[Sūrah v. 72]: “Ye rest on nought until ye stand fast by the Law and the Gospel and what is revealed to you from your Lord.”
[Sūrah v. 110]: “When I taught thee the Book, and Wisdom, and the Law, and the Gospel.”
There are also allusions to the Christian Scriptures in the following verses:—
[Sūrah xix. 31]. (The infant Jesus said,) “Verily, I am the servant of God: He hath given me the book, and He hath made me a prophet.”
Muḥammad was much more indebted to Judaism than Christianity for the teaching he received, which enabled him to overthrow Arabian idolatry and to establish the worship of the One True God [[CHRISTIANITY], [JUDAISM]], and consequently we find more frequent allusions to the Law of Moses than to the Gospel of Christ; and, as it has been already stated, the references to the Gospel as a revelation are in the later Sūrahs. But in all references to the Injīl as an inspired record, there is not one single statement to the effect that the Christians of Muḥammad’s day did not possess the genuine Scriptures. In [Sūrah iv. 169], (which is an al-Madīnah Sūrah), the Christians are charged with extravagance, or error in doctrine, but not with not possessing the true Gospels:—
“Ye people of the Book! commit not extravagance in your religion; and say not of God other than the truth. For verily the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, is an apostle of God, and His word which He placed in Mary, and a spirit from Him. Wherefore, believe in God, and in His apostle; and say not,—‘the Trinity’;—refrain; it will be better for you. For verily God is one God; far exalted is He above the possibility that there should be unto Him progeny! to Him belongeth whatever is in the heavens and in the earth, and He sufficeth as a guardian.”
In [Sūrah lxi. 6], there is an appeal to the Gospel in support of Muḥammad’s mission, and the appeal is made without any doubt that he was referring to a genuine saying of Christ, well known to the Christians of that day. The verse is as follows:—
“When Jesus, the son of Mary, said: ‘O children of Israel! verily, I am the apostle of God to you, verifying the law that was before me, and giving you glad tidings of an apostle who shall come after me, whose name shall be Aḥmad!’ But when he did come to them with manifest signs, they said, ‘This is manifest sorcery!’ ”
The allusion is to the promise of the Paraclete in [John xvi. 7], the Muslims declaring that the word παράκλητος has been substituted for the Greek περικλυτός, the word Aḥmad, which is equivalent to Muḥammad, meaning “Praised.” The charge which modern Muslims bring against the Christians of having either lost, or changed the original Scriptures, is treated of under the head of [CORRUPTION OF THE SCRIPTURES]; but some curious statements on the subject will be found in an article in the Kashfu ʾz̤-Z̤unūn. It is a Bibliographical Dictionary, compiled by Ḥājjī K͟halīfah about 200 years ago. The statements in its article on [INJIL] are such a strange mixture of fact and fiction that we translate the article from the Arabic in extenso:—
“The Injīl is a book which God revealed to ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. In the work entitled al-Muwāhib (by Shihābu ʾd-Dīn Aḥmad al-Qast̤alānī, died A.H. 923), it is recorded that the Injīl was first revealed in the Syriac tongue, and has since been translated into seventeen languages. But in the Ṣaḥīḥu ʾl-Buk͟hārī (A.H. 256), in the story of Waraqah ibn Naufal, it is related that the Injīl was revealed in Hebrew. According to Wahb ibn Munabbih, as quoted by Zamak͟hsharī (A.H. 538) in the Kashshāf, the Injīl was revealed to Jesus on the 13th day of the month Ramaẓān, although some say it was on the 18th day of that month, 1200 years after the revelation of the Zabūr (Psalms) to Moses.