of its rulings and upheld the greater part of them. With respect to those rulings, Muslims merely assert that they were abrogated and superseded—that one must now believe and act in a way contrary to what they originally required. They have no need to claim that the very wording was altered, just as the Jews replaced the law of stoning with another penalty even though it is still written in the Torah.

The situation differs with the narrative passages: on these, the majority of Muslims maintain that some of their wording has indeed been changed.

As for the prophecies transmitted from the twenty-two prophets, not a single prophecy among them is known whose every word has come down through tawatur (uninterrupted mass transmission). At best they stand on the same footing as the Gospel, and the Gospel itself occupies the level of the reports that convey the sayings and biographies of prophets—such as the Sira of Ibn Ishaq—or some of the Musnad and Sunan collections in which transmitters relate the words and deeds of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Most of that material is sound, yet some of it is mistaken.

Nevertheless, Allah has preserved for this community what He revealed to it, as He, exalted is He, says: