Motke: Tahrif and what is it in the Qur'an

Submitted by dhimmi no more, Jun 23, 2019 at 06:51

Hi Motke,

Check Wansbrough's understanding of what is really meant by al-Tahrif in the Islamic literary tradition in Quranic Studies, and check his "Halakhic Exegesis" page 170-202.

Read the original Arabic and Hebrew in the text. I'm sure you will not need translations for the Hebrew texts. If you need to check translations of the Arabic texts, Wansbrough provides translations to English at the end of the book Avoid reading translations by Muslims because they are very tendentious and full of mistakes as well as lies

And as anything in Islam, it is very confusing. However, it comes down to what al-Tabari says in his exegesis about the subject of corruption and the tradition belief that Biblical corruption was:

1. Textual alteration as you shall see later

2. Exegetical error

In Q5:13 it says

Oh it says: يحرفون الكلم عن مواضعه

This can be rendered as: They corrupt (change) the words from their places

This means the following:

1. Allah defines التحريف or (textual) corruption as changing the words from their places

2. But here is the real disaster: Qur'an سورة العلق is supposed to be the first revealed sura but now it is Sura 96 and it is not the first Sura in the Qur'an. This means that the author of the Qur'an is saying that the Qur'an is a corrupted book!

3. Your so called Prophet in a famous hadith said (and this is from an old post of mine):

This is a famous hadith from and here is the text in Arabic from سنن ابي داود 4449

قال أتى نفر من يهود فدعوا رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم إلى القف فأتاهم في بيت المدراس فقالوا يا أبا القاسم إن رجلا منا زنى بامرأة فاحكم بينهم فوضعوا لرسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم وسادة فجلس عليها ثم قال بالتوراة فأتي بها فنزع الوسادة من تحته فوضع التوراة عليها ثم قال آمنت بك وبمن أنزلك ثم قال ائتوني بأعلمكم فأتي بفتى شاب ثم ذكر قصة الرجم نحو حديث مالك عن نافع

Or; He said that a few Jews came to the messenger of Allah (Muhammad) May Allah pray upon him and salute to the Qaf and met them in the house of Midrash and they (the Jews said) O Abul Qasim there is a man that fornicated with a woman then rule between them, they put a cushion for the messenger of Allah may Allah pray upon him, He (Muhammad) sat on the cushion then he told me bring me the Tawrat they brought it he pulled the cushion that he was sitting on it and placed the Tawrat on top of it

Then Muhammad said: آمنت بك or I believed in you (the Turat) and وبمن انزلك and with who revealed you (YHWH)

This means that:

1. It means that the Bible is not corrupted at least during the time of Muhammad

2. Or Muhammad was a fool and he was swearing on a corrupted text

al-Tabari defines التحريف as تبديل also as تحويل not wrong exegesis as we are told later on

In Wansbrough's second book "Sectarian Milieu" he mentions that Maimonides wrote in Judeo-Arabic used the word 'Ateq (it is not an Arabic word) which is understood as: تبديل or تحويل

al-mufasereen realized the disaster here because the Qur'an says that Allah is the author of the Tawrat wa al-Injil then it says that no one can change the words of Allah then it says but the Jews and Christians corrupted their books. However no doubt that the word مواضعه in the verse means their places and it has nothing to do with exegesis

The moral of the story: Tahrif in the Qur'an means moving verses from one place to another place and "exegetical error" is really a way out of this Quranic disaster

Here is a link to Tafsir al-Tabari of Q5:13

http://quran.ksu.edu.sa/tafseer/tabary/sura5-aya13.html

BTW: What is the etymology of the Israeli word Sabich (yes the sandwich)?

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