There is an alternative approach to such charges against the Scripture as are brought by some (not all) Muslims, and it takes advantage of the fact that whatever else Muhammad learned from his Jewish and Nestorian teachers, he learned that the Bible was the Word of God. He incorporated this teaching in the Quran, in numerous passages. Some of these passages are included in the three sections at the end of this article, which are meant to be made available in the form of a small tract. The sections cite passages in the Quran declaring that 1) The Holy Bible is the Word of God, 2) The Word of God cannot be changed or lost, and 3) Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament was lost in Muhammad's day. Of course there is abundance of evidence that neither have the Scriptures been lost since Muhammad's time. Modern translations of the Scripture are made from manuscripts in various libraries that come from a time before Muhammad, so that these modern translations are faithful to copies of the Scriptures that existed in Muhammad's day. The Bible has not been lost or corrupted, either before or after the time the Quran was written.

This is all contrary to present Islamic teaching, which holds that the Injil (Gospel) and the Torah (a word used in the Quran to include the whole Old Testament) have been greatly corrupted and much of their teaching has been lost over the centuries. The three main topics at the end of this monograph are designed to counteract this teaching. The Quran itself is a great help to that end, plainly stating that any Muslim who follows tradition and does not accept the statements of the Quran that the Old Testament and New Testament are the Word of God "hath wandered far away" . . . and is a "disbeliever in truth" for whom is prepared "a shameful doom."

There is a certain similarity between present-day Islam and the state of Christianity during the Middle Ages. For hundreds of years, nominal Christendom forgot the teachings of God's Word, following instead the various traditions that often conflicted with the Scriptures. The leaders of nominal Christendom during this time were men who themselves scarcely bothered to read the Scriptures, and if they did so, whatever teachings they found there that condemned their immoral lifestyle were ignored in favor of practices of the religious hierarchy, which came to have greater and greater control over all aspects of society. This was the time of the Crusades, when both sides in the conflict thought they were fighting a "holy war," but both sides committed terrible atrocities in the name of their religion.

Although there were genuine Christians during all this time who sought their guidance from the Scriptures rather than from the politico-religious hierarchy, yet it was not until the Reformation that there was a widespread turning of many countries, especially in northern Europe, back to the Scriptures as their source of authority, rather than following blindly the traditions taught by their entrenched religious leaders. However, a similar movement has never taken place in the Moslem world, as evidenced by the widespread tradition that Muslims do not need to read the Bible, or even by the teaching of Deedat and others, plainly contradicting the Quran, that the Bible is not God's Word and that it contains numerous contradictions to either external history or to statements within itself.

The Christian apologist, then, should expose these teachers who make such statements about the Holy Bible for what they are--men who follow tradition rather than the teaching of the Quran.[5] By not accepting the words of the prophets in the Bible, and by making distinctions between what the Quran says and "that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the Prophets received from their Lord" (Surah 2:136), the Quran condemns these men as "disbelievers in truth" for whom is reserved "a shameful doom." These are terrifying words. They do not come from any enemy of Islam, but from the Quran.

The Christian apologist needs to understand the principle that in many matters Islam is following tradition rather than the words of the Quran. This is particularly true of the Quran's teaching about the Bible. The Holy Scriptures are even confiscated and burned in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim lands. I would think the best way for a Christian apologist to present this wrong attitude toward the Bible would not be as an attack, but as a matter of great sadness. That sadness should be intensified by the recognition that much of Christendom was in the same state during the Middle Ages, and in the modern world there are many who consider themselves Christians but who do not live according to the teachings of their Holy Scriptures. These things should be freely admitted or confessed. Surah 2:170 from the Quran, and Mark 7:7 and 7:9 from the Gospels, can be presented in this way--not in an confrontational manner, but as a matter of great sadness, the consequences of which (following tradition rather than God's Word) are the immoral practices we see today throughout Christendom and the Islamic world.

One way for Christian evangelists or radio preachers to restore to Islamic listeners their lost heritage in the Old and New Testaments would be to start with some passage in the Quran that describes an event in the Bible. There are numerous such passages, and in most if not all cases the subject being discussed in the Quran cannot be fully understood without the further explanation in the Bible.[6] The pattern then would be to read the selected passage in the Quran, and then ask questions about the passage--questions that can be answered by going to the appropriate Old or New Testament passage. The pattern here should always be to go from the Quran to the Bible, never vice versa. But Christians who live in a largely Muslim culture will know the best way to present such ideas, going beyond the few suggestions I am making here. The eventual purpose should be the same as the purpose for which the Bible was written, namely to bring men and women into a place of forgiveness with God through the merits of the shed blood of the Messiah.

The three sections at the end of this piece outlining the Quran's teaching about the Bible should be adapted as necessary to the various needs to which this small tract could be put. If the Christians presenting the tract are fluent in Arabic, they may wish to make a different translation than that of Pickthall[7] for the Quranic verses. There may also be some verses in the Quran or in the Scriptures that are deemed more appropriate, or the explanatory text may also need adaptation for the intended audience. It may also be advisable where Arabic is widely known to first print the Quran's verses in Arabic, since Muslims hold that any translation of the Quran cannot properly be called the Quran. In a purely Arabic-speaking country, of course, the whole tract would be in Arabic. The ones adopting these pages should also be aware that verse numbers in different editions of the Quran may differ by one from the verse numbers in Pickthall's translation. Finally, most speakers of Arabic prefer that "Quran" be spelled with the apostrophe as "Qur'an," where the apostrophe represents a consonant in Arabic similar to the Hebrew aleph. "Qur'an" is spelled this way in the three sections of the tract, although the simpler spelling has been used in these explanatory notes.

It is my feeling that this tract, or an adaptation of it, may be most useful if designed in an attractive way as a small leaflet to be inserted loosely in the front of all Bibles or New Testaments distributed to Muslims. Such Bibles or New Testaments should always be printed in at least a nice a format as the Muslim has come to expect for his Quran. It would also seem to be good practice to have the word "Holy" on the cover: "The Holy Bible." Christians ministering to Muslims may want to memorize the statements in the Quran regarding the Bible, since memorizing these several verses is far easier than trying to anticipate all possible charges against the truth of God's unique and eternal Word, the Holy Bible.