the Psalms; and to Abraham—peace be upon him—He sent down scrolls. That is what we affirm.

This, however, does not mean that what the Christians possess today is the very revelation that came down to Jesus, for the Gospels now in their hands have been distorted, altered, and substituted. Their priests tampered with them—adding, deleting, and revising—so that you find them divided into four, or even five, separate works, whereas the scripture revealed to Jesus was a single Book.

Allah, exalted is He, guaranteed the preservation of the Noble Book sent to Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—because no prophet will come after him to clarify for people what is authentic and what has been corrupted. The earlier scriptures, by contrast, were not spared alteration, for Allah would raise up prophets to set forth the truth they contained and to expose what had been distorted. This is the secret behind Allah’s special pledge to safeguard the Quran alone: so that humankind would recognize their need for the prophets whenever they found their scriptures tampered with, and the prophets would arrive to make the truth plain.

The essential point, then, is that we believe the Book revealed to each specific prophet is truth from Allah. This does not oblige us to believe that the books now held by their respective followers are identical to what was first revealed; on the contrary, they have certainly been distorted, altered, and substituted.

Part of faith in the Scriptures is to believe that every report they originally contained is true—just as every report in the Quran is true—because the information sent down in the books revealed to the prophets came from Allah, and whatever ruling has not been distorted or altered is therefore true. All the commands Allah has laid upon His servants are true; yet have those rulings survived until today without distortion? We have already made it clear that they have not