Nicolai Sinai & the Islamic Dilemma

Sam Shamoun

3 Nov 2026

I quote from Nicolai Sinai’s Key Terms of the Qur'an: A Critical Dictionary, published by Princeton University Press in 2023. All bolded, underlined emphasis is mine.

ahl al-kitāb | the scripture-owners, the (previous) recipients of scripture Further vocabulary discussed: kitāb | scripture al-tawrāh | the Torah al-injīl | the Gospel, the Christian Bible dhikr | (hortatory) reminder, reminding exhortation āmana intr. | to be a believer alladhīna āmanū, al-muʾminūn pl. | the believers ashraka intr. (bi-) | to be an associator, to venerate associate deities, to attribute associates to God alladhīna ashrakū, al-mushrikūn pl. | the associators kafara intr. | to be a repudiator alladhīna kafarū, al-kāﬁrūn, al-kuﬀār pl. | the repudiators al-yahūd, alladhīna hādū pl. | the Jews al-naṣārā pl. | the Christians waritha | to inherit s.th. awratha ditr. | to bequeath s.th. to s.o. shakk murīb | disquieting doubt al-ummiyyūn pl. | the scriptureless, those not hitherto endowed with scriptural revelation katama tr. | to conceal s.th. akhfā tr. | to hide s.th. nabadha tr. | to cast s.th. akhraja tr. | to expel s.o., to drive s.o. out muqtaṣid | moderate, middling

Overview. In line with an argument by Saqib Hussain, the expression ahl al-kitāb—usually translated as “the people of the scripture” in English—is best rendered simply as “scripture-owners” or “recipients of the scripture.”¹⁷⁹ The Medinan surahs frequently employ ahl al-kitāb and the synonymous periphrasis “those who were given the scripture” (alladhīna ūtū l-kitāba) as umbrella terms referring to Jews and Christians in their capacity as the inheritors of earlier scriptural revelations, with all the concomitant commonalities this might involve (such as the recitation of scripture in prayer and worship, and exegetical recourse to scripture in order to ground doctrinal truth-claims). Only one occurrence of the term ahl al-kitāb is found in a Meccan surah (Q 29:46), and the respective verse is very likely a Medinan insertion (see the excursus below). Nonetheless, as shown below, the use of ahl al-kitāb in Medinan surahs does need to be placed against the background of terminological developments in the Meccan portions of the Qur’anic corpus. While the concept of scripture is well attested in pre-Qur’anic traditions, there appears to be no pre-Qur’anic antecedent speciﬁcally for the term “scripture-owners” (Kü nstlinger 1928, 246). Hence, the expression ahl al-kitāb may well be a Qur’anic coinage, drawing on the Qur’an’s complex understanding of the category of scripture (→ kitāb).

As Devin Stewart points out, the Qur’an does not apply the expression ahl al-kitāb to the Qur’anic believers, despite the fact that there are passages in which the Qur’an itself is called a kitāb (Stewart 2021, 59; e.g., Q 2:89, 6:92, 46:12). This could indicate that the ahl al-kitāb are not just possessors of scripture in general—which is, after all, a category that ought to include the Qur’anic community alongside Jews and Christians—but rather that the ahl al-kitāb are to be understood as the bearers of the Mosaic scripture in particular, in line with Qur’anic references to “the scripture brought by Moses” (Q 6:91: al-kitāb alladhī jāʾa bihi mūsā) or “the scripture of Moses” (Q 11:17, 46:12: kitāb mūsā). Stewart accordingly recommends that ahl al-kitāb be translated as “the people of the Bible.” Yet one should perhaps be cautious to attribute to the Qur’an the seemingly self-evident assumption that Jews and Christians share a substantial part of their scriptural canon, in the form of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament or, Qur’anically speaking, “the scripture brought by Moses.”¹⁸⁰ Rather, as shown elsewhere, Q 5:43–44.47 may be be read as implying that Jews subscribe to the Torah (→ al-tawrāh) while Christians subscribe only to the → injīl, which latter text is conceivably TO BE EQUATED WITH THE CHRISTIAN VERSION OF THE BIBLE AS A WHOLE. The present book therefore retains the customary understanding that in the expression ahl al-kitāb the second element al-kitāb does not mean the Bible in particular but either has a generic sense (“scripture” as a general category) or, which I ﬁnd more likely, refers to the celestial scripture that forms the archetype of earthly scriptures (see under → kitāb). As for the fact that the Qur’anic believers are never included in the category of ahl al-kitāb, it will be suggested that this is satisfactorily explicable by positing that the phrase ahl al-kitāb functions as an abbreviation of temporally indexed expressions such as “those to whom the scripture was given beforehand” (Q 57:16: lladhīna ūtū l-kitāba min qablu), “those to whom we gave the scripture before it” (Q 28:52: alladhīna ātaynāhumu l-kitāba min qablihi), and “those who recite the scripture before you^S ” (Q 10:94: alladhīna yaqraʾūna l-kitāba min qablika). (Pp. 108-110)

al-injīl | the Gospel (corresponding either to the New Testament or to the Christian Bible in its entirety)

