44 OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE GENUINESS OF

the whole of the north of Africa. Jews and Christians were hostile to one another, and, if either party had endeavoured to alter the text of the Bible, the other party would have detected and exposed the crime by producing the original. Yet the Jews have always accepted the same Hebrew Old Testament as that which we do, and all Christians accept the same Greek New Testament. Moreover, then as now Christians were divided into many sects, as the Qur'an testifies (Surah V., Al Maidah, 17), which often persecuted one another. It was obviously impossible for them therefore to conspire together to corrupt the Bible. You will in some measure understand this when you consider whether or not it would be possible for the Muslims (Sunnis, Shi'ites, Wahhabis, Sanusis, and all their other sects) to agree together to corrupt the text of the Qur'an, and to accept the corrupted form of the book.

Again, the Qur'an informs us (Surah III., Al 'Imran, 109, 110) that "Among the People of the Book is an upright folk . . . and these are of the righteous." If so, they would not have permitted, without a protest, such a crime as the corrupting of the Holy Scriptures. Is this statement of the Qur'an true or false? If true, is not your assertion impossible?

The prophecies which are contained in the Bible, some of them fulfilled (e.g. those regarding Babylon, Tyre, Egypt, Edom, in Isaiah; and those about

1 If they did not eliminate the prophecies relating to Christ, was there not still less reason for their striking out those referring to Muhammad? (Rev. W. A. Rice.)
THE BIBLE AS IT NOW EXISTS 45

the Jews in Deut. xxviii. 15 fin.) and some being fulfilled in our own days (e.g. that in Rev. xiv. 6, about the spread of the Gospel in our time, and the passages relating to the restoration and conversion of the Jews, which are now going on), show that the Bible which we now have in our hands has come from none other but the All-wise God 1.

In Muhammad's time, and later, not a few Jews and Christians, in many different lands which were conquered by the Muslims, embraced Islam, through fear or for other reasons. If the Jews and Christians had conspired together to corrupt the Bible, surely some of these converts would have been able to produce unaltered copies of the Holy Books wherewith to convict the perpetrators of their crime. Yet neither in ancient times nor at present do we hear of a single such copy having been brought forward. The Kitabu’l Aghani relates of Waraqah ibn Naufal (who had once been for a time a Christian, and who knew both the Christian and the Jewish Scriptures, at least to some extent) that in Muhammad's lifetime he used to copy from the Gospel whatever he pleased. He at least would have been able to prove the corruption of the Scriptures, had it occurred in his time. But he

1 All Muslims acknowledge that parts of the Bible are preserved free from alteration. But our argument seeks to prove that no part of it can have been corrupted since Muhammad's time. The Qur'an itself testifies to its authority and freedom from corruption in his day.