how can you disprove the jewish religion?

The Details of the Question

Submitted by saharan on Thu, 21/05/2015 - 18:29

The Answer

Dear Brother / Sister,

The main difference is that the Qur'an was sent to the last prophet, Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) and it is the word of Allah (SWT). On the other hand Torah is sent to the prophet Moses but it was distorted later on. Since the Torah is a distorted book making a comparison will not be healthy.

First of all let us give information about distortion.

Distortion literally means changing the place of letters or changing a letter in a word, or changing the meaning of a statement. More specifically, to alter any word in Divine Scriptures intentionally.

According to the Religion of Islam, there are a few kinds of distortions: 1. To mispronounce certain letters of a word and thus to give a different meaning to it, 2. To misinterpret a hadith or Quranic verse, 3. To make changes in the texts of the Qur'an and the Hadiths knowingly and thus to make false additions to them.

Distortion, which means spoiling and altering the essence of a divine scripture, has been used in Islamic Literature to refer to the changes that The Torah and The Gospel underwent and to the impairment of their essence. The studies carried out have shown that there are few statements and passages in The Torah that can be accepted as the Word of Allah. And words, stories, sermons and advice were added by Rabbis, 'oracles', and Jewish Interpreters to those limited number of statements and passages which bear the quality of being Divine Text. In this respect, it is extremely difficult to dig out the original text by removing the additions.

Prophet Moses wanted sons of Israel to obey the commandments given by him, to teach the commands and prohibitions of Allah to next generations, to make mention of them whether at home, en route, at each sitting and standing and to protect the Torah well; he thus took oath from them. However, they neither took that sincere advice of Moses seriously, nor carried out the duty to protect the Torah and to pass it on to coming generations. From the very beginning, sons of Israel paid little attention to Allah's Word, the Torah. Seven hundred years after Prophet Moses, the Head Rabbi of the Solomon Temple in Jerusalem and the king of the time were almost oblivious of whether they were given a book named the Torah by Allah.

The greatest guilt of the Jewish religious functionaries about passing the Torah on to generations intact is that they took it in their monopoly to read that Divine Book. Therefore, the Torah could not gain the quality of being read and known by the Jewish Community and they lived detached from that Word of Allah. Afterwards, when practices based on false innovations and ignorance emerged among the Jews, the religious functionaries set out to fight innovations and ignorance on the one hand; and on the other hand, they tried to find proofs from the Torah against those false beliefs and practices. And, they themselves inserted the points about which they could not find proofs into the Torah.

Jewish scholars and rabbis not only interpreted the Torah parallel to their own understanding in the matters they could not find certain answers, but also added the texts they approved and removed certain parts. Consequently, those additions and deletions made the real Torah unidentifiable.

A similar kind of distortion is also seen in another Divine Scripture, the Gospel. Christian priests added their own understandings of religion, their own interpretations and fancy ideas into Allah's Word, the Gospel and thus made that divine book almost unrecognizable. The Qur'an explains those ugly distortions by the Jewish and the Christian religious functionaries of divine scriptures this way: “O you who believe! Many among the rabbis and monks do indeed consume the wealth of people in legally invalid, wrongful ways (such as changing the Book's commandments in return for worldly benefit, bribery, and using religion as a means of worldly gain) and bar them from God's way.” (At-Taubah, 9:34). As is understood from that verse, certain rabbis and priests changed the verses in divine scriptures in exchange for worldly gains or interpreted them according to their own fancy. They especially distorted the verses about the prophethood of Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, and tried to destroy the verses of the Scripture which give the good news of the coming of Prophet Muhammad after Prophet Jesus, peace and blessing upon them.

Those rabbis and priests did not suffice with it; they claimed that the additions they inserted into divine scriptures were the original text. Thus, those rabbis' and priests' philosophy of history, explanation, interpretation, and their views in other branches of knowledge entered the Collection of the Scripture and thus became almost a part of the Word of Allah.

Studies carried out have shown that the first five books of The Old Testament are not the original Torah. A copy or chapter of the original Torah is not present anywhere. The Torah itself proves that claim, too. The Torah we have today informs us that close to his death, Prophet Moses put the Torah in a trunk and entrusted it to Joshua and that when the emperor of Babel, Buhtu'n-Nasr, destroyed Jerusalem, the Torah in the trunk was also burnt up. We learn directly from the verses in the Gospel that, about 250 years after that conquest and destruction, Ezra collected the Torah again with the help of religious scholars and rabbis and with divine inspiration. Apart from those events, various others caused the Scripture to be extensively distorted and lost.

