OHUD. [[UHUD].]
OLD TESTAMENT. Al-ʿAhdu ʾl-ʿAtīq (العهد العتيق). Muḥammad, in his Qurʾān, professes to receive all the inspired books of the Old Testament. (See [Sūrah ii. 130]): “We believe in God, and what has been revealed to us, and what has been revealed to Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the Tribes, and what was brought unto the Prophets from their Lord: and we will not distinguish between any of them, and unto Him are we resigned” (i.e. Muslims). But there is no evidence that Muḥammad had ever seen the Jewish Scriptures, as now received by both Jews and Christians. In the Qurʾān, he mentions the Taurāt of Moses, the Zabūr (Psalms) of David, and makes several references to the historical portions of the Old Testament; but Jonah is the only name amongst the writers of the prophetical books (either greater or minor), of the Old Testament scriptures, mentioned in the Qurʾān.
Muḥammadan writers say there have been 124,000 prophets, but only eight of these have been apostles to whom the Almighty has revealed books, and that only one hundred portions, or ṣuhuf, and four books, or kutub, have been given to mankind. Ten portions to Adam, the first of the prophets, fifty to Seth (not once mentioned in the Qurʾān), thirty to Idrīs or Enoch, and ten to Abraham. One book to Moses, another to David, another to Jesus, and the fourth to Muḥammad.
Six of the prophets are said to have brought in new laws which successively abrogated the preceding, namely Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muḥammad.
It is impossible to read the Qurʾān carefully without arriving at the conclusion that Muḥammad derived his knowledge of the events of Old Testament scriptures rather from the Rabbins and their Talmudic teaching, than from the inspired text itself. Mr. Emanuel Deutsch truly says: “Judaism forms the kernel of Muḥammadanism, both general and special. It seems as if he (Muḥammad) had breathed from his childhood almost the air of contemporary Judaism, such Judaism as is found by us crystallised in the Talmud, the Targum, and the Midras.” (Literary Remains, p. 89.)
The following Old Testament characters are mentioned by name in the Qurʾān:—
Aaron, Hārūn; Abel, Hābīl; Cain, Qābīl; Abraham, Ibrāhīm; Adam, Ādam; Terah, Āzar; David, Dāʾūd; Goliath, Jālūt; Enoch, Idrīs; Elias, Ilyās; Elijah, Alyasaʿ (al-Yasaʿ); Ezra, ʿUzair; Gabriel, Jibrīl; Gog, Yājūj; Magog, Mājūj; Isaac, Isḥāq; Ishmael, Ismāʿīl; Jacob, Yaʿqūb; Joseph, Yūsuf; Job, Aiyūb; Jonah, Yūnus; Joshua, Yūshaʿ; Korah, Qārūn; Lot, Lūt̤; Michael, Mikāʾīl; Moses, Mūsā; Noah, Nūḥ; Pharaoh, Firaun; Solomon, Sulaimān; Saul, T̤ālūt.
The following incidents of Old Testament history are related in the Qurʾān, with a strange want of accuracy and a large admixture of Talmudic fable:—
Aaron makes a calf. [Sūrah xx. 90].
Cain and Abel. [Sūrah v. 30].