Muhammad Confirms the Bible is his Judge

According to the oldest extant biography on Muhammad’s life, Muhammad told the Jews that if they couldn’t find a prophecy about him in their Scriptures, they were not obligated to follow him:

The apostle wrote to the Jews of Khaybar according to what a freedman of the family of Zayd b. Thabit told me from ‘Ikrima or from Sa‘id b. Jubayr from Ibn ‘Abbas: ‘In the name of God the compassionate the merciful from Muhammad the apostle of God friend and brother of Moses WHO CONFIRMS WHAT MOSES BROUGHT. God says to you O scripture folk, and you will find it in your scripture "Muhammad is the apostle of God; and those with him are severe against the unbelievers, merciful among themselves. Thou seest them bowing, falling prostrate seeking bounty and acceptance from God. The mark of their prostrations is on their foreheads. That is their likeness in the Torah and in the Gospel like a seed which sends forth its shoot and strengthens it and it becomes thick and rises straight upon its stalk delighting the sowers that He may anger the unbelievers with them. God has promised those who believe and do well forgiveness and a great reward." I adjure you by God, AND BY WHAT HE HAS SENT DOWN TO YOU, by the manna and quails He gave as food to your tribes before you, and by His drying up the sea for your fathers when He delivered them from Pharaoh and his works, that you tell me, DO YOU FIND IN WHAT HE SENT DOWN TO YOU that you should believe in Muhammad? IF YOU DO NOT FIND THAT IN YOUR SCRIPTURE THEN THERE IS NO COMPULSION UPON YOU. "The right path has become plainly distinguished from error" so I call you to God and His Prophet’ (313). (Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, With Introduction and Notes [Oxford University Press, Fifteenth impression 2001], p. 256; emphasis mine)

A number of them came in to the apostle and he said to them, ‘Surely you know that I am an apostle from God to you.’ They replied that they did not know it and would not bear witness to him. So god sent down concerning their words: ‘But God testifies concerning what He has sent down to thee. With His knowledge did He send it down and the angels bear witness. And God is sufficient as a witness.’ (Ibid., p. 265; emphasis mine)

In fact, when Muhammad was asked whether he believed that the Torah in the possession of the Jews was the truth, he responded that he absolutely did:

Abu Yasir and Nafi' b. Abu Naff and 'Azir and Khalid and Zayd and Izar and Ashya' came to the apostle and asked him about the apostles he believed in. So the apostle said: 'We believe in God and what he has sent down to us and what was sent down to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes and what was given to Moses and Jesus and what was given to the prophets from their Lord; we make no difference between any one of them. And we are submissive unto Him.'² When he mentioned Jesus, Son of Mary, they denied that he was a prophet, saying, 'We do not believe in Jesus, Son of Mary, or in anyone who believes in him.' So God sent down concerning them: 'O Scripture folk, do you blame us for anything but our belief in God and what He has sent down to us and what was sent down aforetime and because most of you are evil-doers?'³

Rafi b. Haritha and Sallam b. Mishkam and Malik b. al-Sayf and Ran" b. Huraymila came to him and said: 'Do you not allege that you follow the religion of Abraham AND BELIEVE IN THE TORAH WHICH WE HAVE AND TESTIFY THAT IT IS THE TRUTH FROM GOD?' He replied, 'CERTAINLY, but you have sinned and broken the covenant contained therein and concealed what you were ordered to make plain to men, and I dissociate myself from your sin.' They said, 'We hold by what we have. We live according to the guidance and the truth and we do not believe in you and we will not follow you.' So God sent down concerning them: 'Say, O Scripture folk, you have no standing until you observe the Torah and the Gospel and what has been sent down to you from your Lord. What has been sent down to thee from thy Lord will assuredly increase many of them in error and unbelief. But be not sad because of the unbelieving people.'⁴ 

¹ Sura 5. 49-50.

²  Sura 3. 58.

³ Sura 5. 59.                                                             

⁴ Sura 5. 68. (Ibid., p. 268; emphasis mine)

Some Muslims remained friends with the Jews because of the tie of mutual protection and alliance which had subsisted between them, so God sent down concerning them and forbidding them to take them as intimate friends: 'O you who believe, do not choose those outside your community as intimate friends. They will spare no pains to corrupt you longing for your ruin. From their mouths hatred has already shown itself and what their breasts conceal is greater. We have made the signs plain to you if you will understand. Behold you love them but they love not you and you believe in the book—all of it,'¹ i.e. YOU BELIEVE IN THEIR BOOK AND IN THE BOOKS THAT WERE BEFORE THAT while they deny your book, so that you have more right to hate them than they to hate you. 'And when they meet you they say, We believe and when they go apart they bite their fingers against you in rage.  Say, Die in your rage', &c. (Ibid., pp. 262-263)

These statements indicate that Muhammad agreed with the Bible being used to judge his claims and his so-called revelations. Since Muhammad contradicts the very Scriptures of the Jews and Christians, which were in their possession at that time, he stands condemned as a false prophet and an antichrist.

