In the Beginning, There Were the Holy Books

‘People of the Book’

Why then, does the Qur’an acknowledge Jews and Christians as fellow “People of the Book,” and as such, distinguish them from nonbelievers? Contrary to popular belief, “the Book” in question is not the Bible; it refers to a heavenly text, written by God, of which the Qur’an is the only perfect copy. According to the Qur’an, God mercifully revealed the contents of that book from time to time through the words of previous Biblical prophets and messengers—and also to other obscure figures not mentioned in the Bible. But in every case those who received his revelations—particularly the Jews and Christians—either consciously or inadvertently corrupted the original text, or seriously misinterpreted it. On this view, the Qur’an is not a new version of what is contained in the Bible, but what Jane McAuliffe calls a “re-revelation” that corrects the errors of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Readers of the Bible will find in the Qur’an familiar figures such as Abraham, Moses, David, John the Baptist, Jesus and even the Virgin Mary, who appears much more often than she does in the New Testament, and is the only woman mentioned in the Qur’an by name. But their stories differ radically from those found in the Bible. In the Qur’an all the previous prophets are Muslims.
Abraham (Ibrahim), for example, is recognized as the first Muslim because he chose to surrender to Allah rather than accept the religion of his father, who is not mentioned in the Bible. Neither is the Qur’anic story of how Abraham built the Kaaba in Mecca, Islam’s holiest shrine. Abraham’s importance in the Qur’an is central: just as the Hebrews trace their lineage to Abraham through Isaac, his son by Sarah, the Qur’an traces Arab genealogy—and Muhammad’s prophethood—back through Ishmael, a son Abraham had by Hagar.
The Qur’anic Moses (Musa) looks much like his Biblical counterpart. He confronts the pharaoh, works miracles and in the desert ascends the mountain to receive God’s commandments. But in the Qur’an there is no mention of the Passover rituals, and among the commandments one of the most important for Jews—keeping the Sabbath—is absent. Obedience to parents is stressed repeatedly, but as in the Qur’anic story of Abraham, disobedience is required when parents are polytheists.
As a prophet rejected by his own people, the Qur’anic Jesus (Isa) looks a lot like Muhammad, who was at first rejected by the people of Mecca. He preaches the word of God, works miracles, is persecuted and—what is new, foretells his successor: Muhammad. But the Qur’an rejects the Christian claim that he is the son of God as blasphemous and dismisses the doctrine of the Trinity as polytheistic. The Crucifixion is mentioned in passing, but according to the Qur’an Jesus mysteriously does not die. Instead, Allah rescues him to heaven from where he will descend in the last days and, like other prophets, be a witness for his community of believers at the Final Judgment.
What Muhammad may have known about the Bible and its prophets and where he got his information is a purely scholarly debate. The Qur’an itself says that Muhammad met a Jewish clan in Medina. He even had his followers bow to Jerusalem when praying until the Jews rejected him as prophet. Some scholars claim that Muhammad had in-laws who were Christian, and they believe he learned his fasting and other ascetic practices from observing desert monks. But Muslims reject any scholarly efforts to link the contents of the Qur’an to the Prophet’s human interactions. They cherish the tradition that Muhammad could not read or write as proof that the Qur’an is pure revelation. It is enough for them that Islam is the perfect religion and the Qur’an the perfect text.
That belief has not prevented Muslim tradition from transforming the Qur’an’s many obscure passages into powerful myths. By far the most significant is the story developed from one short verse: “Glory be to Him who carried His servant at night from the Holy Mosque to the Further Mosque, the precincts of which we have blessed, that we might show him some of our signs” (sura 17:1). From this Muslims have elaborated the story of Muhammad’s mystical nighttime journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he addresses an assembly of all previous prophets from Adam to Jesus. Yet another version of this story tells of his subsequent Ascension (mi’raj) from Jerusalem to the throne of Allah, receiving honors along the way from the prophets whom he has superseded. For Sufi mystics, Muhammad’s ascension is the paradigmatic story of the soul’s flight to God. For many Muslim traditionalists, however, the journey was a physical one. Either way, its geopolitical significance cannot be ignored because the spot where the ascension began is Islam’s third holiest shrine: the Dome of the Rock on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
In Islam’s current political conflicts with the West, the major problem is not the Muslims’ sacred book but how it is interpreted. Muslims everywhere are plagued by a crippling crisis of authority. The Qur’an envisioned a single Muslim community (the umma), but as subsequent history shows, Muslims have never resolved the tension between religious authority and Islamic governments. When Islam was a great medieval civilization, jurists learned in the Qur’an decided how to apply God’s words to changed historical circumstances. Their fatwas (opinions) settled disputes. But in today’s Islamic states, authoritative religious voices do not command widespread respect. Like freewheeling fundamentalists of every religious stripe, any Muslim with an agenda now feels free to cite the Qur’an in his support. Osama bin Laden is only the most dangerous and obvious example.

Deciphering Meanings

But the Qur’an has its moderate interpreters as well. Since September 11, brave voices scattered across the Middle East have condemned the terrorist acts of killing civilians and judged suicide bombing contrary to the teaching of the Qur’an. Returning to the text itself, other scholars have found verses showing that Allah created diverse peoples and cultures for a purpose and therefore intended that the world remain pluralistic in religion as well. ” The Qur’an,” argues Muslim philosopher Jawat Said of the Al-Azhar Institute in Cairo, “gives support and encouragement to sustain the messengers of reform who face difficult obstacles.”
America, too, has a core of immigrant and second-generation Muslim scholars who have experienced firsthand the benefits of democracy, free speech and the Bill of Rights. They think the Qur’an is open to interpretations that can embrace these ideals for Islamic states as well. Islam even has feminists like Azizah Y. al-Hibri of the University of Richmond Law School, who are laying the legal groundwork for women’s rights through a careful reconsideration of the Qur’an and its classic commentators.
It is precisely here that the Bible and the Qur’an find their real kinship. As divine revelation, each book says much more than what a literal reading can possibly capture. To say that God is one, as both the Qur’an and the Bible insist, is also to say that God’s wisdom is unfathomable. As the Prophet himself insisted, God reveals himself through signs whose meanings need to be deciphered. Here, it would seem, lie the promising seeds of religious reconciliation. Humility, not bravado, is the universal posture of anyone who dares to plumb the mind of God and seek to do his will.