Tahrif means change, alteration, forgery; used with regard to words, and more specifically with regard to what Jews and Christians are supposed to have done to their respective Scriptures in the sense of perverting the language through altering words from their proper meaning, changing words in form or substituting words or letters for others. Such substitution is also termed tabdil, a wider term, used also in other contexts, but in the Qur'an and later literature practically synonymous with tahrif (e.g. Commentaries of Mudjahid b. Djabr Al-makki)
Qur'an lays foundation for doctrine of tharif
The Qur'an accepts the Tawrat (Thora) and the Injil as genuine divine revelations taken from the same Guarded Tablets as the Qu'ran itself and brought by true messengers to both Jews and Christians respectively. The Jews are accused of having altered (parts of) the Torah or the Hebrew Bible and the Christans are accused of having altered (parts of) the Gospel or the New Testament. Which parts in not known from the Qur'an.
Relevant verses on which the doctrine of tahrif is based are (Yusuf Ali):
- 4:46. Of the Jews there are those who displace words from their (right) places, and say: "We hear and we disobey"; and "Hear what is not Heard"; and "Ra'ina"; with a twist of their tongues and a slander to Faith. If only they had said: "What hear and we obey"; and "Do hear"; and "Do look at us"; it would have been better for them, and more proper; but God hath cursed them for their Unbelief; and but few of them will believe.
- 5:13. But because of their breach of their covenant, We cursed them, and made their hearts grow hard; they change the words from their (right) places and forget a good part of the message that was sent them, nor wilt thou cease to find them - barring a few - ever bent on (new) deceits: but forgive them, and overlook (their misdeeds): for God loveth those who are kind.
- 2:59. But the transgressors changed the word from that which had been given them; so We sent on the transgressors a plague from heaven, for that they infringed (Our command) repeatedly.
- 2:75. Can ye (o ye men of Faith) entertain the hope that they will believe in you? - Seeing that a party of them heard the Word of God, and perverted it knowingly after they understood it.
- 7:162. But the transgressors among them changed the word from that which had been given them so we sent on them a plague from heaven. For that they repeatedly transgressed.
According to some scholars on the field of Middle East studies, Muhammed's attachment to the Bible was doubtless born of a desire to give legitimacy to his own message, to stress the affinity of Islam to the two better established and more widely accepted monotheistic faiths, and most specifically to Judaism The "religion of Abraham" motif served that end, as did the Qur'an extensive citation of biblical material and Muhammed's acceptance of Jews as "People of the Book". But if that was Muhammed's intent, the situation was quite different for later Muslims. Their problem was to separate and distinguish temselves from those other two groups, to disengage themselves, so to spreak, from their prophetically bestowed biblical heritage. [1]
Origin of tahrif
The Qu'ran does not state explicitly how the alteration of the various biblical texts was done and when, but later commentaries give various explanations:
- Some relate it to the times of Moses.
- Later authors accuse Israelite Kings or Priests, especially Ezra the Scribe or Byzantine rulers.
- The accusation that Jewish contemporaries of Muhammed concealed Biblical material, e.g. the punishment (stoning) for adultery or the Biblical prediction of Mohammed’s prophecy is also considered to be tahrif. (see for example Ibn Hisham)
Accusation of forgery was also widespead polemical motif
The accusation of forgery was a widespread polemical motif, already in pre-Islamic times used by pagan, Samaritan and Christian authors to discredit their opponents and Scriptures. In the Medinan suras it is a central theme, apparently used to explain away the contradictions between the Bible and the Qu'ran and to establish that the coming of the Prophet and the rise of Islam had indeed been predicted in the "true" Bible.
Tahrif in the first centuries of Islam
In the first centuries of Islam, tahrif was not a central theme, though well-known. Early commentaries filled out the gaps left by the relevant Qu'ranic verses. Commentaries varies:
- Some explained that those who hide and distort Biblical verses are the Jewish ulama
- Others stated explicitly that the Jews do so in order to hide the fact that Mohammed was predicted in their Torah.
- Some explained that tahrif means that the Jews 'made the lawful forbidden and the forbidden lawful, and took the truth as falsehood and the falsehood as truth' (see for example al-Tabari)
Early refutation
The argument of tahrif is refuted already in an early polemical text attributed to the Byzantine Emperor Leo III [2] with the statement that Jews and Christians share the same, widely-known divine text, and that Ezra, the convenental architect of the Second Temple Judaism, was a pious, reliable person. The same arguments appear in later Jewish writings.
Ibn Hazm
The personality of Ezra becomes very involved in this discussion in the 4th/10th century, and especially with Ibn Hazm, who in his explicitly accused Ezra of having falsified and added interpolations into the Biblical text. He also arranged systematically and in scholarly detail the arguments against the authenticity of the Biblical text in the first (Hebrew Bible) and second part (New Testament) of his book: chronological and geographical inaccuracies and contradictions; theological impossibilities (anthropomorphic expressions, stories of fornication and whoredom, and the attributing of sins to prophets), as well as lack of reliable transmission ( tawatur ) of the text. He explains how the falsification of the Pentateuch could have taken place while there existed only one copy of the Pentateuch kept by the Aaronid priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Ibn Hazm’s impact on later Muslim polemics was great, and the themes which he raised with regard to tahrif and other polemical ideas updated only slightly by some later authors
Notes
^ A. Jeffery, Ghevond’s text of the correspondence between Umar II and Leo III, in Harvard Theol. Review, xxxvii [1944], 269-321
^
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1. (Feb., 1994), pp. 147-148.