Etymology and overview of Qur’anic usage. The word injīl stems from Greek euangelion, probably not through Syriac but via Ethiopic wangel, which is bisyllabic like the Arabic term (NB 47; KU 71; CQ 24; FVQ 71–72). The name injīl is attested in an Arabic poem on the creation of the world attributed to the pre-Islamic Christian poet ʿAdī ibn Zayd of al-Ḥīrah (al-Muʿaybid 1965, no. 103:17). Doubts have been raised about the particular verse in question on account of the unlikelihood that a Mesopotamian Christian would have used an Ethiopic loanword for his holy scripture (KU 71 and Toral-Niehoﬀ 2008, 248–249). Nonetheless, at least one scholar deems it possible that the word entered Arabic at an early date and was then transmitted from the Arabian Peninsula to al-Ḥīrah (Dmitriev 2010, 376). For Qur’anic injīl there is also the variant reading anjīl, ascribed to al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, which is even more similar to Ethiopic wangel (MQ 1:462–463; MQQ 2:6).¹⁷⁰ This vocalisation was criticised for not conforming to Arabic morphology, suggesting that anjīl is an earlier (since less Arabised) form of the word. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that the word was pronounced anjīl by Muhammad and his followers, who may already have used injīl.

Like the Torah (→ al-tawrāh), the injīl is exclusively mentioned in Medinan verses; the two are standardly paired (Q 3:3.48.65, 5:66.68.110, 7:157, and 9:111; see also 48:29).¹⁷¹The Qur’an depicts the injīl as a scripture that God “gave” to Jesus (Q 5:46, 57:27), just as Moses or David, among others, were also “given” revelatory texts (e.g., Q 2:53.87, 4:163, 17:55). The injīl’s divine origin is furthermore expressed by statements to the eﬀect that God “taught” it to Jesus (Q 3:48, 5:110) or that he “sent down” the injīl and the Torah (Q 3:3.65), just as the Qur’anic revelations were “sent down” (→ nazzala). According to Q 5:46, the injīl contains “guidance” (hudā) and “light” (nūr) as well as “admonition (mawʿiẓah) for the God-fearing” (see Schmid 2021, 340–341). Similar language is applied both to the Torah, which is said to provide guidance and light (Q 5:44, 6:91), and to the revelations received by Muhammad (see Q 4:174, 5:15, 7:157, 42:52, 64:8 on light, and 3:138, 10:57, 11:120, and 24:34 on admonition), bearing out the fundamental aﬃnity that the Qur’an discerns between all three texts (see Q 3:3 as well as 9:111, brieﬂy discussed below). By way of a further characterisation of the injīl, the phrase “conﬁrming (muṣaddiq; → ṣaddaqa) what precedes me/him/it of the Torah” (muṣaddiqan li-mā bayna yadayya/yadayhi mina l-tawrāti), which thrice ﬁgures as an epithet of Jesus (Q 3:50, 5:46, 61:6), is once applied to the injīl in particular (Q 5:46). This suggests that the injīl enshrines Jesus’s message of far-reaching endorsement of the Torah. One may suppose that the Qur’anic injīl is additionally understood to back Jesus’s abolition of some of the prohibitions that God had previously imposed on the Israelites (Q 3:50). The content of the injīl would thus seem to combine a reaﬃrmation of the Torah’s teachings with certain divinely authorised adjustments.¹⁷² The Qur’anic revelations and Muhammad, too, are said to conﬁrm “what precedes it” (e.g., Q 6:92) or “what is with” the Israelites (e.g., Q 2:41.89.91.101; see under → ṣaddaqa), and some passages make it clear that the scripture “conﬁrmed” by the Qur’an is the scripture vouchsafed to Moses (Q 6:91–92, 46:12.30). Thus, the injīl appears to relate to the Torah in the same way in which the Qur’an relates to the Torah: BOTH the Qur’an and the injīl ARE Torah-CONFIRMING SCRIPTURES.¹⁷³

The contents of the injīl. In light of its etymology, it is customary to translate al-injīl as “the Gospel.” Yet it has to be stressed that the Qur’an does not exhibit any palpable sense that the injīl narrates the life of Jesus and imparts the “good news” of his ministry: Jesus receives the injīl rather than constituting its main subject matter. Moreover, the Qur’an speaks of one injīl rather than four, in light of which van Reeth has argued that the Qur’anic injīl is to be identiﬁed with the Diatessaron, an early Christian harmonisation of the canonical gospels (van Reeth 2004). One verse, Q 5:47, calls upon the “owners of the injīl”—i.e., the Christians—to “adjudicate according to what God has sent down therein” (wa-l-yaḥkum ahlu l-injīli bi-mā anzala llāhu fīhi). This implies that the injīl can serve as a basis for concrete rulings like the Torah (Q 5:43–45) and the Qur’an (Q 5:48–50). It must accordingly have some legislative content. The same impression emerges from Q 5:66.68, calling the “scripture-owners” to “perform” or “observe” (verb: aqāma) “the Torah and the injīl and what was sent down to them from their Lord.”¹⁷⁴ Incidentally, aqāma in the sense of “to perform” or “to observe” normally takes as its object prayer (al-ṣalāh; e.g., Q 5:12.55, 20:14, 27:3, 29:45, 42:38), which likely reﬂects Syriac phraseology (see under → ṣallā), though Q 42:13 has aqāma l-dīn, “to observe religious worship (→ dīn² ).” It seems quite likely that the phrase “to observe the Torah and the injīl” in Q 5:66.68 is derived from this far more widespread Qur’anic use.¹⁷⁵

More detailed indications of the content of the injīl are conﬁned to three passages. First, Q 7:157, probably a Medinan insertion (→ ummī), claims that both the Torah and the injīl prophesy the future appearance of a “prophet of the scriptureless,” namely, Muhammad.¹⁷⁶ Secondly, Q 9:111 maintains that the Torah and the injīl, as well as the Qur’an, promise paradise to those who give their lives and possession by “ﬁghting on God’s path” and “killing and being killed.” Although this claim does not have an explicit New Testamental equivalent, it does resonate with late antique Christian invocations of the virtue of militant zeal on behalf of God, which are in turn rooted in the Hebrew Bible (HCI 192–196). Thirdly, according to Q 48:29 the injīl contains a similitude (→ mathal) for Muhammad’s followers comparing them to a seed growing into a strong plant. This is the only statement about the content of the injīl that distinguishes the injīl from the Torah, which allegedly contains a diﬀerent similitude: Muhammad’s followers bear the “trace of prostration” on their faces. The agricultural character of the ﬁrst image, and the motif of the growing seed in particular, are reminiscent of some of the parables that are attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, even if the canonical Gospels do not contain any precise counterpart of the Qur’anic mathal (cf. Matt 13:8, as per Buhl 1924a, 5, and Mark 4:27–28, as per CQ 165 and BEQ 457; see also Rudolph 1922, 19).

The injīl = the Christian Bible? The preceding suggests that in seeking to circumscribe which textual corpus the Qur’anic injīl might be referring to, we should begin by explicitly letting go of any assumption that Qur’anic statements about the contents of the injīl must map onto a speciﬁc and identiﬁable literary work, whether that be the New Testament Gospels or the Diatessaron. Instead, one does well to allow that Qur’anic statements about the injīl are quite likely to reﬂect the tendency of many Jews and Christians throughout the ages to assume that their scriptural canon contains all sorts of later interpretations and elaborations that are assumed to be normative but whose anchoring in the text of scripture is at most tenuous. For example, it is possible that Q 5:32 presents a quotation from the Mishnah as being contained in the → tawrāh; and a verse like Q 9:111 (see above) similarly suggests that the Qur’an might project onto the injīl (or rather follow the tendency of its addressees to project onto the injīl) elements of later Christian tradition.

It is also clear that in Qur’anic usage, the injīl—whatever its etymology cannot simply be equated with the New Testamental Gospels, since the injīl is conceived as a unitary scripture given to Jesus rather than bearing testimony to his life and salviﬁc death. Accordingly, despite the prevalent translation of al-injīl as “the Gospel,” it would perhaps be more apposite to think of the injīl as corresponding to the entire New Testament—though, again, without inferring from this that Qur’anic statements about the contents of the injīl must map onto speciﬁc New Testamental passages. The proposal that the injīl corresponds, roughly, to the New Testament and what an average Christian contemporary of the Qur’an might have assumed it to contain would certainly resonate with the Qur’an’s frequent pairing of “the Torah and the injīl,” which is apt to recall the way in which Christians speak of the Old and New Testaments as a bipartite unity. Nonetheless, the Qur’an does not actually provide clear evidence that it deems the Christians to possess a two-part scriptural canon made up of the Torah and the injīl.¹⁷⁷ Instead, the Torah is expressly associated only with the Israelites or the Jews (Q 3:93, 5:43–44; see also 62:5, followed by an address of the Jews in 62:6); and even though Jesus is reported to have “conﬁrmed” the Torah (Q 3:50, 5:46, 61:6) or to have been “taught” the Torah together with the injīl (Q 3:48: wa-yuʿallimuhu lkitāba wa-l-ḥikmata wa-l-tawrāta wa-l-injīl; 5:110: wa-idh ʿallamtuka lkitāba wa-l-ḥikmata wa-l-tawrāta wa-l-injīla), the Christians as a contemporary collective are nowhere in the Qur’an said to subscribe to both the Torah and the injīl. Rather, Q 5:47 merely calls them “the owners of the injīl.”

It is of course conceivable that the phrase “the owners of the injīl” is simply meant to highlight the distinguishing mark between the Jewish scriptural canon and the Christian one, consisting as it does in the Christian acceptance of a supplementary corpus of scriptural material in addition to the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. But given the Qur’anic lack of support for associating the Christians with the tawrāh, it is equally possible that the expression “the owners of the injīl” in fact circumscribes the full extent of the Christian canon, in which case the injīl would need to be equated not with the New Testament BUT RATHER WITH THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE IN ITS ENTIRETY. From this perspective, even though the injīl clearly postdates the Torah, we might think of it not as a sort of sequel to the Torah, to be conjoined with it into a bipartite Christian canon, but rather as an updated re-edition of the Israelite scripture: it reprises at least parts of the Israelite Torah, just as the Qur’an reprises certain narratives and other content from the Hebrew Bible, yet it also comprises a degree of divinely mandated supplementation and revision of the Torah, given that Jesus is said to have abrogated certain previous Israelite prohibitions (Q 3:50). On this interpretation, the scriptural corpus of the Qur’anic Christians will be the injīl alone, even if the latter in some way replicates or reformulates the Torah. This way of accounting for the relationship between the Torah and the injīl would elegantly accommodate both the fact that Q 7:157 and 9:111 imply the Torah and the injīl to have some parallel content and the fact that Q 48:29 entails the simultaneous existence of variant content.¹⁷⁸ In fact, Q 9:111 is of particular interest in so far as it ascribes parallel content not only to the Torah and the injīl but also to the Qur’an. This reinforces the conjecture that we ought to understand the injīl to constitute not merely one wing of the Christian canon but rather its totality, just as the emergent scriptural canon of the Qur’anic community was presumably limited to the revelations conveyed by Muhammad rather than including the Torah as well. The hypothesis just proposed would also, of course, explain why Q 5:47 calls the Christians “the owners of the injīl” and why the same verse assumes the injīl to provide a basis for adjudication (cf. also Q 5:66.68), although these latter two statements by themselves are not incompatible with identifying the injīl only with the New Testament or parts thereof.

If the conjecture just formulated is correct, then the Qur’an’s frequent pairing of “the Torah and the injīl” should be understood to specify the irreducibly dual shape in which the “scripture” (→ kitāb) that God has “sent down before” the Qur’an (Q 4:136: al-kitāb alladhī anzala min qablu) is available in the Qur’an’s own time, namely, as either the Jewish Bible or the Christian one. Of course, according to Q 3:48 and 5:110 Jesus himself was taught both the Torah and the injīl, in addition to “the scripture” presumably the celestial scripture on which both the Torah and the injīl are based (see under → kitāb)—and “wisdom” (→ al-ḥikmah). Yet it does not follow from this that the same familiarity with the Bible in duplicate, as it were, must apply to Jesus’s Christian followers as well. Rather, Jews and Christians qualify as “scripture-owners” (→ ˻ahl al-kitāb) because depending on their confessional aﬃliation they have access to the celestial scripture either in the form of the Torah (i.e., the original “scripture of Moses,” kitāb mūsā; Q 11:17, 46:12) or in the form of the injīl (i.e., the Torah’s divinely mandated re-edition as conveyed to Jesus). When Q 5:66.68 calls on the “scripture-owners” to “observe (aqāma) the tawrāh and the injīl and what was sent down to them / to you^p from their/your Lord,” therefore, this is best read in a partly disjunctive sense: Jews are challenged to apply the Torah and Christians the injīl, while both are probably also obliged to heed the Qur’anic dispensation (“what was sent down to them from their Lord”). (Pp. 103-107)

al-tawrāh | the Torah

The tawrāh as characterised in Q 5:43–45. The word tawrāh, archaically spelled,¹⁶ is obviously descended from Hebrew tôrâ. It appears exclusively in Medinan verses (JPND 193–194; KU 70–71; FVQ 95–96), like references to the → injīl or “Gospel.” The most informative Qur’anic characterisation of the tawrāh’s function and content is found in Q 5:43–45. Verse 43 declares, inter alia, that the tawrāh contains “God’s judgement” (fīhā ḥukmu llāhi). This is further elucidated in v. 44: God “sent down” the tawrāh, which contains “guidance and light” (cf. v. 46, where the same qualiﬁcation is applied to the Gospel) and “by which” (bihi) the “prophets” (al-nabiyyūn) who had “surrendered themselves” to God “judged” (yaḥkumu) the Jews, as did the “rabbis” (al-rabbāniyyūn) and the “scholars” (al-aḥbār; on this term and the preceding one, see under → al-yahūd), “by that part of God’s scripture (→ kitāb) with which they had been entrusted and to which they were witnesses.”¹⁷ Although the verse is grammatically complex, it presents the tawrāh primarily as the basis for adjudication, a function that v. 47 extends to the “Gospel,” thereby suggesting a considerable functional similarity between the tawrāh and the injīl.

This adjudicatory role of the tawrāh is further accentuated by the fact that Q 5:45 oﬀers an explicit quotation from it. In the tawrāh, the divine voice declares, “we have imposed upon them: a life for a life (anna l-nafsa bi-lnafsi), an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth, and wounds entail retaliation (wa-l-jurūḥa qiṣāṣun); but if someone foregoes it as an act of charity (fa-man taṣaddaqa bihi), it will be an act of atonement (→ kaﬀārah) for him.” This amounts to a reasonably accurate restatement of the Biblical principle of talion (Exod 21:24–25; Lev 24:1920; Deut 19:21), with an added ﬂourish recommending clemency that could either be intended to belong to the preceding quotation or, alternatively, to be a Qur’anic supplement. The quotation is followed by a concluding appeal to “judge by what God has sent down” that parallels the end of vv. 44 and 47 (wa-man lam yaḥkum bi-mā anzala llāhu fa-ulāʾika hum …). Interestingly, the same formula of citation introducing the Biblical law of talion in Q 5:45 —katabnā ʿalā, “we have imposed upon …”—also appears in an earlier verse of the same surahs, in Q 5:32 (katabnā ʿalā banī isrāʾīla annahu …), where it precedes a quotation from the Mishnah (m. Sanh. 4:5; see WMJA 102–103, KU 71, and BEQ 459). Unlike v. 45, this earlier passage does not reference the source document from which the quotation in question is supposed to be taken. Given that the Qur’an does not explicitly mention any rabbinic works, such as the Mishnah or the Talmud—in contrast to Qur’anic allusions to the Torah or the “Gospel” (injīl)—this opens up the possibility that at least aspects of the way in which Biblical law was elaborated and interpreted in post-Biblical rabbinic tradition and literature are here retrojected onto the Torah itself (cf. BEḲ 65), the proper role of the “rabbis” and “scholars” being conﬁned to applying the Torah.¹⁸