In fact, Muhammad’s repeated appeals to the Torah of the Jews to verify his prophetic claims are the very reason why the Jews rejected him. They kept telling him that it did not contain prophecies about him:

Mahmud b. Sayhan and Nu’man b. Ada’ and Bahri and ‘Uzayr and Sallam came to him and said: ‘Is it true, Muhammad, that what you have brought is the truth from God? For our part we cannot see that it is arranged as the Torah is.’ He answered, ‘You know quite well that it is from God; you will find it written IN THE TORAH WHICH YOU HAVE. If men and jinn came together to produce its like they could not.’ Finhas and ‘Abdullah b. Suriya and Ibn Saluba and Kinana b. al-Raba‘ and Ashya‘ and Ka’b b. al-Asad and Shamwil and Jabal were there and they said: ‘Did neither men nor jinn tell you this, Muhammad?’ He said: ‘You know well that it is from God and that I am the apostle of God. You will find it written IN THE TORAH YOU HAVE.’ They said: ‘When God sends an apostle He does for him what he wishes, so bring down a book to us from heaven that we may read it and know what it is, otherwise we will produce one like the one you bring.’ So God sent down concerning their words: ‘Say, Though men and jinn should meet to produce the like of this Quran they would not produce its like though one helped the other.’ (324).

Huyayy, Ka’b, Abu Rafi‘, Ashya‘, and Shamwil said to ‘Abdullah b. Sallam when he became a Muslim, ‘There is no prophecy among the Arabs, but your master is a king.’ Then they went to the apostle and asked him about Dhu’l-Qarnayn and he told them what God had sent him about him from what he had already narrated to Quraysh. They were of those who ordered Quraysh to ask the apostle about him when they sent al-Nadr and ‘Uqba to them. (Ibid., pp. 269-270; emphasis mine)

Muhammad further insisted that the Jews live and judge by the very Torah in their possession:

There were two parties: The B. Qaynuqa' and their adherents, allies of Khazraj; and al-Nadlr and Qurayza and their adherents allies of Aus. When there was war between Aus and Khazraj the B. Qaynuqa' went out with Khazraj, and al-Nadlr and Qurayza with Aus, each side helping his allies against his own brethren so that they shed each other's blood, WHILE THE TORAH WAS IN THEIR HANDS BY WHICH THEY KNEW WHAT WAS ALLOWED AND WHAT WAS FORBIDDEN THEM. Aus and Khazraj were polytheists worshipping idols knowing nothing about paradise and hell, the waking and the resurrection, the scriptures, the permitted and the forbidden. When the war came to an end they ransomed their prisoners in accordance with the Torah each side redeeming those of their men who had been captured by the other side, disregarding the bloodshed that had been incurred in helping the polytheists. God said in blaming them for that: 'Will you believe in a part of the scripture and disbelieve in another part?' i.e. would you redeem him in accordance with the Torah and kill him when the Torah forbids you to do so, killing him and driving him out of his house and helping the polytheist who worships idols instead of God against him, all for the sake of this world's gain? According to my information this passage came down with reference to their behaviour with Aus and Khazraj.

He continued: 'We gave Moses the scripture and We sent apostles after him and We gave Jesus, Son of Mary, the clear proofs,' i.e. the signs which were wrought by Him in raising the dead; forming the likeness of birds from clay and then breathing into them so that they became birds by God's permission  healing the sick; and news of many hidden things which they stored in their houses; and His confuting them from the Torah and the Gospel which God had created for Him.¹ Then he mentions their disbelief in all that and says: 'Is it that whenever there comes to you an apostle with what you do not like you act arrogantly; some you declare liars and some you put to death?' Then he says: 'And they said, Our hearts are uncircumcised,' i.e. in coverings. 'Nay, but God has cursed them for their unbelief. Little do they believe. And when a scripture comes to them from God confirming what they already have, though before that they were asking for a victory over the unbelievers, when there comes to them what they know they deny it. God's curse is on the unbelievers.' (Ibid., pp. 253-254)

Mu'adh b. Jabal and Sa'd b. Mu'adh brother of B. 'Abdu'l-Ashhal, and Kharija b. Zayd brother of B. al-Harith b. al-Khazraj, asked some of the Jewish rabbis about something in the Torah and they concealed it from them and refused to tell them anything about it. So God sent down about them: 'Those who conceal the proofs and guidance We have sent down after We have made it plain to men in the book, God will curse them and those who curse will curse them.' (Ibid., p. 258; emphasis mine)

The apostle entered a Jewish school where there was a number of Jews and called them to God. Al-Nu'man b. 'Amr and al-Harith b. Zayd said to him:

'What is your religion, Muhammad?

