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Say:—what think ye? If (this Revelation) be from God, and ye reject it,
and a witness from amongst the children of Israel testify to the like thereof
and believe ; and ye proudly despise it. Verily God doth not guide the erring
people.
A Jew, either residing in the vicinity of Mecca, or having visited it perhaps
from Medina or elsewhere,—at any rate known at Mecca,—is quoted to the
people of Mecca as bearing testimony to the correspondence of the Corân with the
Jewish Scriptures, and accordingly believing in it. "Does not this,"
says Mahomet, "prove the divine inspiration of the Corân, and yet ye
proudly reject it?"
So Baidhâwi,—
على مثله مثل القران وهو ما في التوراة من المعاني المصدقة القرآن المطابقة له أو مثل ذالك وهو كونه من عندالله فآمن أي بالقرآن لما رائي من خبر الوحي مطابقاً للحق
"To the like-thereof, i. e. like the Corân, and the meaning is
that the contents of the Tourât (Pentateuch) by their purport attest the Corân,
as corresponding therewith, or resembling it;—and thus prove its being from
God. And believed, that is, in the Corân, when he (the Jew) saw the
intimations of Inspiration corresponding with the truth."
Thus the Corân appeals to the evidence of a Jew, who (as is alleged) finding
the purport of Mahomet's revelation to correspond with the tenor of his own
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TESTIMONY TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. |
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divinely-inspired Scriptures, came to the conclusion that the
former also was divinely inspired. The appeal is in fact, as elsewhere,
to the Scriptures themselves, then in use amongst the Jews; and
implies that they were regarded by Mahomet as not only inspired
and authoritative, but free from interpolation, and genuine.
XVI.—SURA XLVI., v. 12.
سورة الأحقاف
وَإِذْ لَمْ يَهْتَدُوا بِهِ فَسَيَقُولُونَ
هَذَا إِفْكٌ قَدِيمٌ وَمِن قَبْلِهِ كِتَابُ مُوسَى إِمَامًا وَرَحْمَةً وَهَذَا
كِتَابٌ مُّصَدِّقٌ لِّسَانًا عَرَبِيًّا لِّيُنذِرَ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا وَبُشْرَى
لِلْمُحْسِنِينَ
And when they refuse to be guided thereby, they say;—this is an
antiquated lie. Yet preceding it there is the Book of Moses, a guide and
a mercy; and this Corân is a book attesting (previous Revelation),
in the Arabic tongue, to warn the transgressors, and glad tidings to the
righteous.
The Coreish rejected the Corân as being an "ancient lie";—meaning
probably that it was fabricated out of former revelations, and trumped up
as new. To this Mahomet replied that the Book of Moses was, according to
their own confession, "a Guide and a Mercy"; and that the Corân
was no lie, since it was mainly intended as an attestation (for the use
of the Arabs and therefore in the Arabic tongue) of that same Book of
Moses, or of the Sacred Scriptures generally which preceded it. So
Baidhâwi,—
مصدق للكتاب موسى أو لما بين يديه
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