Narratives of Tampering in the Earliest Commentaries on the Qur N (History of Christian-Muslim Relations) by Gordon Nickel

The History of Christian-Muslim Relations #13

by Gordon Nickel

Shedding light on a theme which affects Muslim-Christian conversation to the present day, this book describes the earliest extant interpretations of the Qur'?n's "tampering" verses which have been used to support the Muslim accusation of the corruption of pre-Qur'?nic scriptures.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Rudolph Boshoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gordon Nickel investigates the "argument over the Quranic origin of the Doctrine"...[of tampering with verses]"by studying what the earliest Muslim exegetes understood the 'tampering verses' to mean (Pg 1). He adds "scholars have employed the terms "tahrif al ma-na", distortion of the meaning or interpretation of the words of Scripture, and "tahrif al-nass", falsification of the text itself (Pg.22). Nickel shows that "the earliest scriptures in the Quran comes from the language of confirmation" (Pg 47) which means that it spoke favorably of the overall Biblical text. He also confirm that even the Quran requires Jews and Christians to "stand fast" or act according to the Torah and Gospel" (Pg.49). Nickel mentions that the Quran presents "a conception of sacred texts which are available and in tact" (Pg.50). He then summarizes the idea of corruption in the earliest Traditions (Muqatil and Tabari)as ignorant of the idea that the Jews and Christian falsified their Scriptures by means of actual change to their sacred texts. Nickel maintains that the passages in which these historians make accusations of falsifications remain "isolated and tentative" (Pg.228). This work is an academic read which shed light on the earliest understanding of the concept of textual corruption. Even though the accusation of the actual corruption of the text was only developed in the 12th Century by Ibn Hazm (Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥazm). The author asks the question as to why the notion of corruption substantially change in the later centuries? Nickel mentions one reason which might be due to "polemical reasons". Great read for those interested in accusations of falsification of the biblical text and those interested in Islamic polemics.

Selah
~ Rudolph P. Boshoff.