'The religion of Abraham.'

'But Abraham was a Jew.'

'THEN LET THE TORAH JUDGE BETWEEN US.'

They refused, and so God sent down concerning them: 'Hast thou not seen how those who have received a portion of scripture when invited to God's book that it may judge between them, a party of them turn their backs in opposition. That is because they say, The fire will not touch us except for a limited time. What they were inventing has deceived them in their religion.’⁴ 

⁴ Sura 3:23-24 (Ibid., p. 260; emphasis mine)

One of the B. Qurayza told me that Abu Yasir and Wahb b. Yahudha were with them and the apostle questioned them so that he got to the bottom of their affair until they said (pointing) to 'Abdullah b. Suriya, 'This is the most learned man living in the Torah' (321).

He was one of the youngest of them and when the apostle was alone with him he put him on his oath as to whether the Torah did not prescribe stoning for adulterers. 'Yes,' he said, 'they know right well, Abu'l-Qasim, that you are a prophet sent (by God) but they envy you.' The apostle went out to them and commanded that the two should be stoned and they were stoned at the door of his mosque among B. Ghanm b. Malik b. al-Najjar. Afterwards Ibn Suriya disbelieved and denied that the apostle was a prophet. So God sent down concerning them: 'O apostle, let not those who vie with one another in unbelief sadden thee, those who say with their mouths, We believe, but their hearts do not believe, those Jews who listen to lies, listening for other people who do not come to thee,' i.e. those who sent others and stayed behind themselves and gave them orders to change the judgement from its context. Then He said: 'They change words from their places, saying, If this be given to you receive it, and if it is not given to you, i.e. the stoning, beware of it', &c.

Muhammad b. Talha b. Yazld b. Rukana from Isma'Il b. Ibrahim from Ibn 'Abbas told me that the apostle ordered them to be stoned, and they were stoned at the door of his mosque. And when the Jew felt the first stone he crouched over the woman to protect her from the stones until both of them were killed. This is what God did for the apostle in exacting the penalty for adultery from the pair.

Salih b. Kaisan from Nan', freedman of 'Abdullah b. 'Umar from 'Abdullah b. 'Umar, told me: When the apostle gave judgement about them he asked for a Torah. A rabbi sat there reading it having put his hand over the verse of stoning. 'Abdullah b. Salam struck the rabbi's hand, saying, 'This, O prophet of God, is the verse of stoning which he refuses to read to you.' The apostle said, 'Woe to you Jews! What has induced you to abandon the judgement of God which you hold in your hands?' They answered: 'The sentence used to be carried out until a man of royal birth and noble origin committed adultery and the king refused to allow him to be stoned. Later another man committed adultery and the king wanted him to be stoned but they said No, not until you stone so-and-so. And when they said that to him they agreed to arrange the matter by tajbih and they did away with all mention of stoning.' The apostle said: 'I am the first to revive the order of God and His book and to practise it.' They were duly stoned and 'Abdullah b. 'Umar said, 'I was among those that stoned them.' (Ibid., pp. 266-267; emphasis mine)

The sirah also confirms that John’s Gospel is the actual inscripturation of the Gospel given to Jesus, and that the prophets entrusted to their followers their uncorrupted scriptures which Muhammad had to confirm and believe in:

THE WORD APPLIED TO THE APOSTLE OF GOD IN THE GOSPEL

Among the things which have reached me about what Jesus the Son of Mary stated in the Gospel which he received from God for the followers of the Gospel, in applying a term to describe the apostle of God, is the following. It is extracted from what John the Apostle set down for them when he wrote the Gospel for them from the Testament of Jesus Son of Mary: 'He that hateth me hath hated the Lord. And if I had not done in their presence works which none other before me did, they had not.had sin: but from now they are puffed up with pride and think that they will over­come me and also the Lord. But the word that is in the law must be ful­filled, "They hated me without a cause" (i.e. without reason). But when the Comforter has come whom God will send to you from the Lord's presence, and the spirit of truth which will have gone forth from the Lord's presence he (shall bear) witness of me and ye also, because ye have been with me from the beginning. I have spoken unto you about this that ye should not be in doubt.'¹

The Munahhemana (God bless and preserve him!) in Syriac is Muham­mad; in Greek he is the paraclete.

