Ibn-Hazm (Khazem) and Corruption

Greetings and welcome.

Interesting post. I would love to do a write up but will do when I have more time.

Mansoor_ali wrote:  I think you donot know that your own Bible contradicts itself.

Mansoor, Let me be honest here. Although I am new to this forum, I am not new to debating Muslims. I know that one of the main stratagems of Muslim Apologetics is to combine the Biblical Mandate to defend the faith:

Edited by Egwpisteuw - 06 November 2010 at 7:14am

Egwpisteuw wrote: The cornerstone of Muslim Apologetics to Christians is the Doctrine of Biblical Corruption.  However, most Muslims: 1. Do not know the history of this doctrine. 2. Have never thought through the theological implications of this doctrine. 3. Have never thought through the historical implications of this doctrine. In this thread, I would like to discuss these issues. History of the Doctrine: Ibn Hazm (aka Ibn Khazem) was the first Muslim to posit the Doctrine of Biblical Corruption in the 11th century AD.  Thus for the first four centuries of Islamic history this doctrine did not exist. This is in keeping with a literal grammatical reading of the Quran which claims to be " a confirmation of what was before it and a detailed explanation of the [former] Scripture" Surah 10:37 However, Ibn Hazm noticed that the Quran does not live up to the standard which it proclaims:   "Ibn-Khazem saw the contradictions between the Qur'an and the Gospels. One obvious example being the Qur'anic text `They slew him not and they crucified him not' Surah 4:156. `Since the Qur'an must be true,' Ibn- Khazem argued, `it must be the conflicting Gospel texts that are false. But Muhammad tells us to respect the Gospel. Therefore, the present text must have been falsified by the Christians.' His argument was not based on historical facts, but purely on his own reasoning and on his wish to safeguard the truth of the Qur'an. I. DI MATTEO, (`Il "takhrif" od alterazione della Bibbia secondo i musulmani', Bessarione 38 (1922) 64-111; 223-260; `Le preteze contradizzioni della S. Scrittura secondo Ibn-Hazm', Bessarione 39 (1923) 77-127, E. FRITSCH, op. cit., p. 66.)" "Nothing could stop him from pursuing this accusation, it seemed the easiest way to attack the opponents. `If we prove the falsehood of their books, they lose the arguments they take from them.' (IBN KHAZEM, Kitab al-fasl fi'l-milah wa'l ahwa'l nikhal, II,6; E. FRITSCH, op cit., p.55) and this led to him eventually making the cynical statement `The Christians lost the revealed Gospel except for a few traces which Allah has left intact as argument against them.' ( IBN KHAZEM, ibid.; E. FRITSCH, op. cit, p. 64)"   "Later writers took up the same reasoning, enlarged it and embellished it. The falsification of the Bible was thus asserted by Salikh Ibn-al-Khusain (died 1200AD), Ahmad at-Qarafi (died 1285AD), Sa'id Ibn-Khasan (died 1320AD), Muhammad Ibn-Abi-Talib (died 1327AD), Ibn-Taimija (died 1328AD) and many others. From then on it has become a fixed ingredient of Muslim apologetics." Source: http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/138007 Theological Implications of the Doctrine: If God was either unable or unwilling to keep His Word from corruption, then He is not God. If He was not able to keep His Word from corruption then He is not Omnipotent and thus not God. If He was unwilling to keep His Word from Corruption then His attributes of Veracity and Immutability are compromised and He is not God:   I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. Psalm 138:2 The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.Isaiah 40:8 Historical Implications of the Doctrine: The historical implications of this doctrine are huge. The Bible is by far the most well attested book of antiquity. The manuscript evidence is much stronger than any other ancient writing. Thus to throw out the Bible as corrupted is to throw out the writings of: Homer, Virgil, Tacitus, Josephus, Julius Caesar, Ovid, Virgil, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristotle, Suetonius, etc., basically all of Ancient History. Thus, Ibn Hazm's doctrine of Biblical Corruption makes no sense. It should be rejected by the honest Muslim. It is an impediment to the necessary confrontation of the critical question: What is the real reason why the Quran and the Bible disagree on most major doctrines?

To be honest and frank, I heard of this so-called Doctrine of Biblical Corruption by Ibne Hazm only today. I didn't even know who this Ibne Hazm was.

How did Ibn Hazm come to the conclusion that the Bible was corrupted or forged? I am sure that he concluded that through Qur'aan, because being a Muslim, he must have read the accusations in Qur'aan.

When I read Qur'aan for the first time, it fired my imagination and I sat down reading the Christian Bible and compared the Old Testament with the Jewish Tanakh. I found that verses in the Old Testament had been forged.

And during my studies of the New Testament, I found that verses were indeed forged.

Please take a look at my post no:5 on this thread and let me have your comments on what I presented to Douggg.

Topic: Israel born in a single day

http://www.islamicity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=17685

I do not trust Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Sam Shamoun and other polemic Christians, who willfully misquote, misinform and misreport.

Qur'aan does not even mention the words Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament. It refers only to the Torah that was given to Moses and the injeel, which was given to Jesus by Allah, the LORD Almighty.

So, naturally the New Testament is definitely not the Injeel as it was given by the Church, not the LORD Almighty.

And when Qur'aan refers to the Torah and the Injeel or simply talks about the past scriptures, it refers to only the truth that went before Qur'aan.

Thus Qur'aan does not say or verify that everything in the OT and the NT, is correct.

For example, it is generally believed that the 1st five books of the OT or the Jewish Tanakh form the Torah. How could Moses have written Joshua? Joshua was definitely not written by Moses. Right?

My point is that it was not only Ibne Hazm, who came up with the criticism. It was Qur'aan that had pointed out the corruption and forgeries.

Please let me have your comments on the forgery in Hebrews. 

 To Egwpisteuw

 Yes Quran confirms that Jesus is a Prophet of Allah and Quran also confirms that Jesus is a Messiah meaning Christ.Quran confirms that Jesus performed many many miracles.Quran also confirms the Jesus's miraculous birth.Quran also confirms that Jesus was given Injil but at the same time Quran also points out the errors and mistakes in the Bible.It should also be noted that Quran never use the word Bible but it uses the word injil.

 Let's take an example,All the Christians and their scriptures say that Jesus was crucified and then he raised from the dead but the Quran corrects this error by saying that Jesus was not crucified(Surah 4:157).So Quran is a criteria or scale to judge wrong and right.What is confirmed by the Quran it is right and what is not confirmed by the Quran it is wrong.

 Thats why Quran says in Surah 3:3(the verse that you also quoted):

 It is He Who sent down to thee (step by step), in truth, the Book, confirming what went before it; and He sent down the Law (of Moses) and the Gospel (of Jesus) before this, as a guide to mankind, and He sent down the criterion (of judgment between right and wrong).

 So Quran when attest the previous scriptures at the same time it also corrects the previous scriptures,points out their errors and mistakes.

 Then you said that Why would God ever allow His Word to become corrupted?

 It was not God who allow the corruption.God never said that do the corruption in my scriptures.You cannot question the God.It was their people who did it not God.It was the responsibility of the people to protect the word of God from any kind of corruption but when they failed in doing so then God send another Prophet,Prophet Muhammad, with the last and final revelation the Holy Quran but at that time God decided that he himself will protect the Quran not his people because Quran is not for a specific period of time and for a specific nation it is for every nation and it is last and final there is neither any prophet after Muhammad nor any scripture will reveal after Quran so thats why Quran is directly protected by God himself.

 So Quran confirms what is accurate and reliable in the scriptures that you possess today and also specify the errors in these scriptures.