Overall, Q 5:43–45 presents the tawrāh as a revelatory corpus that is based on the celestial scripture (→ kitāb) and lends itself to quasi-legal application, a use that was initially overseen by the Israelite prophets and then by the scholars who succeeded them. In keeping with Biblical salvation history, the Qur’an accordingly assumes the opposite of the modern critical slogan lex post prophetas (approximately, “pentateuchal law is later than the Bible’s literary prophets”). This understanding of the tawrāh’s adjudicatory role is also reﬂected later on in Surah 5, when the “scripture-owners” are urged to “observe (aqāma) the tawrāh and the injīl” (Q 5:66.68). A ﬁnal point to note about Q 5:43–45 is the connection between the Torah and the Jews (see the reference to alladhīna hādū in 5:41.44). This illustrates that the Qur’an seems to assume that the tawrāh is the scripture of the Jews in particular rather than also constituting part of the Christian canon (see under → injīl).

Further references to the tawrāh outside Surah 5. The explicit coupling of “the tawrāh and the injīl” seen in Q 5:66.68 is encountered in other passages as well, such as Q 3:3, declaring that God has “sent down the tawrāh and the injīl” (for further references, see under → injīl). Both the tawrāh and the injīl, it is claimed, foretell the appearance of Muhammad (Q 7:157) and promise eschatological reward in return for ﬁghting on God’s path (Q 9:111), and both contain descriptions, albeit variant ones, of the mettle of Muhammad’s followers (Q 48:29; see in more detail under → injīl). As far as statements that are speciﬁc to the tawrāh are concerned, Q 3:50 may be read as implying that the tawrāh includes some prohibitions that were subsequently abolished by Jesus. Some Jewish dietary prohibitions, however, are apparently considered to lack any support in the Torah at all. Thus, Q 3:93 reports that “all food was permitted to the Israelites, except what Israel prohibited to himself (illā mā ḥarrama isrāʾīlu ʿalā nafsihi), before the Torah was sent down” (see also under → isrāʾīl and → ḥarrama). The verse continues by challenging the addressees—presumably the Jews or Israelites to “bring^p the tawrāh and recite it, if you speak the truth,” which is best understood as a gauntlet thrown down to contemporary Jews to demonstrate that certain unspeciﬁed food taboos do in fact rest on scriptural support rather than being human constructs. The following verse, Q 3:94, utters a threat against those who would “fabricate lies against God,” that is, who falsely pretend that certain non-scriptural prohibitions are based on divine revelation.

Finally, Q 62:5 develops a similitude (→ mathal) attacking the contemporary bearers of the Torah: “A similitude for those who have been made to carry the tawrāh and then failed to carry it (alladhīna ḥummilū ltawrāta thumma lam yaḥmilūhā) is that they are like a donkey carrying tomes.” In keeping with the Qur’an’s linking of the tawrāh with the Jews in particular, this image precedes a direct address to the Jews, in Q 62:6, that criticises them for their alleged claim to be specially favoured by God (in zaʿamtum annakum awliyāʾu li-llāhi min dūni l-nāsi). In the fashion of Christian anti-Jewish polemics, the Qur’an’s Jewish interlocutors are here charged with possessing a revealed scripture yet failing to comprehend and live up to it. The image of the burden-carrying donkey is one that is also present in rabbinic discourse, although with a positive signiﬁcance (WMJA 90; BEQ 441; Mazuz 2016, 295). Thus, b. ʿAbod. Zar. 5b states: “One should always apply oneself to the words of the Torah like an ox to a yoke and a donkey to a burden.” The Qur’anic mathal pointedly subverts the original sense of this comparison, thereby turning an element of Jewish tradition against its bearers, a technique also found elsewhere in the Qur’an (see under → samiʿa). The passage conveys a sense of the polemical energy that was necessary in order to elevate Muhammad’s prophetic status over the religious prestige accruing to the Jews by virtue of their possession of, and exegetical expertise in, the tawrāh.

