Qur’an: The Last,Complete, Authoritative and Authentic Revelation

“Those who follow the Apostle, the unlettered Prophet, whom they find mentioned in their own Scriptures, in the Torah and the Gospel…” (Quran 7:157; Trans.: Yusuf Ali)

Reference to the Bible

Is it justifiable for Muslims to quote the Bible or quote from it? There appears to be two common and extreme misconceptions about the Muslims’ attitudes towards the Bible:


a) that Muslims base their faith in full or in part on the Bible;

b) that Muslims reject the Bible in toto and accept no single word of it.

For Muslims the Qur’an is the last but not the only holy book revealed by Allah to mankind through His messengers. It is, however, the only holy book which remained intact from the time of its revelation until the present time. Not only is the full text of the Qur’an available, but it is also available in the full and exact form as uttered by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) at the time of its revelation and in the original language in which it was revealed (Arabic). No addition, deletion, or interpolation found its way into the Qur’an. For Muslims, the Qur’an is the only remaining authoritative and authentic revelation available to mankind; authoritative because an objective study of the Qur’an clearly shows its divine origin; and authentic because of the conclusive evidence that it remained intact and was transmitted to us as it was revealed without being mixed with human and philosophical ideas and doctrines. As such, Muslims do not need any other scriptures to base their faith on, either in full or in part.

On the other hand, it is erroneous to think that Muslims reject the Bible in toto and do not accept a single passage of it. There are at least two reasons for this:

a) One of the main articles of faith in Islam is the belief in all prophets and messengers sent before the advent of the last of them, Prophet Muhammad. This also necessitates believing in the holy books revealed to those prophets in the original forms of their revelation;

b) According to the Qur’an all prophets were Muslims (i.e. those who consciously and lovingly submitted to the will of Allah), what they taught was nothing but earlier versions of Islam (conscious and loving submission to Allah) and their sincere followers were Muslims as well. The fact that the transmission of earlier revelations, prior to the Qur’an suffered from inaccuracies and misinterpretations does not justify a total and categorical rejection of such scriptures. There are bound to be some passages and portions of the Bible whose essence, if not wording, need not be rejected by Muslims.

Criterion of Acceptance

What is the Muslim basis or criterion for accepting or not accepting portions or passages from the Bible? The Qur’an itself provides such criterion:

“And unto you have We revealed the Scripture with the truth, confirming whatever Scripture was before it, and a watch over it .... “ (the Qur’an 5:48)

This emphasizes two main aspects of the Qur’an:


a) The Qur’an confirms those teachings or passages of previous scriptures which remained intact.

b) The Qur’an is the last, complete, authoritative and authentic revelation. It is the final arbiter and the only criterion to correct any inaccuracy or misinterpretation which might have occurred in the transmission of scriptures. It helps in discovering human additions to or interpolations of previous revelations, even as it reveals possible deletions which might have taken place through the centuries prior to its revelation (the Qur’an). Indeed one of the names of the Qur’an is al-Furqan (the criterion which distinguishes between right and wrong, truth and falsehood).

It follows therefore that a Muslim has no reason to reject the essence of any passage in the Bible if such a passage is confirmed by the Qur’an. For example, we read in the New Testament a reiteration of one of the Ten Commandments:

“And Jesus answered him. The first of all commandments is hear, 0 Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord” (Mark 12:29)

A Muslim who reads this passage in the Qur’an can find no objection to its essence. After all the Qur’an confirms:

“Say He is Allaah, the One and Only (God)” (The Qur’an 112:1)

If, however, a Muslim reads in the Bible (or other previous scriptures for that matter) accusations of major moral sins levied against great prophets or doctrines which are totally negated in the Qur’an, the Muslim accepts only the Qur’anic version as the original unadulterated truth, revealed by Allah (God).