CHAPTER II
THAT THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW HAVE NEVER BEEN ABROGATED, AND CAN
NEVER BE ABROGATED IN (1) THEIR FACTS, (2) THEIR DOCTRINES, AND (3) THEIR MORAL PRINCIPLES
FROM what has been said in the first chapter of this Treatise it is evident that all
Muslims who really believe and accept the Qur'an are bound in duty to study, honour, and
obey "the Book of God", that is to say, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and of
the New Testaments.
But some deny that this conclusion is correct, because they assert (1) that the Old and
the New Testaments have been abrogated. Others say (2) that the books now in circulation
as the Bible, and generally received by Jews and Christians as their Holy Scriptures, are
not those referred to in the Qur'an as such. Others again say (3) that, if the Jewish and
Christian Scriptures are really those mentioned in the Qur'an, they have at least been
altered and corrupted, and therefore are no longer worthy of reverence. With these two
latter objections we propose, God helping us, to deal in later chapters. In the present
chapter we devote our attention to the question whether it is true that the Old Testament
and the New, that is to say, the Torah, the Zabur and the Injil, have been abrogated. It
is granted that, if these objections are correct, our argument in Chapter I is thereby
nullified: but at the same time the effect on the authority of the Qur'an itself will not
be favourable, as will be clear to every thoughtful man.
Be it noticed that some Muslim writers distinctly assert that the Bible has been
abrogated. For instance,
|