Appendix
Shamoun's stubbornness of course won't allow him to shut up after he has been refuted. Thus, unfortunately he will continue to speak nonsense.
Shamoun said:
Ibn al-Qayyim may have realized that, even though these are the words of Ibn Abbas, al-Bukhari must have agreed with this claim and therefore adopted it as his very own position; otherwise he wouldn't have referenced it. At the very least, we would expect al-Bukhari to have added a comment that his own conviction is different from that of Ibn Abbas.
That is possible, thus where is Bukhari's statement? Secondly, I have proven that this statement from Ibn Abbass is weak already here. So even if Bukhari based his opinion on that narration, then that only means that Bukhari is wrong as well and you would only be committing the fallacy of appeal to authority and not providing any substantially threatening argument to my position.
Shamoun then belches:
Zawadi then argues that this narration contradicts what Ibn Abbas supposedly said elsewhere concerning the alleged corruption of the Holy Bible, all of which have been thoroughly refuted here (1, 2).
Last I remember I got the last word and destroyed your arguments here.
Shamoun then states:
Zawadi thinks that his readers are naïve enough to actually believe that the previous Scriptures contained a reference or allusion to Surah al-Mulk, despite the fact that the names of these Surahs do not even appear in the Quran but are derived from later tradition, and further expects us to accept that the Torah initially contained an Islamic injunction which only came centuries after the time of Lord Jesus Christ!
First of all, the name "al Mulk" is found in the authentic hadith, which is a source of religious authority for Muslims. So it is not important if it is not found in the Qur'an.
Secondly, the narration does not say that the Arabic name "Al Mulk" was used in the Torah back in those days. It only alludes to the Surah. The Qur'an says that the Torah says "so and so" and the Qur'an is in the Arabic language. However, we know that the Torah wasn't in Arabic. So it is only a translation. Perhaps the name "Al Mulk" wasn't used even in the Torah's language and some other name was given, but the narration alludes to Surah Al Mulk being referred to in the original inspired Torah.
Shamoun in the face of defeat then says:
It is evident that certain Muslims made up reports where they claim that the previous Scriptures contained these specific verses in order to provide substantiation for a particular view. However, instead of substantiating their case for Islam, their blatant lies and forgeries expose their shameless manipulation of the previous Scriptures for their own ends thereby demonstrating that Muslim have no qualms and will not hesitate to spread their own religion by deceptive means.
Ha! Talk about DEBATE OVER! Notice the absurd response:
It is evident that certain Muslims made up reports where they claim that the previous Scriptures contained these specific verses in order to provide substantiation for a particular view
This ladies and gentlemen is Shamoun admitting that he has been defeated. Notice that we are not debating whether Islam's claim about the Torah and Gospel being textually corrupted is true or not. We are debating whether Islam claims that the Torah and Gospel have been textually corrupted or not.
Islam derives religious authority from the Qur'an, authentic Prophetic traditions and authentic traditions of the Salaf. I have provided authentic traditions from the Salaf that indirectly, yet clearly imply that the Torah and Gospel have been textually corrupted. This is evidence that Islam teaches that the Torah and Gospel have been textually corrupted. To prove whether this claim is true or not is for another debate. But as far as the debate whether Islam claims that the Torah and Gospel have been textually corrupted or not is concerned, DEBATE OVER. And Shamoun's pathetic response proves that for us.
Thanks Shamoun!
Shamoun then rants:
More importantly, in his haste to refute my argument Zawadi simply ignored and overlooked what the Quran says regarding Jesus confirming the Hebrew Scriptures in his hands and how this thoroughly exposes these distorted and fabricated hadiths.
First of all, I already wrote an article that explains what the "confirming" previous scriptures mean over here. The verses that speak about the Qur'an confirming the Torah and Gospel are trying to say that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) confirms the truth in them regarding his coming. That is all. It only proves that there is truth in these books and these verses do not in any way imply that the entire book is truth.
And since Shamoun likes Ibn Katheer so much, let us see whether he understood that a book confirming a previous book necessarily implies that the previous book is fully uncorrupted:
(but a confirmation of that which was before it) in reference to the previously revealed Divine Books, by which this Qur'an testifies to the true parts that remain in them and denies and refutes the forged parts that were added, changed and falsified by people. The Qur'an accepts or abrogates whatever Allah wills of these Books, (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Source)
Well of course not!
