The Old Testament in Muslim Sources

Continuity of Revelation in the Quran

In the Quran and in the faith traditions that grew out of it, the idea of a continuity of “revelation” plays a central role. The history of the prophets appears as a connected chain of messages from God, in which each new “revelation” links up with earlier ones, confirms them or corrects them, but does not come out of nothing. This makes clear that the Quran does not understand itself as an isolated beginning, but as the continuation of a longer history.

The message of earlier prophets is treated as an integral part of one’s own tradition. The Quran states many times that the writings of earlier prophets are recognised as part of God’s revelation. An important example is Quran 3:84¹:

“Say: We believe in God, in what was sent down to us, to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and the tribes, and in what was given to Moses, Jesus, and the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction among any of them. To Him (God) we submit.”

This verse emphasises that the faith of Muslims explicitly includes the “revelations” given to Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and others. The phrase “we make no distinction among any of them” does not mean that all messages are identical, but that they all come from the same source and are therefore equal in their origin. The community thus places itself in a long line of recipients of “God’s message”.

From this perspective, Muslims do not understand themselves as a completely new community that breaks with everything before. They see themselves as part of a longer, layered history. The relationship to earlier scriptures is therefore not just historical, but also theologically significant. Anyone who takes the Quran seriously must also engage with the traditions in which the Torah, the Psalms, and other writings are rooted. This is exactly where the question of what terms to use for what Christians call the “Old Testament” becomes important.

Terms Instead of “Old Testament”: Torah, Psalms, and isrāʾiliyyāt

In Muslim traditions, speaking of an “Old Testament” is unusual. The label comes from a Christian framework, in which the “New” Testament is read as the fulfilment or surpassing of the “Old”. Instead, Muslims work with specific terms that name individual writings or bodies of material and so describe more precisely what is at stake.

Three terms are particularly important here. Tawrāh refers to the scripture said to have been revealed to Moses, usually identified with the Torah, that is, the Pentateuch. Zabūr refers to the Psalms attributed to David, which the Quran likewise mentions as a “scripture of revelation”. The term isrāʾiliyyāt finally refers to narratives and traditions of Jewish, and later also Christian, origin that found their way into different Muslim text genres.² All three terms mark different ways of approaching what we today know as the “Old Testament” and its interpretation.

The label “old” would be misleading both from a Jewish and from a Quranic self understanding. In Judaism, what Christians call the “Old Testament” is not seen as superseded, but as a scripture that remains valid. The Quran, too, does not speak of an “old” scripture that has been replaced by something entirely new. It criticises certain interpretations or practices, but acknowledges the original “divine origin” of these scriptures.

The differentiated Quranic terms show a recognition of different aspects of Jewish traditions. Anyone who wants to understand how Muslims grasp and read the writings of the Old Testament has to look more closely at what tawrāh, zabūr, and isrāʾiliyyāt each refer to. In what follows, the Torah is the focus first.

The Torah (tawrāh) in the Quran

The Quran names two writings that can clearly be linked to what Christians call the “Old Testament”: the Torah (tawrāh) and the Psalms (zabūr). Yet tawrāh is not a fully unambiguous term in the Quran. Often it apparently means the Torah in the narrower sense, but sometimes it means more than just the Pentateuch. This very ambiguity makes a careful reading of the relevant verses interesting.

A particularly important example is the passage Quran 5:43 to 45. In 5:43 we read:

“How do they make you their judge when they have the Torah with them, in which God’s power of judgement is given, and then turn away from it? These are not believers.”³

Here the Torah is presented as a scripture “in which God’s power of judgement is found”. This means that it counts as a standard for just decisions and as a norm by which legal action should be guided. Verse 5:44 deepens this picture once more:

“We have sent down the Torah. In it are guidance and light, so that the prophets who were devoted to God might judge for the Jews, as did the rabbis and the scholars, by what had been entrusted to them from God’s scripture. They were witnesses of it…”⁴

Several aspects become clear here. First, the tawrāh is described as a scripture of revelation “sent down” by God. Second, it contains “guidance and light”, that is, direction and illumination of the divine will. Third, it serves as a basis for jurisprudence. Prophets, rabbis, and scholars decide “for the Jews” by what was entrusted to them from this scripture. The Torah appears here as a practical instrument for ordering communal life.

The Quran scholar Nicolai Sinai summarises these observations by noting that the Quran in 5:43 to 45 portrays the tawrāh as a divine scripture of revelation, grounded in a heavenly archetype and especially suited for legal application.⁵ In 5:45, this is made concrete by a direct citation of the principle of retaliation (“life for life, eye for eye”). This principle calls for retribution, but at the same time leaves room for forgoing it in favour of reconciliation and atonement. So the Quran conveys the impression that the Torah carries both strictness and mercy.

From a Quranic perspective, the tawrāh is therefore neither an outdated nor a fundamentally corrupt scripture. In its original form, it remains a carrier of guidance and light. The question of how far the term tawrāh reaches and which texts exactly are meant by it has not yet been answered. This question is intensely debated in current scholarship.

The Scope of the Term tawrāh

The majority of scholars have understood tawrāh as what the Jewish tradition calls “Torah”, that is, the five books of Moses. A closer reading of the relevant Quranic passages and of their later interpretation, however, suggests that the term in the Quran is often broader. This is where the discussion in modern research begins, comparing different interpretive options.

The scholar Hartwig Hirschfeld, in his work Beiträge zur Erklärung des Ḳorân, points out that “Torah” in the Quran possibly does not only cover the five books of Moses, but also other parts of Jewish writings, such as the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the Midrash.⁶ In his view, some Quranic allusions reflect later interpretations rather than the biblical base text.

A different position is held by Mohsen Goudarzi, whom Sinai cites in summary form.⁷ Goudarzi suggests that in some places the term tawrāh should be understood less as the name of a clearly defined book, and more as a collective term for the entirety of the prophetic teachings of the Israelites. What the Quran calls “Torah” could then mean a whole layer of texts and traditions which, from a Jewish point of view, are partly biblical and partly post biblical.

One reason that speaks for this is that not all paraphrases or allusions to “teachings of the Torah” mentioned by the Quran can actually be found in the text of the Torah. Many of these contents only appear in the wider Jewish source corpus, for example in rabbinic commentaries and interpretations that are not part of the biblical canon.⁸ When the Quran picks up such elements, the line between “Torah” in the narrower sense and later interpretation is hard to draw.

In addition, the Quran apparently engages with a variety of Jewish sources, both canonical, that is, writings that belong to the Tanakh, and apocryphal, non canonical texts. Sinai reminds us that the Quranic understanding of the Torah is very likely closely tied to the question of how Muhammad’s audience knew Jewish writings in the first place. Many likely formed their picture more through oral transmission than through careful textual study.⁹ This makes it understandable why the Quran does not draw a sharp line between “Torah” and “other Jewish writings”.

The Psalms (zabūr) in the Quran

Alongside the Torah, the Quran also names the Psalms, in Arabic zabūr, as a scripture of revelation. They are attributed to the prophet David and are thereby clearly placed in the line of those who received a “divine message”. The Quran thus marks David as a prophet, and at the same time recognises the Psalms as part of the “divine revelation” addressed to humankind.

The Quran cites a Psalm word for word only once, in Quran 21:105:

“And after the admonition, we have already written in the Psalms: the earth will be inherited by my servants, the righteous.”¹⁰

This refers to Psalm 37, in particular verses 9 to 11, 29, and 34, which speak of the righteous who will inherit the land.¹¹ The Quranic formulation gathers these motifs and reads them in the light of its own preaching context. In this way, a direct bridge is built between biblical tradition and the Quranic message.

Compared to the Torah, however, the Psalms play a relatively secondary role in the Quran. They are mentioned as their own “scripture of revelation”, but they are less strongly woven into legal or narrative arguments. Their function is more supplementary. They confirm the continuity of “revelation” and strengthen the idea that God has “spoken” in different forms at different times and to different peoples.

Despite this restrained role, the Psalms count in Muslim theology as part of what Muslims are in principle supposed to believe in. They belong to the “divine scriptures” that are acknowledged in faith, even if in practice they are clearly less present than the Quran or the tawrāh. For this very reason, it is worth looking at other ways through which material from the Old Testament entered the Muslim world.

The isrāʾiliyyāt: Jewish and Christian Narrative Traditions in the Muslim World

Beyond the Quran, another source plays a key role in the relationship to the Old Testament: the so called isrāʾiliyyāt. This term, literally something like “Israelisms” or “Israelite traditions”, refers to a large set of statements, narratives, and traditions of Jewish, and also Christian, origin that were taken up in early Muslim thought.¹²

The isrāʾiliyyāt appear in different genres, for example in Quranic exegesis (tafsīr), that is, the interpretation of the Quran, in the Hadith literature, in the biography of the Prophet (sīra), and in the literary genre of the stories of the prophets (qiṣaṣ al anbiyāʾ). Through these paths, many Jewish and Christian motifs, images, and interpretations flowed into Muslim exegesis and narrative tradition.

According to Meʾir Mikhaʾel Bar Asher, some generations after the Quran was set down, Muslim scholars deepened their knowledge of the Old Testament and of rabbinic sources considerably. On this basis, a rich exegetical literature emerged that took up many biblical and post biblical details. For the stories of the prophets, among other things, many midrashim were drawn upon,¹³ which then circulated under the umbrella term isrāʾiliyyāt.¹⁴

This makes clear that the Old Testament and its interpretation are not just an abstract reference point in Muslim thought, but are present very concretely in the form of stories, motifs, and interpretations. The isrāʾiliyyāt form a kind of bridge through which Jewish and Christian traditions flow into Muslim interpretive processes. Their exact function, however, has to be considered carefully.

The Function of the isrāʾiliyyāt in Muslim Readings

The isrāʾiliyyāt are particularly important because they help to fill in gaps in Quranic narratives. Many stories in the Quran, for instance about Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, or Joseph, are told relatively briefly, often without the names of secondary figures, without clear chronological order, and without detailed motivations. The isrāʾiliyyāt provide additional information here, embellishments, and background that make the stories more vivid and understandable for listeners.

At the same time, the isrāʾiliyyāt also bring problems with them. First, their origin is rarely stated precisely in Muslim sources. When an exegesis introduces a story with the words “I found it in the Torah”, or “It is written in the books”, this doesn’t automatically mean that the source is the Old Testament in the narrow sense. Often, post biblical texts can be meant, such as the Talmud, the Midrash, or other writings.¹⁵

Second, the narratives themselves are usually not simply copied, but adapted and rephrased. Just as Old Testament episodes are not literally translated in the Quran, but paraphrased, reinterpreted, or rearranged, the isrāʾiliyyāt were also creatively reworked in Muslim texts. This makes it hard to pinpoint the original textual form and complicates a clear assignment to specific Jewish or Christian sources.

Bar Asher emphasises that both Jewish converts and Muslim scholars who were in close exchange with Jewish and Christian colleagues played a decisive role in transmitting this material. Muslim historical works date the formation and systematisation of the isrāʾiliyyāt tradition to roughly the late 7th and 8th centuries.¹⁶ This places them in the formative phase of early Muslim history. All in all, the isrāʾiliyyāt show how closely intertwined Old Testament transmission, rabbinic interpretation, and early Muslim theologies are. They make clear that the engagement with the Old Testament in the Muslim world did not just take place at the level of text theory, but also concretely in narrative and in practice.

The Role of the Quṣṣāṣ: Storytellers and Preachers

A special group of transmitters of the isrāʾiliyyāt were the so called Quṣṣāṣ (singular: qāṣṣ). The word literally means “narrator” or “storyteller”, which already points to their central task. They told stories, interpreted them religiously, and so made complex material accessible for a broad audience.¹⁷

These preachers and storytellers, who were not seldom also employed by the ruling class to solidify certain narratives, played a major role in spreading “religious knowledge”, explaining it, and connecting it with people’s everyday life. Many believers had no direct access to written sources, and got to know the stories of the prophets and earlier communities by hearing such traditions.

The main task of the Quṣṣāṣ was to tell moral and instructive stories. The basis was the narratives of the prophets, other religious legends, and a wide range of local religious traditions. Many of these materials had a Jewish or Christian origin and were embedded in Muslim interpretive frames. The stories that resulted felt familiar to listeners, because they drew on motifs they already knew.

The stories of the Quṣṣāṣ did not only have entertainment value. They conveyed moral lessons, voiced warnings, and presented positive role models whose behaviour was meant to be imitated. Ismail Albayrak shows that Old Testament, biblical, and post biblical themes in these stories were often paraphrased, reinterpreted, or expanded.¹⁸ In this way, a shared narrative tradition grew, in which the Old Testament and its interpretation are an important, even if not always clearly separable, building block.

Against this background, one can say that the Muslim relationship to the Old Testament is not exhausted in dogmatic statements about earlier scriptures. It is lived in stories, sermons, and interpretations, in which Torah, Psalms, isrāʾiliyyāt, and other traditions are brought into conversation with each other. Taking these entanglements seriously yields a far more complex picture of the relations between Muslim and Jewish traditions.

Footnotes

1. Hans Zirker (transl.), Der Koran, Darmstadt, 4th ed. 2013, p. 48. ↩

2. isrāʾiliyyāt: collective name for Jewish and Christian narrative material in Muslim texts. ↩

3. Zirker, Der Koran, p. 76 (on Quran 5:43). ↩

4. Zirker, Der Koran, p. 76 (on Quran 5:44 to 45). ↩

5. Nicolai Sinai, Key Terms of the Qur’an: A Critical Dictionary, Princeton 2023, p. 167. ↩

6. Hartwig Hirschfeld, Beiträge zur Erklärung des Ḳorân, Leipzig 1886, p. 65. ↩

7. Compare Sinai, Key Terms of the Qur’an, p. 168 (summary of the position of Mohsen Goudarzi). ↩

8. Meant are rabbinic commentaries and interpretations that are not part of the biblical canon. ↩

9. Compare Sinai, Key Terms of the Qur’an, p. 168. ↩

10. Lazarus Goldschmidt (transl.), Der Koran, Berlin 1916, p. 328. ↩

11. Compare Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi / Guillaume Dye (eds.), Le Coran des historiens, vol. 2a, Paris 2019, p. 817. ↩

12. Compare Amir-Moezzi / Dye, Le Coran des historiens, vol. 1, p. 311 f. ↩

13. Midrash: rabbinic interpretive literature on the Old Testament. ↩

14. Compare Amir-Moezzi / Dye, Le Coran des historiens, vol. 1, p. 312. ↩

15. With “books”, post biblical Jewish writings such as the Talmud, the Midrash, or related literature are often meant. ↩

16. Compare Amir-Moezzi / Dye, Le Coran des historiens, vol. 1, p. 312. ↩

17. Quṣṣāṣ: early Muslim preachers and storytellers who popularised religious material. ↩

18. Compare Ismail Albayrak, Qur’anic Narrative and Isra’iliyyat in Western Scholarship and in Classical Exegesis, Leeds 2000, p. 122 f. ↩