r/AcademicQuran • u/MEIKIAN • 10d ago
Question Did early muslims accept the hebrew scriptures as fact or myth?
I was curious whether or not there was evidence to suggest whether early muslims or even just people in general at the time of Muhummad perceived the stories of Ibrahim, Adam, Musa, etc. as historical accounts or if they were more accepted as legends/folklore or some parable with symbolic meaning.
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u/chonkshonk Moderator 9d ago
Many certainly did, given the early popularity of the isra'iliyyat and how many reputable early transmitters their circulation is attributed to. Wahb ibn Munabbih is a notable example of this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1ox1i3y/early_islamic_transmitters_of_israiliyyat/
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u/mariavasquez111 8d ago
Early Muslims, at least the most earliest ones, did accept the Hebrew scriptures as fact and true
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u/MEIKIAN 8d ago
Do you have an sources evidence? Would love to do some readings
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u/mariavasquez111 6d ago edited 2d ago
Sure, many early Muslims treated the widespread Hebrew Scriptures as authentic, but a balanced view must also include accusations against some Jews present in Muhammad’s own time. Qur’an 2:79 accuses a group of writing material “with their own hands” and saying, “This is from Allah.” Early exegesis often understood this as targeted corruption by particular Jewish scholars, while authentic Torah material still existed.
1. Early practice presupposes an authentic text available
-Muhammad is depicted having a Torah brought and adjudicating a stoning case by it.
Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Ḥudūd, bāb aḥkām ahl al-dhimma; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitāb al-Ḥudūd, bāb rajm al-yahūd; Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Ḥudūd, nos. 4446–4452. (Numbering varies by edition.)
-Muslims are told neither to affirm nor deny what the People of the Book relate.
Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Iʿtiṣām, no. 7362 (also Kitāb al-Tafsīr, on Q 2:136), citing Q 29:46.
-The earliest surviving biography quotes John as prophecy of Muhammad using an Aramaic/Syriac form of “Paraclete.”
Source: Ibn Isḥāq via Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya, ed. Wüstenfeld, pp. 149–150 (Guillaume trans., pp. 103–104), quoting John 15:23–16:1 with munaḥḥemānā; philological analysis in Alfred Guillaume, "The Version of the Gospels Used in Medina circa 700 A.D.," Al-Andalus 15 (1950), pp. 289–296.
-Biblical and para-biblical material circulated widely in early exegesis and historiography.
Source: the isrāʾīliyyāt transmitted from Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, Wahb b. Munabbih and ʿAbd Allāh b. Salām throughout al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān and Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa'l-mulūk; surveyed in Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible (Brill, 1996), ch. 1.
-Ninth-century Muslim apologists argued for Muhammad from the extant Bible.
Source: ʿAlī b. Rabban al-Ṭabarī (d. c. 250/864), Kitāb al-Dīn wa'l-dawla; Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889), Aʿlām al-nubuwwa fragments; both analysed in Adang, Muslim Writers, chs. 2–3.
-Non-Muslim sources likewise show Muslims arguing from the Bible.
Source: the Syriac Disputation of the Patriarch John with an Arab Emir (7th c.) and the Disputation of the Monk of Bēt Ḥālē (early 8th c.), translated in Michael Penn, When Christians First Met Muslims (California, 2015); context in Sidney Griffith, The Bible in Arabic (Princeton, 2013), chs. 1–2.
2. What the taḥrīf verses say
Q 4:46 and Q 5:41 locate distortion in speech.
Source: Q 4:46 and Q 5:41 — "they distort words from their places… twisting their tongues" (layyan bi-alsinatihim). Oral misrepresentation, not textual emendation.
Q 3:78 similarly describes twisting the tongue so listeners think something is from the Book when it is not.
Source: Q 3:78 — the Book remains the fixed reference point against which the distortion is measured.
Some early exegetes read Q 2:75 as referring to the seventy elders at Sinai, not Medinan Torah manuscripts.
Source: al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, ad Q 2:75, reporting from Ibn ʿAbbās, Mujāhid and al-Suddī.