As a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Greek translated the Torah into Greek together with other cultural works. Eventually, the Jews, who were affected by the Greek culture, began to use the Greek translation of the Torah instead of its Hebrew text. In this respect, it is difficult to say that today's Torah, which is passed on to us from Greek translations, is the Torah revealed to Prophet Moses. Nevertheless, it should not be concluded that the Torah underwent complete distortion. It is possible to understand from its truthful passages which do not contradict the Qur'an that the Torah was not wholly distorted.

Indeed, Prof. M. Hamidullah, too, states that The Scripture is not wholly distorted, that because of certain Divine statements present in it, due respect should be paid to it as is shown toward the Qur'an (Conferences, Erzurum 1975, p.17). However, in today's Scripture, besides Allah's Word, explanations and interpretations of Jewish religious scholars, the history of the Jews, the interpreted decrees of Israelite scholars of jurisprudence are all together intertwined. They are so intermingled that it is a really tough job to differentiate between them saying this is Allah's Word, that is explanation or interpretation of it, etc. (Mawdudi, Tevhid Mücadelesi, (trans. into Turkish: A. Asrar) Istanbul, 1983, I, 530).

There were distortions on the religious decrees of the Torah, too. As is known, the Jews of Khyber came to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) so that he would judge a case of adultery between a married man and a married woman; the Prophet judged that the criminals be stoned and said that it is commanded in Torah (Deuteronomy, XXII, 23-24). Although the Jews knew about it, they applied that commandment to the poor and the desolate, but the wealthy and the high-ranking people were punished only with lashes or by mounting on donkeys backwards and walking them among the public this way. Thus, those Jews turned their backs against Allah's Book, and by taking from it whatever suited their desires, they distorted Allah's Law. Similarly, the Prophet explained in his hadiths that the Jews and the Christians “distorted their books by interpreting them” (Darim, Muqaddima, 56), “After Jesus, the kings changed the Torah.” (Nasai, Qudat, 12), “They both distorted their books and made additions to them.” (Tirmidhi, Tafsir, 34/3).

Another proof of the distortions in the Scripture is the contradictions seen in the Torah and the Gospel. In order to pinpoint some of the contradictions in the Torah, it is enough to compare these verses: Genesis I:27 and Genesis II:17; Genesis XXII:14 and Exodus VI:2-3; 1. Samuel XVI:10 and 1. Chronicles II:13-15. Similarly, to specify some of the contradictions in the Gospel, comparing these verses is enough to give an idea: John IV:3 and Matthew XIII:54-58; Matthew X:9-10 and Mark VI:8-10; Luke III:23 and Matthew I:16; Luke III:31 and Matthew I:6.

The Chapter 'Song of Songs' in the Torah attributed to Prophet Solomon is full of distortions from beginning to end. In this part, there are words which are impossible to be uttered by a prophet. Similarly, in the Kings I and Kings II, parts of the Torah which are attributed to Solomon again, it is stated that “he took all his power from spells” and thus the miracles Allah bestowed on prophets are tried to be overshadowed.

Some ill-intentioned people interpreted horrifically the Qur'anic verse: “Say: "(God gives you hope): ‘O My servants who have been wasteful (of their God-given opportunities and faculties) against (the good of) their own souls! Do not despair of God's Mercy. Surely God forgives all sins. He is indeed the All-Forgiving, the All-Compassionate.' " (the Qur'an, Az-Zumar, 39:53) and wanted to make distortions. According to them, Allah commanded the Prophet to call people “O my servants”. In other words, people are counted -God forbid- as the Prophet's servants/slaves. It is by no means any interpretation; it is a clear attempt to distort the Qur'an. Some ignorants may be attracted by such people. Accepting such an interpretation is accepting that the Qur'an is contradictory as a whole. This is because from the beginning till end, the Qur'an makes mention of being servant to Allah alone, and especially emphasizes that Muhammad (PBUH) is not the Lord but a servant himself. (Mawdudi, Tafhim, (Trans. into Turkish), V, 114)

The Distortion of the Torah

It is known that the original Torah is lost. However, there are many differences among the translations of the Torah. For instance, there are some clear differences between the Greek translation and the Hebrew version. The Torah, which was first written in Hebrew, was started to be distorted when it was translated into Aramaic and Greek. (For more information, see M. Ziyau’r-Rahman al-Azami, al-Yahudiyya wa’l-Masihiyya, p.175-181)

There are also differences among the translations in Chaldean, Latin, Hebeshi, Ghawti, Armenian and Arabic (ibid). This is also valid for the Bibles whose original copies are not present.