Let us see what he thought about the Old Testament:
This story in the Old Testament is a falsification and deception. (Ibn Kathir, The Stories of the Prophets, Chapter on Prophet Adam, Source)
Ibn Kathir also quotes well known Qur'anic commentator Ibn Jarir Al Tabari as saying...
Ibn Jarir said, "The Qur'an is trustworthy over the Books that preceded it. Therefore, whatever in these previous Books conforms to the Qur'an is true, and whatever disagrees with the Qur'an is false.'' (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Source, You can also see Al Tabari saying this himself in his commentary on Surah 2:41 over here)
Imam al-Tabari relates from the eminent Jurist Ibn Juraij (80-150 AH/699-767 CE) that if the people of the book quote something from their Bible that disagrees with the Qur'an then we reject it but if it agrees with the Qur'an then we accept it. (Source) Imam al-Bahgawi also quotes the opinion of Ibn Juraij in his commentary. (Tafsir Al Baghawi, 1/65) Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi (d. 373 A.H.), the well known Hanafi scholar in his commentary of the Qur'an known as Bahr al-'Ulum on Surah 5, verse 48 says that the Qur'an acts as a judge over the previous scriptures. This indicates that the Qur'an judges whether something is true or false. (Source)
Similarly, when Jesus confirms the Torah he is only confirming its truth when it speaks about his coming. Even Shamoun's citations confirm this:
Ibn Kathir wrote the following concerning Q. 5:46:
<'Isa, son of Maryam, confirming the Tawrah that had come before him,> meaning, he believed in it AND RULED BY IT.
meaning, HE ADHERED TO THE TAWRAH, except for the few instances that clarified the truth where the Children of Israel differed. Allah states in another Ayah that 'Isa said to the Children of Israel. <.and to make lawful to you part of what was forbidden to you.>
So the scholars say that the Injil abrogated some of the rulings of the Tawrah. (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Abridged - Surat An-Nisa, Verse 148 to the end of Surat Al-An'am [January 2000, first edition], Volume 3, Parts 6, 7 & 8, pp. 193-194; source; bold and capital emphasis ours)
And here are his comments in respect to Q. 61:6:
'Isa said, "The Tawrah conveyed the glad tidings of my coming, and my coming CONFIRMS THE TRUTH OF THE TAWRAH." (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Abridged, Volume 9, Surat Al-Jathiyah to the end of Surat Al-Munafiqun [September 2000, first edition], p. 617; source; bold and capital emphasis ours)
So here we see that Jesus (peace be upon him) confirmed the Torah by fulfilling its prophecy of him to come. He also confirmed it by upholding it and ruling by it. None of these necessitate that the full uncorrupted Torah was with Jesus in manuscript form. Jesus could have known the Torah in his heart as God was inspiring it to him.
As for Jesus saying the "Torah between my hands" this could either mean that Jesus did have a true inspired copy being distributed amongst the very few of the true followers or that Jesus by intention was speaking about the true inspired Torah, despite it being mixed with corrupted Old Testament verses. Whatever the case is, it is not clear that Jesus was affirming that the Old Testament is the pure and full preserved word of God. If our Qur'anic experts could understand the Qur'an confirming the Torah and Gospel does not necessarily imply that the Torah and Gospel are fully preserved, then I don't see why we should believe Jesus confirming the Torah implies that the Torah is fully preserved either.
Thus, Shamoun has not shown any definitive proof from Islamic sources of Jesus saying that the Old Testament as we have it today is fully inspired by God.
Shamoun then blabs:
Zawadi also tosses Ibn al-Qayyim under the bus by questioning whether this acclaimed student of Ibn Taymiyyah accurately quoted the scholars' opinions concerning the text of the Torah since Zawadi erroneously thinks that he misrepresented the position of ar-Razi. Lord willing we will be providing a full rebuttal to Zawadi's claim concerning ar-Razi's views of the Torah where we will show that, once again, Zawadi has either misunderstood or distorted what his very own sources say regarding this issue.
I don't appreciate the "tosses Ibn al-Qayyim under the bus" comment anymore than Shamoun would if someone accused him of that for simply disagreeing with a scholar that he respects. I disagree with Ibnul Qayyim because the evidence compels me to.
Notice, that Ibnul Qayyim said:
A third group said: the Torah was altered slightly, however the majority of it is still intact, but the changes were MINOR, and among those who have chosen this view is our scholar [Ibn Tayimiyyah] in his book Al-Jawaab ("The Answer").
This is clearly not the case. How can Ibn Taymyyah have believed that the changes were minor when Ibn Taymiyyah said on page 146 of his book Al-Jawaab:
The Torah and the Bible that is present nowadays are not those that were presented by the Prophets Musa and Jesus.
That doesn't seem like a minor change to me. What does Shamoun suggest I do? Follow the evidence or blindly follow a scholar, despite how much I respect him? I have to follow the evidence because I am a truth seeker unlike Shamoun who likes to appeal to authority and ignore evidence.
Shamoun writes his article on Imam Razi's view here and just continued to commit the fallacy of appeal to authority by citing authorities who said that Imam Razi didn't believe in textual corruption, despite me providing evidence to the contrary.
One may think why a number of people think that this is Imam Razi's stance. I am not surprised since I personally thought the same way a few years ago as well. The reason why this could be is because (based on my extensive searching) Imam Razi apparently only thought that a few verses in the Qur'an taught textual corruption in comparison to other scholars. Thus, if someone were to take a quick glimpse and read of Imam Razi's commentary you would see in that almost all the verses that speak about the corruption of the previous scriptures he would interpret them to mean hermeneutical distortions and not textual. Thus, this would leave someone with the impression that he did not believe in textual corruption. However, as I have found in his commentary on Surah 4:46, he does believe that the Qur'an teaches textual corruption of the previous scriptures.
Shamoun replies back and says:
The most that ar-Razi's comments prove is that certain Jews during Muhammad's time had corrupted their particular copies of the Scriptures. Yet what do you do with the rest of the Jews and all the Christians who also had copies of the Hebrew Bible in their possession and would not agree with these Jews to change their sacred texts?
There is just no winning with Shamoun. Imam Razi made a general statement and he did not limit himself. As he did not limit his statement to those who did hermeneutical distortions, he did not limit his statement to those who did textual distortions either.
I will not put anymore energy into the topic of Imam Razi's stance, since it has no substantial results at the end. Islam's stance does not depend upon Imam Razi, especially with him not being from the Salaf anyways.
If Shamoun wants to have Imam Razi on his side then good for him, he can have him. I still have the majority of, if not all of the Salaf on my side and that is what matters when it comes to whose understanding of Islam really carries weight.
Appendix 2
Stubborn Shamoun is at it again and has written another response here.
Shamoun said:
As the preceding references conclusively demonstrate Ibn Kathir didn't simply say that Jesus confirmed the Torah only in the sense of affirming the prophecies made concerning his advent. Ibn Kathir explicitly stated that Jesus memorized, believed in, affirmed and upheld the veracity of the Torah, as well as ruled by it!
How does this refute anything I said? It's possible that Jesus memorized, affirmed and upheld the truth found in the Torah. I have already explained this in another article:
As for Allah teaching Jesus (peace be upon him) the Torah and Jesus memorizing it, well Ibn Abbaas makes an interesting comment...
(And He will teach him the Scripture) the Scriptures of [past] prophets; as it is said: writing (and wisdom) the lawful and the prohibited; as it said this means: the wisdom of the prophets who preceded him, (and the Torah) in the womb of his mother (and the Gospel) after he came out of his mother's womb. (Ibn Abbaas, Tanwîr al-Miqbâs min Tafsîr Ibn 'Abbâs, Commentary on Surah 3:48, Source)
Imam Al-Shawkani says in his commentary...
{ وَيُعَلّمُهُ ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ } قيل هو معطوف على { يُبَشّرُكِ }: أي: إن الله يبشرك وإنّ الله يعلمه،
"and He will teach him the book". It is said that it is meant 'He will inform you". That is that Allah will inform him and teach him. (Shawkani, Fathul Qadeer, Commentary on Surah 3:48, Source)
Here we see that Jesus was taught the true Torah by revelation from God and not by him going to the allegedly textually pure Torah during his time. Also, why would God need to teach the Torah to Jesus if it was there for him to read and learn himself?
Shamoun said:
The Muslim scripture uses this word in a positive sense to mean to believe in, to trust, to accept fully, just as the following examples from the Quran conclusively prove:
And the angels called to him, standing in the Sanctuary at worship, 'Lo, God gives thee good tidings of John, who shall confirm a Word of God (musaddiqan bikalimatin mina Allahi), a chief, and chaste, a Prophet, righteous.' S. 3:39
Shamoun has only mentioned one way of how the word confirm (saddaqa) could be used in the Qur'an, but not the second way, which is "'to make him/it truthful in its/his expectations or trust' just as I cited brother Moiz Amjad explaining over here.
Shamoun said:
And since we have manuscript copies of the Hebrew Scriptures that were written before Jesus' birth that are virtually identical to what we currently possess we can definitely say that the Torah that Jesus testified as being completely reliable and fully authoritative is the same OT that is found in our Bibles today. There is simply no way around this fact.
As I have already said:
Shamoun has no manuscript evidence to prove that the ENTIRE Old Testament in the possession of the Jews during the time of Jesus is exactly the same as the ENTIRE Old Testament that Christians have today.
The Dead Sea Scrolls only contain fragments of the Old Testament's books in exception to the book of Isaiah. It also doesn't include the book of Esther. (See Douglas Burrows/Liaison International, Encarta Concise Encyclopedia, cited here)
So Christians are only assuming that just because those fragmentary parts have been preserved then the whole Old Testament must have been as well. This is the fallacy of Hasty Generalization.
Also, let's not forget that it was highly possible for the Old Testament to be corrupted before the time of Jesus. The book Genesis is estimated to have been written around 1400 B.C and since the earliest copy that Christians have for Genesis (only fragments too, not the full version) is around 100 B.C then that still gives you more than a thousand year gap in which Biblical manuscripts are not accounted for. Thus, it was very possible that the Bible could have been corrupted at this time and there is no evidence to the contrary.
Shamoun says:
Zawadi is clearly perverting the meaning of words to make them say the opposite. In his mind "pointing out disagreements" is somehow taken to mean confirming. In that sense then the Holy Bible is also confirming the Qur'an by exposing everything that is wrong with it. This means that I must be confirming Bassam Zawadi's articles by refuting the errors contained in them. Our website should be called "Confirming Islam" since it is about showing the falsehood of Islam (besides acknowledging that even falsehood contains some truth, as does every forgery). When a witness is called in court and asked: Can you confirm the testimony of this person, he says: Yes, I confirm his word by saying he is wrong and it was different!!?? When Muslims speak about Science confirming the Quran they actually mean that Science exposes and corrects the multitude of errors contained in this book? Either the word means "to confirm" or it does not. But then it should not be translated that way. What all of this really is, is a trick of Muhammad of claiming agreement with earlier accepted revelation for the purpose of legitimizing himself.
Shamoun is appealing to false analogies. First, I have already explained that the word "confirm" could have two meanings. Secondly, it depends on how you understand the word "Torah" in the verse. If you define the word "Torah" as referring to the true revelation of Allah then it is valid to accept that confirmation in this context requires a confirmation of all the content. Torah could either refer to the true revelation sent by Allah or the Old Testament (depends on the context). If we assume that the only book that existed during the time of the Prophet Muhammad or Jesus (peace be upon them both) is the Old Testament and that the true revelation of Allah (i.e. real Torah) only exists scattered throughout the Old Testament then "confirmation of Torah" means that we are confirming the entire true Torah by distinguishing the truth from the falsehood found in the false Torah (i.e. Old Testament). Furthermore, as I have explained, the word "confirm" could also mean to confirm the truth of a promise made and since the original Torah predicted the coming of Muhammad (peace be upon him), the Qur'an is coming to confirm that promise and that is how the scholars of Islam understood it. Who is Shamoun to teach us Arabic rules of grammar and speech by appealing to the English language as examples! Shamoun continues to read the Qur'an using English translations and somehow thinks he could prove his case by appealing to grammatical rules or methods of speech found in the English language! Wow, poor Shamoun. I mean really, poor Shamoun.
Shamoun then repeats the argument that Imam Al Bukhari held this position because he cited the alleged Ibn Abbass statement it in his Sahih collection. First of all, Bukhari's inclusion of that statement doesn't necessitate that he believed in it. He placed it as a footnote and not as a full isnad. I have cited Ibn Hajar Al Asqalani as saying that the isnaad is not fully connected to Ibn Abbass. If the isnaad is not fully connected then how could Bukhari have believed in it when it doesn't even meet his own standards of hadith criticism? Bukhari was so strict in his hadith criticism that he even rejected hadeeth that would have been acceptable to have been included in Saheeh Muslim! So how could he have believed in this narration? Secondly, even if he did believe in this narration who said that he understood it the way Shamoun does? As I have explained in this article this narration could be understood in another way:
Thirdly, Ibn Abbaas's statement could be reinterpreted in order to be reconciled with the other statements that he has made. And that is that Ibn Abbaas intended to say that they changed what was in their hands of the text which was with them, but they could not change the original true text which is with Allah in al-Lawh al-Mahfudh (preserved tablet) since the speech of Allah is uncreated and no one can ever make it go lost completely and removing the words from the books here on earth does not mean that God's words have become totally lost but lost here on earth only.
Ibn Kathir says in his commentary of Surah 85, Verse 22...
(Nay! This is a Glorious Qur'an.) meaning, magnificent and noble.
(In Al-Lawh Al-Mahfuz!) meaning, among the most high gathering, guarded from any increase, decrease, distortion, or change. (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Source)
Here we see that the Qur'an is also preserved in the Preserved Tablet from being corrupted and this strongly raises the possibility that this is what Ibn Abbaas was referring to when he made (assuming that he did) that statement. His intention was to say that the speech of God is in the Preserved Tablet (including the original Torah and Gospel) and cannot be changed.
How does Shamoun know that Bukhari didn't understand the narration in this way?
Shamoun then refers to Ar-Razi, but notice what Ar-Razi said:
There is a difference of opinions regarding this matter among some of the respectable scholars. Some of these scholars said: the manuscript copies of the Torah were distributed everywhere and no one knows the exact number of these copies except Allah. It is IMPOSSIBLE to have a conspiracy to change or alter the word of God in all of these copies without missing any copy. Such a conspiracy will not be logical or possible. And when Allah told his messenger (Muhammad) to ask the Jews to bring their Torah and read it concerning the stoning command they were not able to change this command from their copies, that is why they covered up the stoning verse while they were reading it to the prophet. It was then when Abdullah Ibn Salam requested that they remove their hand so that the verse became clear. If they have changed or altered the Torah then this verse would have been one of the important verses to be altered by the Jews.
Ar-Razi wasn't appealing to any Qu'ranic texts or hadith to prove his point, but rather to his own logic. Furthermore, Ar-Razi was born over 500 years after the Prophet's (peace be upon him) death. What benefit does a late opinion have to Shamoun's case especially when that opinion is not based on Islamic scriptures?
Shamoun said:
Zawadi still doesn't get the point. He wants us to actually believe that the Torah contained a passage which says that stoning occurs only when four men testify that they saw a man's organ enter and penetrate a woman when such an injunction doesn't even appear in the Quran! Moreover, the consistent testimony of the Holy Bible is that a legal matter will be settled by the testimony of two or three witnesses, not four!
Again, we are not debating whether the Islamic claim is true or not, but are debating what the Islamic claim is!
Shamoun then rants on about Qur'anic variants (Shamoun presenting red herrings is nothing new), but we advise our readers to listen to the debate I had with Nabeel Qureshi on this topic over here.
In conclusion, Shamoun loses again and needs to face the fact that his favorite argument against Islam (i.e. the Qur'an confirms the Bible), which he adhered to for more than a decade has been demolished by me on my site and he just cannot stand that thought.
