the Qur'an has been their safeguard, their 'trusty keeper.' Thus Muslims who
make rash statements on this subject not only show great ignorance of the Qur'an
itself, but treat it with the utmost disrespect when they thus impute failure to
it in this most important duty which it claims to fulfil.
If then the Scriptures have been corrupted the Qur'an has failed of its
purpose and has not been their safeguard. The fact is, that Muhammad had no
real doubt about the authenticity and genuineness of the Scriptures, but now
that he had no further use for the Jews it was necessary to discredit them and
to show that they were not worthy of credit.1 It is instructive to
note that all these passages about the perversion of the meaning of the Bible
and the charge of concealing its predictions were revealed at Madina.
The Jews having been thus rebuked and set aside as no longer likely to be
useful or necessary, there was no object whatever in assimilating the customs
and practices of Islam to those of Judaism; so the Qibla (i.e., the direction
towards which the prayers should be said) was now changed back again 2
from