Is the tawrāh identical with the Pentateuch? In line with an argument made in the entry on → injīl, it would not be indefensible to contemplate rendering al-tawrāh simply as “Jewish scripture” and al-injīl as “Christian scripture.” Nonetheless, the conventional translation of tawrāh as “Torah” is probably too entrenched and too etymologically compelling in order to brook revision. But even if one chooses to translate tawrāh as “Torah,” one must certainly not make the automatic inference that the tawrāh can without further ado be identiﬁed with the Pentateuch (Goudarzi 2018, 219–225). The Qur’an repeatedly says that God “gave Moses the scripture” (Q 2:53.87, 6:154, 11:110, 17:2, 23:49, 25:35, 28:43, 32:23, 41:45: ātaynā mūsā lkitāba) and mentions “the scripture of Moses” (kitāb mūsā; Q 11:17, 46:12) or “the scripture brought by Moses” (Q 6:91: al-kitāb alladhī jāʾa bihi mūsā). YET IT IS NEVER UNEQUIVOCALLY STATED THAT MOSES RECEIVED THE tawrāh IN PARTICULAR. This observation leads Mohsen Goudarzi to suggest “that at least in some passages al-tawrāh may refer to the entirety of Israelite prophetic teachings” (Goudarzi 2018, 224), in line with Hirschfeld’s suggestion that the Qur’anic concept of the tawrāh INCLUDES THE MISHNAH AND THE TALMUD (BEḲ 65).

The Qur’an does, however, in two places mention the “scripture of Moses” (kitāb mūsā; see Q 11:17 and 46:12), and one of these goes on to refer to the Qur’an as a “conﬁrming scripture” (Q 46:12: wa-hādhā kitābun muṣaddiqun), resembling the aﬃrmation in Q 3:3 that the scripture revealed to Muhammad “conﬁrms” the Torah and the Gospel. A third passage, Q 6:91, evokes “the scripture brought by Moses as light and guidance (nūran wa-hudan) for the people,” thus overlapping with Q 5:44, according to which the Torah contained “guidance and light” (see also 5:46, saying the same about the Gospel). Q 6:92 then continues, like 46:12, by insisting that “this” is a “scripture” that “conﬁrms what precedes it” (muṣaddiqu lladhī bayna yadayhi). There is at least circumstantial evidence, therefore, that the “scripture of Moses” and the tawrāh are one and the same entity. This does not, of course, show that the understanding of the tawrāh’s content that can be gleaned from the Qur’an faithfully agrees with the transmitted text of the Pentateuch. Most likely, the Qur’anic understanding of what is in the Torah reﬂects the fact that many if not most of Muhammad’s addressees would have derived their notions about Jewish and Christian scripture from oral tradition rather than close textual study. (Pp. 166-168)

ṣadaqa ditr. | to be sincere to s.o. in s.th., to fulﬁl s.th. to s.o.

→ ṣaddaqa

ṣaddaqa intr. bi- | to hold s.th. true, to declare s.th. to be true, to believe in s.th.

ṣaddaqa intr. | to be a believer ṣaddaqa tr. | to fulﬁl s.th., to make s.th. come true; to conﬁrm or corroborate s.th. or s.o. muṣaddiq | conﬁrming taṣdīq | conﬁrmation

Further vocabulary discussed: kadhdhaba intr. bi- | to dismiss s.th. as a lie āmana intr. bi- | to believe in s.th. kitāb | scripture nazzala, anzala tr. | to send s.th. down, to bring s.th. down al-tawrāh | the Torah muhaymin (or muhayman) ʿalā | entrusted with authority over s.th. ḥarrafa al-kalima ʿan mawāḍiʿihi | to shift words from their places bayyana tr./intr. (li-) | to clarify s.th. (to s.o.), to make things clear (to s.o.) al-injīl | the Gospel or the Christian Bible ṣadaqa ditr. | to be sincere to s.o. in s.th., to fulﬁl s.th. to s.o.

The present entry examines the second-form verb ṣaddaqa and the notions of belief and conﬁrmation conveyed by it. The ﬁfth-form verb taṣaddaqa, “to be charitable, to make gifts of charity,” is treated under → ṣadaqah.

Use in the Meccan Qur’an. Ṣaddaqa bi- is the antonym of → kadhdhaba bi-, “to dismiss s.th. as a lie” (see Q 75:31–32, 92:6.9). In the early Meccan surahs, ṣaddaqa bi- (Q 70:26, 92:6) plays the same semantic role that subsequently devolves on → āmana bi-, “to believe in s.th.,” and the early Meccan Qur’an also attests to a corresponding absolute employment of ṣaddaqa without accusative object, “to be a believer” (Q 37:52, 75:31, 56:57; CQ 59; Ahrens 1935, 110–111; Ringgren 1951, 10–11). Isolated occurrences of ṣaddaqa bi-, “to hold s.th. true, to declare s.th. to be true,” persist as late as Q 66:12 (see also 39:33). At the same time, as noted by Ringgren, in later Meccan and Medinan surahs ṣaddaqa is generally used with a direct object to signify “to conﬁrm s.th. or s.o.” Thus, Moses asks God to let his brother Aaron accompany him, “as a support and to conﬁrm me” (Q 28:34: fa-arsilhu maʿiya ridʾan yuṣaddiqunī). Although there is one case in which ṣaddaqa + acc. must mean “to fulﬁl s.th., to make s.th. come true” (Q 37:105: Abraham is praised for having fulﬁlled the dream in which God commanded him to sacriﬁce his son; see CDKA 159), the dominant use of ṣaddaqa and especially its active participle muṣaddiq in later Meccan surahs is to articulate the Qur’anic proclamations’ conﬁrmatory relationship to prior revelations. This notion is already expressed in an early Meccan verse, Q 37:37, according to which Muhammad “brings the truth and conﬁrms the [earlier] messengers” (jāʾa bi-l-ḥaqqi wa-ṣaddaqa l-mursalīn). In later Meccan passages, the Qur’anic revelations are described as a “scripture” that was “sent down after Moses” and “conﬁrms what precedes it” (Q 46:30: kitāban unzila min baʿdi mūsā muṣaddiqan li-mā bayna yadayhi; see also 6:92, 35:31, 46:12) or as a “conﬁrmation of what precedes it” (Q 10:37, 12:111: taṣdīq allādhī bayna yadayhi). Especially Q 6:91–92 and 46:12.30 make it clear that the scripture conﬁrmed by the Qur’an is speciﬁcally the Mosaic scripture.

