BELIEF IN THE REVEALED BOOKS

BELIEF IN THE REVEALED BOOKS The perpetuity of God’s Guidance I T is a matter of Islamic belief that God, in His mercy, has sent prophet after prophet to lead people forth from darkness to light. The belief in all of God’s revealed books forms an integral part of Islamic faith. These divine books commanded justice in everything, and exhorted men to repent and mend their ways. The Quran describes Torah as Furqan (the Discriminator between right and wrong). It says: “We gave Moses and Aaron the criterion of right and wrong and a light and Reminder for the righteous (21: 48). Furqan means the ideological standard which enables man to distinguish between Truth and falsehood. Light means divine guidance, which leads a man out of the darkness of the wrong path and puts him in the light of the straight path. In this way, God has arranged for the guidance of man through His messengers. But, it is possible for God’s guidebook to provide guidance in the real sense only when a man is anxious about his fate in the Hereafter. This anxiety makes him so serious that he attaches more importance to Truth and righteousness than to any other thing. The Books Mentioned in the Quran Of the holy books, four find mention in the Quran: the Sahifa, scrolls given to Abraham; the Tawrat, the revelations made to Moses; the Zabur, the Psalms given to David; the Injil, the teachings given to Jesus. It is a belief of a Muslim that each of these (as well as every other Book sent by God to His Prophets) was originally a complete revelation. However, for a variety of reasons, most of these revealed books sent by God could not be preserved. For instance, the Quran mentions the scriptures given to Abraham (87: 19) as Sahifa, but these are no longer in existence and are lost completely. Others were changed in various ways by human intervention. Historians agree that the Quran, the last of the divine books has been preserved from human interpolation. The Torah The term Towrah is simply the Arabic equivalent for the Hebrew Torah, and normally understood as ‘The Law’ given by God to the Prophet