THE PROPHETS MISSION

When Muhammad the apostle of God reached the age of forty, God sent him in compassion to mankind, 'as an evangelist to all men'.² Now God had made a covenant with every prophet Whom he had sent before him that he should believe in him, testify to his truth and help him against his adversaries, and he required of them that they should transmit that to everyone who believed in them, and they carried out their obligations in that respect. God said to Muhammad, 'When God made a covenant with the prophets (He said) this is the scripture and wisdom which I have given you, afterwards an apostle will come confirming what you know that you may believe in him and help him.' He said, 'Do you accept this and take up my burden?' i.e. the burden of my agreement which I have laid upon you. They said, 'We accept it.' He answered, 'Then bear witness and I am a witness with you.'³ Thus God made a covenant with all the prophets that they should testify to his truth and help him against his adversaries and they transmitted that obligation to those who believed in them among the two monotheistic religions.

¹ The passage quoted is John 15. 23 ff. It is interesting to note that the citation comes from the Palestinian Syriac Lectionary and not from the ordinary Bible of the Syriac-speaking Churches. The text is corrupt in one or two places; e.g. the phrase 'puffed up with pride and think that they will overcome me'. Bafiru is an obvious corruption of nazaru, which agrees with the Syriac and underlying Greek. Wazannu seems to be another attempt to make sense of the passage. The next word I am unable to explain. The most interesting word is that rendered 'Comforter' which we find in the Palestinian Lectionary, but all other Syriac versions render 'paraclete', following the Greek. This word was well established in the Hebrew- and Aramaic-speaking world. The menahhemana in Syriac means the life-giver and especially one who raises from the dead. Obviously such a meaning is out of place here and what is meant is one who consoles and comforts people for the loss of one dear to them. This is the meaning in the Talmud and Targum. It ought to be pointed out that by the omission of the words 'that is written' before 'in the law' quite another meaning is given to the prophecy. The natural rendering would be 'the word that concerns the Namus must be fulfilled'. To Muslims the Namus was the angel Gabriel. Furthermore, the last words are translated as the ordinary Arab reader would understand tashukku; but in Syrian Arabic it could bear the meaning of the Gospel text 'stumble'. See further my article in Al-Andalus, xv, fasc. 2 (1950), 289-96.                       

² Sura 34. 27.                     

³ Sura 3. 75. (Ibid., pp. 103-105; emphasis mine)

Then he mentions how God had imposed on them and on their prophets the obligation to bear witness to his truth when he came to them and their taking that upon themselves and he says: 'When God made His covenant with the prophets (He said) Behold that which I have given you—a book and wisdom. Then when an apostle shall come to you confirming what you have, you shall believe in him and help him. He said, Do you agree and take upon yourselves my burden? They answered, We agree. He said, Then bear witness, I being with you as a witness' to the end of the passage.³

³ Sura 3. 81 (Ibid., p. 261; emphasis mine)

Seeing that the uncorrupted scriptures of the Prophets, which Muhammad needed to confirm, remained in the possession of the Jews and Christians, this means that these revelations still exist. This explains why Muhammad went as far as to rebuke the Jews and Christians for rejecting what was clearly taught in the very Torah and the Gospel which they had in their possession:

When the Christians of Najran came to the apostle the Jewish rabbis came also and they disputed one with the other before the apostle. Rafi' said, 'You have no standing,' and he denied Jesus and the Gospel; and a Christian said to the Jews, 'You have no standing' and he denied that Moses was a prophet and denied the Torah. So God sent down concerning them: 'The Jews say the Christians have no standing; and the Christians say that Jews have no standing, yet they read the scriptures. They do not know what they are talking about. God will judge between them on the day of resurrection concerning their controversy,'⁴ i.e. each one reads IN HIS BOOK the confirmation of what he denies, so that the Jews deny Jesus THOUGH THEY HAVE THE TORAH in which God required them by the word of Moses to hold Jesus true; while IN THE GOSPEL is what Jesus brought in confirmation of Moses and the Torah he brought from God: so each one denies WHAT IS IN THE HAND OF THE OTHER.

⁴ Sura 2. 113 (Ibid., p. 258; emphasis mine)

This proves that Muhammad believed that the Jews and Christians still possessed the uncorrupted scriptures of the Prophets. In light of the manuscript tradition, we know that these scriptures must be the biblical books that are still with the Jews and Christians.

Herein lies the problem for the Muslims.

Seeing that Muhammad contradicts these very books that he needed to confirm as true and believe in, this means that he is a false prophet and antichrist. Therefore, per Muhammad’s own statements to the Jews, both they and the Christians have no other choice but to reject him as an imposter and a fraud.  

Further Reading 

A Christian Scholar Chimes In On The Islamic View Of Biblical Corruption