Medinan developments. The participle muṣaddiq is even more frequent in a number of Medinan surahs, generally in the context of anti-Jewish polemics. Thus, the divine voice exhorts the Israelites and “those who were given the scripture” to “believe in what I/we have sent down conﬁrming what is with you^p” (Q 2:41, 4:47: mā anzaltu/nazzalnā muṣaddiqan li-mā maʿakum; → nazzala), and God is said to have obliged “the prophets” to believe in a subsequent “messenger who conﬁrms what is with you^p” (Q 3:81: rasūlun muṣaddiqun li-mā maʿakum; see similarly 2:101), this messenger evidently being Muhammad. Other verses reiterate that the Qur’anic revelations do in fact “conﬁrm what is with” the Israelites (Q 2:89.91), and the older Meccan phrase “conﬁrming what precedes it” also recurs (Q 2:97, 3:3, 5:48). Similar to Muhammad, Jesus too is said to have come to “conﬁrm what precedes me/him of the Torah” (Q 3:50, 5:46, 61:6: muṣaddiqan li-mā bayna yadayya/yadayhi mina l-tawrāti). But Jesus also “permitted some of the things that had been prohibited” to the Israelites (Q 3:50: wa-li-uḥilla lakum baʿḍa lladhī ḥurrima ʿalaykum). This suggests that conﬁrmation is not to be confused with mere reiteration but may involve a degree of authoritative modiﬁcation and rectiﬁcation.

Other Qur’anic verses point in the same direction. Q 5:48 declares not only that what is being revealed to Muhammad “conﬁrms what precedes it of the [celestial] scripture” (muṣaddiqan li-mā bayna yadayhi mina l-kitābi; → kitāb), but also that it is muhayminan (or, according to a variant reading, muhaymanan) ʿalayhi, which is plausibly read as meaning “entrusted with authority over it,” i.e., forming an unimpeachable standard for the validity of statements about the content and meaning of prior revelations (→ muhaymin). This reading of Q 5:48 coheres well with the fact that the Medinan surahs undeniably claim the authority to determine what the revelatory deposit of Jews and Christians actually means and consists in. This is exempliﬁed by accusations that the Jews or Israelites “shift (yuḥarrifūna) words from their places” (Q 4:46, 5:13.41: yuḥarrifūna l-kalima ʿan / min baʿdi mawāḍiʿihi; cf. 2:75; see Reynolds 2010b, 193–195, and CDKA 291), “conceal” parts of the truth revealed to them (e.g., Q 2:42.140.146, 3:71; cf. also 3:187, 5:15, 6:91⁹), and misattribute human compositions or utterances to God (Q 2:79, 3:78; for a detailed study of these motifs, see Reynolds 2010b). The Qur’anic proclamations style themselves as the decisive corrective against such inaccurate citation and interpretation of God’s revelations: “O scriptureowners, our Messenger has come to you, making clear (→ bayyana) to you much of what you have been hiding of the scripture” (Q 5:15: yā-ahla lkitābi qad jāʾakum rasūlunā yubayyinu lakum kathīran mimmā kuntum tukhfūna mina l-kitābi; cf. similarly 5:19). In sum, the Qur’anic claim to a conﬁrmatory relationship with previous scriptures is coupled with a claim to constituting the ultimate arbiter, vis-à -vis Jews and Christians, of what these previous scriptures are saying. This is in fact not surprising, since the Meccan verse Q 27:76 already voices a kindred claim, albeit without an overt reference to earlier scriptures: “this → qurʾān recounts to the Israelites (→ banū ˻isrāʾīl) most of that about which they are in disagreement (verb: ikhtalafa).”

