to continue to the next article: