Tawrat

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Tawrat (Tawrah or Taurat, Arabic: توراة) is the Arabic transliteration of the Hebrew word Torah (also known as the Five Books of Moses or the Pentateuch) which Muslims believe was a holy book of Islam given by God to Musa (Moses). Some^[who?] theorize that the Tawrat may refer to the entire Tanakh or Old Testament. Muslims believe that the Tawrat has undergone tahrif, that is, meanings or words were distorted, passages were suppressed, others added, etc.

[edit] In the Qur'an

Possible quotations from the Torah in the Qur'an are very few and inexact. An example is 5:45 where the Quran reads, "We ordained therein for them: "Life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal."" (Abdullah Yusuf Ali) This could be a quote^{[citation needed]} from Exodus 21:24-25: "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe" (KJV)

According to 7:157, Muhammad is written about in both the Injil and the Tawrat, "Those who follow the apostle, the unlettered Prophet, whom they find mentioned in their own (scriptures), - in the law and the Gospel". (Yusuf-Ali)

Most Muslims consider Deuteronomy 18:18, "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." to be a reference to Muhammad.^{[citation needed]}

The Tawrat is mentioned as being known by Isa (Jesus) in 5:110. "Behold! I taught thee the Book and Wisdom, the Law and the Gospel and behold! thou makest out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, by My leave, and thou breathest into it and it becometh a bird by My leave, and thou healest those born blind, and the lepers, by My leave. And behold! thou bringest forth the dead by My leave" (Yusuf-Ali)

Some quotations are taken from other books of the Hebrew Bible. An example of this is 48:29, "This is their similitude in the Taurat; and their similitude in the Gospel is: like a seed which sends forth its blade, then makes it strong; it then becomes thick, and it stands on its own stem, (filling) the sowers with wonder and delight" (Yusuf-Ali). This could be a quote from Psalm 1:3, 72:16 or 92:14,

• "And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Psalm 1:3
• "There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth." Psalm 72:16
• "They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;" Psalm 92:14

Or 48:29 could simply be using an analogy, where the earlier Tawrat is the "seed", and the later books (the Book of Psalms and the Gospels) are the "blade" that grow from it, becoming stronger, with the Quran being the final book, standing "in its own stem, (filling) the sowers with wonder and delight" - the "sowers" perhaps being the practicers of the religions in question who eventually find (and, presumably, convert to) Islam.^{[citation needed]}

Some other quotations are from the Mishnah. An example of this is 5:32 where it says, "On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people." This could be a quote from Sanhedrin 4:5.^{[citation needed]}

These quotes suggest that the word had the wide meaning of the whole corpus of Jewish Scriptures, as Torah in ancient Jewish literature itself,^[1] but only late Muslim authors differentiate explicitly between "the wider and the specific meaning" of Tawrat.

[edit] In the Hadith

Because he believed the Qur'an replaced it, Muhammad did not teach from the Torah and the Qur'an says very little about it. He did say that Musa (Moses) was one of the few prophets to receive a revelation directly from God, that is, without an intervening angel. On one occasion, some Jews wanted Muhammad to decide how to deal with their brethren who had committed adultery. Abu Dawud records in Book 38 Number 4434:

They placed a cushion for the Apostle of Allah(s.w.t) peace be upon him who sat on it and said: Bring the Torah. It was then brought. He then withdrew the cushion from beneath him and placed the Torah on it saying: I believed in thee and in Him Who revealed thee. He then said: Bring me one who is learned among you. Then a young man was brought. The transmitter then mentioned the rest of the tradition of stoning similar to the one transmitted by Malik from Nafi' (No. 4431).

[edit] Semantics

There is some ambiguity among English speaking Muslims on the use of Tawrat versus Torah. The Arabic of the Qur'an and hadith have only one word, Tawrat. Generally, in English, they are used interchangeably. However, some Muslims prefer to reserve Tawrat to refer only to the original revelation of Allah to Musa which was later supposedly corrupted. They use Torah to refer to the current, supposedly corrupted text.^{[citation needed]}

There is also ambiguity as to whether the Qur'an uses Tawrat only referring to the five books of Moses, the entire Tanach, or both, as in Hebrew. This comes because the Qur'an often lists the holy books as the Tawrat, Injil, and Qur'an, discluding the Zabur (the Psalms), possibly because the Psalms are part of the Tanach. Moreover, a Muslim scholar seemed to reference Isaiah (a book of the Tanach), saying it was from the Tawrat.^[2] This meaning is uncommon, as most Muslims think it only refers to the five books of Moses.

[edit] See also

• Islam
• Suhuf Ibrahim

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• A discussion of the Tawrat and some other scriptures
• Does Quran confirm the Jewish Scripts?
• Study Regarding the Tawrat