The Quranic Criterion for the Falsehood or Truth of the People of the Book

Islam’s rational, scholarly, and fair discourse on this matter differs from the biased statements of Jews and Christians. The Jews say: Christians and Muslims are absolutely in falsehood. The Christians say: Jews and Muslims are absolutely in falsehood_—_even if they act according to their heavenly book. However, Islam does not absolutely judge Judaism as false and say “the Jews are not on anything,” nor does it absolutely consider Christianity as false and say “the Christians are not on anything.” Rather, it says: A Jew without acting upon the original and unaltered Torah is in falsehood, and with acting upon it is on the truth, because the original and unaltered Torah is truth. And a Christian without acting upon the original and unaltered Gospel is in falsehood, and with acting upon it is on the truth, because the original Gospel is truth: “Say, ‘O People of the Scripture, you are [standing] on nothing until you uphold [the law of] the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord’”(430). Therefore, it praises a group of the People of the Book favorably: “Among the People of the Scripture is an upright community; they recite the verses of God”(431).

The reason why the Qur’an considers Jews and Christians to be on the truth if they revive and act upon the Torah and Gospel is that if someone revives the original and unaltered Torah and Gospel, they will inevitably accept Islam. This is because the characteristics and attributes of the Noble Prophet of Islam and the believers in him are clearly mentioned in the Old and New Testaments: “Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered prophet, whom they find written in what they have of the Torah and the Gospel”(432), “This is their description in the Torah and their description in the Gospel: like a plant…”(433). The Jewish and Christian scholars knew that Prophet with all his personal characteristics: “Those to whom We have given the Scripture recognize him as they recognize their own sons. But indeed, a party of them conceal the truth while they know [it]”(434).

These verses, which demand the People of the Book to bring forth their heavenly book from monasteries and churches and recite it publicly if they are truthful in their claims, in order to compel them to the truth: “So bring the Torah and recite it, if you should be truthful”(435), indicate that many of the distortions in the Torah and Gospel occurred after the emergence of Islam, although the original distortion and polytheism entered Judaism and Christianity after the People of the Book’s connection with their prophets was severed.

It is worth noting that the noble verse “Say, ‘O People of the Scripture, you are [standing] on nothing until you uphold [the law of] the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord’”(436) has also been interpreted in another way. According to this interpretation, the phrase “you are [standing] on nothing” (lastum ʿalā shayʾ), addressed to the Jews and Christians, means: O People of the Book, you have no intellectual foundation or ideological support based on monotheism that would enable you to establish the Torah and Gospel and preserve your religion. Only someone who is not baseless and suspended, but firmly established on a solid foundation, can carry a heavy burden. The dualistic belief of the Jews: “Ezra is the son of God”(437), and the trinitarian belief of the Christians: “…the third of three”(438) are not compatible with bearing the weighty burden of monotheism.

If the aforementioned noble verse is interpreted in this way_—as ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī has accepted(439)—_the previous understanding, which was accompanied by admonition and somewhat reproachful in tone, should be reconsidered. The investigation of this issue will be presented in the discussion of that very verse.