no claim of textual alteration can be entertained with regard to it, so neither should any such claim be accepted about their own Scriptures—this is an analogy that is invalid both in its substance and in its wording.
As for the substance:
Everything over which the Muslims have a clear, manifest consensus in their religion has reached them from the Messenger by recurrent mass transmission (tawātur); indeed, it is known by necessity to be part of the religion. The five daily prayers, the alms-tax, fasting the month of Ramadan, the pilgrimage to the Ancient House, the obligation of justice and truthfulness, the prohibition of idolatry, indecency and oppression—indeed also the prohibition of wine, gambling and usury and the like—all of this has been conveyed from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him,
(through recurrent transmission comparable to the transmission of the very words of the Qur’an that indicate these rulings. Under the same heading falls the universality of his mission, peace be upon him)
namely, that he was sent to all mankind, whether People of the Book or not, indeed to both humans and jinn; that he declared the Jews and Christians who did not follow what Allah revealed to him to be unbelievers, just as he declared unbelievers anyone else who failed to believe in that; and that he fought them and ordered that they be fought.
Thus the Muslims possess—on the basis of mutawātir transmission from their Prophet—three things:
- the wording of the Qur’an,
- the meanings of it over which the Muslims are unanimously agreed, and
- the mutawātir Sunnah, which is the Wisdom Allah sent down to him in addition to the Qur’an—
as He, exalted be He, says: