It was really irritating to find a couple of Christian fellows time and again referring to some verses of the Qur’an and interpreting them utterly wrong. Though this phenomenon is nothing new but I found it irritating because I did explain to them the verses and they had no answer to it but at some other occasion they with a markedly cunning attitude came up with the same chatter. Lately I found that their adamancy sprouts from their blind belief in the professional liars running anti-Islamic sites who say all kind of stupid things.

They refer to Qur’an 2: 136 and 3: 84 to assert that as per Qur’an true Muslims are not make any difference between any of the scriptures given to various Prophets. And their intention is to maintain that this kind of references from the Qur’an ‘prove’ that books of the Bible, as they are attributed to various previous prophets, are at the same level with Qur’an and thus should be recognized as authentic by Muslims.

Qur’an 3: 84

قُلْ آَمَنَّا بِاللَّهِ وَمَا أُنْزِلَ عَلَيْنَا وَمَا أُنْزِلَ عَلَى إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْمَاعِيلَ وَإِسْحَاقَ وَيَعْقُوبَ وَالْأَسْبَاطِ وَمَا أُوتِيَ مُوسَى وَعِيسَى وَالنَّبِيُّونَ مِنْ رَبِّهِمْ لَا نُفَرِّقُ بَيْنَ أَحَدٍ مِنْهُمْ وَنَحْنُ لَهُ مُسْلِمُونَ

“Say: ’We believe in Allah, and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in (the Books) given to Moses, Jesus, and the prophets, from their Lord: We make no distinction between one and another among them, and to Allah do we bow our will (in Islam).’” (Qur’an 3: 84)

Following is the transliteration of this verse:

Qul 'Āmannā Billāhi Wa Mā 'Unzila `Alaynā Wa Mā 'Unzila `Alá 'Ibrāhīma Wa 'Ismā`īla Wa 'Isĥāqa Wa Ya`qūba Wa Al-'Asbāţi Wa Mā 'Ūtiya Mūsá Wa `Īsá Wa An-Nabīyūna Min Rabbihim Lā Nufarriqu Bayna 'Aĥadin Minhum Wa Naĥnu Lahu Muslimūna

The red fonts show the pronouns.

Now if one cares to see the Arabic text and have even a bit of understanding of the Semitic languages one will not fail to observe that the expression “We make no difference between one and another” refers to the prophets and not scriptures. Clearly the Arabic pronoun ‘-hum’ in the expression in question (i.e. in blue font) refers to the same subject as that of the previous expression i.e. ‘their lord’.

Exactly same is the case with Qur’an 2: 136.

Then we read Qur’an 2:285;

لَا نُفَرِّقُ بَيْنَ أَحَدٍ مِنْ رُسُلِهِ

"We make no distinction (they say) between one and another of His messengers."

This indeed exposes the whole lie. We Muslims do believe in all the previous revelations on the authority of the Qur’an and on its authority itself and through the textual studies of the Bible we know that Bible is not the revelation given to various prophets but rather a concoction of later times which might at times have some shadow of the original. And we recognize the shadow of the original revelation in the Bible by testing it against the Criteria, the Qur’an and Authentic Hadith.

Nevertheless Qur’an 2: 136 and 3: 84 refer to the fact that Muslims make no difference among various prophets and believe in their status as such. We are neither like Christians who rejected the promised ‘Comforter’, Muhammad, may Allah bless him, nor are we the kind like Jews who refused to believe even in Jesus, may Allah bless him before arrogantly rejecting the honorable ministry of the ‘prophet like Moses’, may Allah bless him.

Insha’Allah in coming days I will dwell on some references they use to confuse people about the Islamic view on previous revelations and the scriptures they possess.

Indeed Allah knows the best!