Conﬁrmation and fulﬁlment. Qur’anic claims to “conﬁrm” previous scriptures recall the New Testamental notion that Jesus “fulﬁls” (plēroō, Peshitta: mallī) “the law and the prophets” (Matt 5:17; see also Matt 1:22, 2:15.17.23 etc.). Seeing that the Qur’an holds Muhammad’s appearance to have been foretold by the Torah and the Gospel (Q 7:157 and 48:29, on which see under → ummī and → injīl) as well as by Abraham and Jesus personally (Q 2:129.151, 61:6), should the Qur’anic concept of conﬁrmation, expressed by the verb ṣaddaqa, perhaps be deemed to be more or less equivalent to the New Testamental idea of fulﬁlment, i.e., to convey the claim that Muhammad’s advent realises an outstanding divine promise enshrined in previous scriptures? After all, Q 37:105 employs ṣaddaqa in order to describe Abraham’s fulﬁlment of a dream vision, and a number of additional verses have the ﬁrst-form verb ṣadaqa followed by two accusatives in the similar sense of “to be sincere to s.o. in s.th.” or “to fulﬁl s.th. to s.o.” (Q 3:152, 21:9, 39:74, 48:27; see CDKA 159). However, as we saw above, the contention that Muhammad “conﬁrms” previous messengers appears as early as the early Meccan verse Q 37:37, whereas explicit assertions to the eﬀect that Muhammad’s appearance is predicted in previous scriptures or by his precursors Abraham and Jesus are all Medinan. Hence, at least for the Meccan data reviewed above the idea of conﬁrmation may be assumed to focus more narrowly on the assumed identity of the Qur’an’s message with that of earlier revelations rather than on the contention that Muhammad fulﬁls earlier scriptural prophecies. To paraphrase Q 37:37, it is because Muhammad “brings the truth” that he “conﬁrms” previous messengers (jāʾa bi-l-ḥaqqi wa-ṣaddaqa l-mursalīn). Most likely, the same basic emphasis remains in place throughout the Medinan period. (Pp. 467-470)

muhaymin (or muhayman) (ʿalā) | trustworthy; entrusted with authority over s.th.

Further vocabulary discussed: āmana tr. | to render s.o. secure ṣaddaqa tr. | to conﬁrm or corroborate s.th. or s.o. kitāb | scripture

In Q 59:23. The term muhaymin occurs twice in the Qur’an, in the Medinan verses Q 5:48 and 59:23. In the latter case, the word ﬁgures in a string of divine epithets (→ ism), which inter alia call God al-muʾmin al-muhaymin. Muʾmin must mean “granter of security here” (cf. especially the meaning of → āmana in Q 106:4). Muhaymin, meanwhile, is derived from Syriac mhaymnā (or conceivably from its equivalent in some other form of Aramaic), a passive participle of the verb haymen and meaning “trustworthy, faithful, loyal” (NB 27; FVQ 273–274; cf. SL 719–720; see also DJBA 644). Al-muʾmin al-muhaymin therefore describes God as the “trustworthy granter of security.” Horovitz notes that the statement that YHWH is a “faithful God” (hāʾēl hanneʾĕmān) at Deut 7:9 is rendered allāhā mhaymnā in the Peshitta. In view of this direct precursor, there is a strong case for reading the consonantal ductus m-h-y-m-n as the passive muhayman (JPND 225–226), which is attested as a variant reading for Q 5:48 (MQ 2:285; MQQ 2:215). A hypothetical shift from al-muʾmin al-muhayman to al-muʾmin al-muhaymin could be readily accounted for in euphonic terms.²⁸ As a divine epithet, muhaymin is also found in a brief rajaz poem attributed to Umayyah ibn Abī l-Ṣalt (Schulthess 1911a, no. 25:29 = al-Saṭlī 1974, no. 10:29; see Seidensticker 2011b, 47–49).²⁹

In Q 5:48. The second Qur’anic occurrence of the word is found at Q 5:48, according to which the revelation vouchsafed to Muhammad “conﬁrms what precedes it of the scripture” (muṣaddiqan li-mā bayna yadayhi mina lkitābi; → ṣaddaqa, → kitāb) and is muhayminan (or, according to the variant reading cited above, muhaymanan) ʿalayhi. It is not unreasonable to conjecture that muhaymin might simply be an approximate equivalent of muṣaddiq here. Such a pleonastic understanding is already part of the early Islamic exegetical record (see Ṭab. 8:489–490) and has also found favour among Western scholars (NB 27; JPND 225; KK 122–123). However, considering that in Q 5:48 muhaymin or muhayman takes the preposition ʿalā, rather than li-, as the preceding term muṣaddiq, it is also possible that muhaymin/muhayman implies the stronger claim that the Qur’an does not merely conﬁrm previous scriptures but also stands in judgement over them in other words, that it is “entrusted with authority over” (muʾtaman ʿalā) them, as early Muslim scholars gloss the expression under discussion (Ṭab. 8:487–489). Especially if one opts for the passive reading muhayman, this interpretation has the virtue of agreeing very closely with Syriac phraseology, since haymen + acc. + ʿal means “to entrust s.o. with s.th.” (SL 341). This non-pleonastic, climactic understanding, according to which the attribute muhayman has a meaning going beyond muṣaddiq, is moreover in line with other verses in which the Qur’anic proclamations stake out an explicit claim to playing the role of an ultimate arbiter regarding the meaning and content of Jewish and Christian scripture (→ ṣaddaqa). (Pp. 707-708)

Further Reading

The Inscripturation of Allah's Revelations

THE UNCLEAR QURAN: WHAT IS THE INJIL?

THE GOSPEL THAT IS WITH THEM

THE QURAN’S GOSPEL

Nicolai Sinai & the Islamic Dilemma

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