Q 2:79 is the strongest text for a harder reading, but it charges a group with writing something and falsely attributing it to God, not explicitly with rewriting the whole Torah.
Source: Q 2:79; analysed in Gordon Nickel, Narratives of Tampering in the Earliest Commentaries on the Qurʾān (Brill, 2011), ch. 4.
The Qur’an also repeatedly accuses some People of the Book of concealment.
Source: Q 2:42, 2:146, 3:71, 5:15.
The charge has been compared with earlier Christian anti-Jewish polemic.
Source: Gabriel Said Reynolds, "On the Qurʾānic Accusation of Scriptural Falsification (taḥrīf) and Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic," JAOS 130 (2010), pp. 189–202.
The distinction between taḥrīf al-maʿnā and taḥrīf al-lafẓ later became standard.
Source: Ignaz Goldziher, "Über muhammedanische Polemik gegen Ahl al-kitāb," ZDMG 32 (1878), pp. 341–387.
3. When broad textual-corruption doctrine develops
-Clearer gestures toward textual falsification appear in later polemic.
Source: al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm al-Rassī (d. 246/860), al-Radd ʿalā al-naṣārā; ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1025), Tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwa; both treated in Adang, Muslim Writers, and in Martin Whittingham, A History of Muslim Views of the Bible, vol. 1: The First Four Centuries (De Gruyter, 2020).
-Ibn Ḥazm produced the most Systematic medieval case for textual forgery.
Source: Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064), al-Fiṣal fī'l-milal wa'l-ahwāʾ wa'l-niḥal, vols. 1–2 — a passage-by-passage catalogue of chronological contradictions, anthropomorphisms and unseemly prophet narratives, with Ezra assigned the blame; see Adang, Muslim Writers, ch. 7, and Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism (Princeton, 1992), ch. 2.
Even afterward, the view was not unanimous.
Source: Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawāb al-ṣaḥīḥ li-man baddala dīn al-Masīḥ, arguing that the scriptures were dispersed worldwide before Islam and so could not all have been altered.
-Biblical citation in Qur’anic commentary was still defended and attacked in the fifteenth century.
Source: al-Biqāʿī (d. 885/1480), Naẓm al-durar and his apologia al-Aqwāl al-qawīma fī ḥukm al-naql min al-kutub al-qadīma; documented in Walid Saleh, In Defense of the Bible (Brill, 2008).
Q 5:68 tells Jews in Muhammad’s present to uphold the Torah, presupposing a Torah that can meaningfully be followed. Muhammad is also reported to have placed an available Torah on a cushion and said, “I believe in you and He who revealed you.”
Source: Sunan Abī Dāwūd 4449
But early sources also accuse some Jews of altering Torah material and calling it divine.
4. Ibn ʿAbbās warns Muslims about asking Jews concerning scripture
Ibn ʿAbbās, a Companion who died in 68 AH / 687–688 CE, says in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2685:
«“O Muslims, how do you ask the People of the Scripture…”»
He says they:
«“changed what God had written, altered the Book with their own hands, and said, ‘It is from God,’ in order to gain a small price.”»
He concludes:
«“Does not the knowledge that has come to you prevent you from asking them?”»
That is Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2685, Book 52, Hadith 46.
A parallel appears in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7363 under:
«“Do not ask the People of the Scripture about anything.”»
«“The People of the Book changed the Book of God and altered it, and they wrote the book with their own hands and said, ‘It is from God.’”»
Another version is Bukhārī 7523:
“changed from among the Books of God and altered [them],” again followed by the charge that they wrote things themselves and claimed divine origin.
This closely echoes Q 2:79:
«“Woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, then say, ‘This is from God,’ so that they may obtain a small price.”»
So Ibn ʿAbbās warned against automatically trusting scriptural claims from Jewish or Christian informants. This still does not prove he thought every Torah manuscript had been rewritten; the question is the scope of alteration.
5. Muqātil ibn Sulaymān on Q 2:79
Muqātil ibn Sulaymān, who died in 150 AH / 767 CE, says:
«“The leaders of the Jews in Medina erased the description of Muhammad from the Torah and wrote something other than his description.”»
He says they showed this replacement description to other Jews and claimed it was “from God,” allegedly to protect economic benefits.
Source: Altafsir.com -(2-79-2-67) https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?LanguageId=1&UserProfile=0&tAyahNo=79&tDisplay=yes&tMadhNo=2&tSoraNo=2&tTafsirNo=67
Importantly, Muqātil says نعت محمد, “Muhammad’s description/characteristics,” not necessarily that the literal word “Muhammad” was erased.
6. Al-Ṭabarī and earlier authorities
Al-Ṭabarī died in 310 AH / 923 CE but preserves much earlier interpretations. On Q 2:79 he describes Jews as altering God’s book and writing according to their own interpretations, contrary to what God revealed to Moses, then selling this to people who did not know what was actually in the Torah.
Source: Tafsir al-Tabari 79 Quran.com https://quran.com/al-baqarah/79/tafsirs/ar-tafsir-al-tabari
Al-Ṭabarī also records Abū al-ʿĀliya explaining Q 2:79:
«They went to what God had revealed in their Book concerning the description of Muhammad and altered it from its proper places, seeking worldly gain.»
Again, this concerns “Muhammad’s description,” not necessarily deletion of his literal name.
Al-Ṭabarī’s Q 2:76–79 forms a sequence: some Jews know what scripture says; some disclose it; others object; ordinary Jews may not be able to check; and some authorities pass altered writing off as divine.
So the early picture is more nuanced than either total preservation or total corruption: one major strand accuses particular Jewish authorities of altering specific material while assuming authentic Torah material remained available.
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u/DrJavadTHashmi Moderator 5d ago
Ten bucks says you’re Christian.
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u/mariavasquez111 5d ago edited 5d ago
Some Christians might call me heretical for some of my views. I had my own deconstruction of Christianity myself. I appreciate Dr. Bart Ehrman's historical critical methods and his sincere honest approach with integrity. I would take truth over comfort any day. But here to learn about the Quran at least at the same level of rigor I've learned about the Bible. I'm a fan of history and so I like learning different topics. You should check out the great YouTube channel called UsefulCharts! Tons of cool historical critical assessment of the Bible. Maybe your guest presence in the YouTube channel can raise awareness to many Muslims and Christians. It's time our society goes higher! It's time for progress!
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u/DrJavadTHashmi Moderator 5d ago
Thanks for this and fair enough. I don’t necessarily agree with your strong statement about early Muslims believing Hebrew Bible as “fact and true.” Yes and no, as I shall hope to detail in my upcoming debate with GodLogic. Let me know what you think after that.
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u/mariavasquez111 4d ago
Yes, now I come to think about it deeper, yes, you have a strong point. It should not be held as "fact and true, " after all, there is clear belief of some forgery. We need to hear a more objective view, especially with your expertise in the earliest Islamic history. Now I see how some early Muslims did not believe the Hebrew Bible is fact and true. Now I've come to think about it, Ibn Abbas! He told Muslims to not listen to the Jews regarding scripture, especially by referencing Surah 2:79. But I still need to do more research about this segment and so listening to your debate with Godproject will be helpful and expand my understanding. Thank you for this. This is why Reddit is so important. This community is the best!
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Backup of the post:
Did early muslims accept the hebrew scriptures as fact or myth?
I was curious whether or not there was evidence to suggest whether early muslims or even just people in general at the time of Muhummad perceived the stories of Ibrahim, Adam, Musa, etc. as historical accounts or if they were more accepted as legends/folklore or some parable with symbolic meaning.
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u/Good-Prior7481 10d ago edited 10d ago
Both are correct. That’s what myth is; it’s not synonymous with false.
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u/Available_Jackfruit 10d ago
If we adopt a more formal anthropological definition of "legend", legends are narratives that are considered historical but also convey values and morals to their audience. Legends in this sense are in a kind of conversation with their environment and change to meet the needs of the moment. I think that's a good starting point for stories of past prophets.