- The distortion of the Torah is regarded in two ways: The first one: The distortion of the words of the verses and the addition of some words. The second one: The distortion of the meaning. There are examples like “hittatun/hintatun” for the first kind of distortion.

Besides, the fact that there are statements contrary to modern science and that there are invented stories about prophets like Lot and David that do not befit prophets indicate that the distortion took place in terms of both interpretation and words.

The second issue of distortion always took place; one of the most important duties of the prophets that came after Moses – including Zacharias and John – was to correct those wrong interpretations and spiritual distortions. However, this illness of distortion of Jews always relapsed.

That the Torah and the Gospel were distorted does not mean that they contain no truth. As a matter of fact, Husayn Jisri extracted hundreds of pieces of information from the Torah and the Gospel implying the Prophet Muhammad and quoted them in his book called Risala al-Hamidiyya.

As a matter of fact, it is clearly stated in the Quran, hadiths, history and siyar books that Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) challenged the scholars of the People of the Book and said to them that they had concealed the truths in the books (they distorted them with their interpretations) and that the Prophet silenced them. Some examples regarding the issue:

a. “All food was lawful to the Children of Israel, except what Israel made unlawful for itself before the Torah was revealed. Say: "Bring ye the Torah and study it if ye be men of truth." If any, after this, invent a lie and attribute it to Allah, they are indeed unjust wrong-doers.”(Aal-i Imran, 3/93-94).

Two reasons are given for the revelation of the verses above:

- The Jews objected to the Prophet (pbuh) about abrogation and said that there could be nothing like that in the religion. The verse was sent down in response to their objection. The verses challenged the Jews by stating, “All food was lawful to the Children of Israel, except what Israel made unlawful for itself before the Torah was revealed. Let alone denying abrogation, the Torah practiced abrogation by rendering haram some things that were halal for the Children of Israel.”

- According to another narration, the Jews said to Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh), “You say you belong to the nation of Abraham but you render halal the meat and milk of the camel that were haram in his religion.”

Through that verse, it was emphasized that the prohibition was not imposed during the time of Abraham but that it was rendered haram by Jacob, his grandson. According to a narration, Jacob vowed that he would not eat the flesh of the camel and he would not drink the milk of the camel, the food and drink that he liked the best, if he overcame the illness of sciatica.

No matter what the reason of revelation is, there is something clear: Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) insisted that certain information that the Jews claimed to be absent in the Torah existed and challenged the Jews by saying, “Bring the Torah and read it if you tell the truth”; the Jews avoided it. (See Tabari, Qurtubi, Razi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Ashur, Nasafi, Alusi, the interpretation of the relevant verse)

b. “If anyone disputes in this matter with thee now after (full) knowledge hath come to thee, say: "Come! let us gather together―our sons, and your sons our women and your women, ourselves and yourselves: then let us earnestly pray, and invoke the curse of Allah on those who lie!"”(Aal-i Imran, 3/61).

- The verse challenged a delegate from the Christians of Najran that came to Madinah and that claimed Jesus was the son of God. They could not dare to do “mutual damnation” in accordance with the view of Aqib Abdul-Masih, the leader of this delegate. (See Tabari, Qurtubi, Razi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Ashur, Nasafi, the interpretation of the relevant verse)

c. “The people of the Book know this as they know their own sons; but some of them conceal the truth which they themselves know” (al-Baqara, 2/146).

- In this verse, it is stated that they recognized Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) as they recognized their own children due to his attributes in the Gospel and the Torah. According to a narration, Hazrat Umar asked Abdullah b. Salam, a Jewish scholar, “Did you really know Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) –based on your book – as you knew your children?” He said, “We knew him better than our own children. (See Tabari, Qurtubi, Razi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Ashur, Nasafi, the interpretation of the relevant verse).

- Another important point regarding the issue is this: If the issues that Hazrat Muhammad insistently mentioned and that he insistently said were present in the Torah had not been true, the people who believed in him, like Abdullah b. Salam, the Jewish scholar, before others, would have exited Islam and converted to their previous religions at once. It is also valid for the Christian scholars. The loyalty they showed to the religion of Islam throughout their lives indicates the trueness of this verse and Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) clearly.