This Is Islam Uncovered

When Logic Meets Scripture

The Qur’an, the Bible, and the Myth of Divine Incompetence

Introduction: When Faith Trips Over Its Own Logic

It’s one of the most common exchanges in Christian–Muslim dialogue.
A Christian quotes Jesus or the prophets, and the Muslim responds with quiet certainty:

“Your Bible is corrupted.”

It’s a claim meant to end the debate — a theological mic-drop, a checkmate of divine authority.

But the Qur’an itself — the very book Muslims appeal to — doesn’t actually agree.
If anything, it contradicts that accusation.

The irony is striking: if the Bible is corrupted, Islam has a far bigger problem than textual criticism.
It has a theology problem — one that cuts straight through its own self-definition.

This article isn’t written to score sectarian points. It’s a forensic examination of internal consistency: what happens when we read the Qur’an by its own rules of logic?

1. The Qur’an’s Self-Declared Rulebook

Before we debate scripture, we must start where all logic begins — with definitions and premises.

The Qur’an repeatedly describes itself as confirming the earlier revelations, not erasing them.

“He revealed to you the Book with truth, confirming what came before it; and He revealed the Torah and the Gospel before, as guidance for mankind.”
— Qur’an 3:3–4

“We sent the Torah, wherein was guidance and light… We gave Jesus the Gospel, wherein was guidance and light.”
— Qur’an 5:44–46

At face value, the text positions the Torah and the Gospel as authentic divine revelations — not human forgeries, not outdated drafts.

And the Qur’an adds a categorical safeguard:

“No one can change the words of Allah.”
— Qur’an 6:115; 10:64; 18:27

That’s a sweeping statement — not “no Muslim can change it,” not “no one should,” but “no one can.”
The power of alteration is categorically denied to creation itself.

From this, we derive the first logical premise:

Premise 1: Allah’s words, once revealed, cannot be corrupted.

Combined with the earlier verses:

Premise 2: The Torah and the Gospel are Allah’s revealed words.

These two premises yield a simple syllogism:

Conclusion: Therefore, the Torah and Gospel cannot be corrupted.

That’s not Christian apologetics. That’s straight Qur’anic logic.

2. The Qur’an’s Golden Rule: No Picking and Choosing

There’s another verse that locks the logic in place — one Muslims rarely connect to this topic.

“Do you believe in part of the Scripture and disbelieve in part?
Then what is the reward for those among you who do that except disgrace in this world, and severe punishment in the Hereafter?”
— Qur’an 2:85

The Qur’an condemns selective faith — believing one part of revelation while discarding another.
Applied to the question of biblical corruption, the implication is brutal:

If Muslims affirm that Allah revealed the Torah and Gospel but deny their reliability, they fall into the very behaviour Qur’an 2:85 condemns.

The problem isn’t with Christian claims — it’s with Qur’anic coherence.

Either Allah’s word cannot be changed (as the Qur’an insists), or it can (as later Muslim theology requires).
Both cannot be true.

3. When History Refuses to Play Along

Muslim apologists often try to escape the contradiction by claiming that the “Bible was true once, but was later corrupted.”
That claim sounds tidy — until history refuses to cooperate.

3.1 The Qur’an’s Present-Tense Commands

“Let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein.”
— Qur’an 5:47

Not what used to be revealed. Not if you can find the original scrolls.
Present tense. Judge by what Allah has revealed therein.

That’s an active command in the 7th century CE — directed at Christians alive in Muhammad’s time.
Those Christians possessed the same four canonical Gospels still found in every New Testament today.

There is no record — none — of an alternate “uncorrupted Injīl.”
No manuscripts, no fragments, no competing canon.

So if Allah told them to judge by the Gospel, it could only mean the Gospel they already had.

That makes the “corruption-before-Islam” theory impossible without rewriting the Qur’an’s own historical setting.

3.2 The Qur’an’s Appeal to Biblical Witnesses

“If you are in doubt about what We have revealed to you, ask those who read the Book before you.”
— Qur’an 10:94

Allah instructs Muhammad himself:
If uncertain, consult the People of the Book — those who read the previous Scriptures.

But if those Scriptures were already corrupted, that command would be absurd.
Why ask the deceived for confirmation?
Why send the Prophet to the very texts Allah allegedly failed to preserve?

The Qur’an’s internal logic collapses the moment you inject post-prophetic apologetics into it.

4. Muslim Counter-Claims and Why They Fail

The standard Muslim responses fall into three categories. Let’s test each formally.

(a) “The Original Was Pure, but the Copies Were Changed.”

This tries to preserve both premises — divine revelation and corruption — by redefining what “unchangeable” means.

But the Qur’an never limits its claim of preservation to a metaphysical realm. It speaks of Scripture as a tangible, readable guidance for humanity. The same Arabic word (kitāb) used for the Qur’an applies to the Torah and Gospel.

If “no one can change the words of Allah” applies only in heaven while earthly copies rot, then divine revelation loses all functional meaning.

A God who speaks perfectly but cannot preserve what He speaks is not omnipotent — He’s a celestial absentee landlord.

(b) “The Gospel Mentioned in the Qur’an Was a Single Lost Book, Not the New Testament.”

This claim appears nowhere in the Qur’an.
There is no “Book of Jesus” described, no lost text referenced. The Qur’an simply calls it al-Injīl, “the Gospel,” the same term used in 7th-century Arabia for the Christian Scriptures as a whole.

Archaeological and epigraphic evidence confirms that Christians in pre-Islamic Arabia — Najrān, Syria, Egypt — used the canonical Gospels. No alternate “Gospel of Jesus” existed.

Thus, redefining Injīl as a vanished document is historically anachronistic and philologically dishonest.

(c) “The Qur’an Abrogated Earlier Laws, So Their Books No Longer Matter.”

Abrogation (naskh) addresses law, not truth.
The Qur’an claims to confirm (muṣaddiq) the previous Scriptures, not falsify them. It never states that earlier revelations were voided or untrustworthy — only that each community was given its own guidance.

Hence, to claim “they were valid, then corrupted” is not abrogation — it’s contradiction.

5. The Textual Reality: Whose Scriptures Survived?

Let’s step out of theology and into history.

5.1 The Bible’s Textual Record

5,800+ Greek New Testament manuscripts
10,000+ Latin manuscripts
20,000+ in other ancient languages
Patristic quotations sufficient to reconstruct the entire New Testament multiple times over

This vast corpus spans continents and centuries, from the 2nd century onward — far earlier than Islam’s own documentary record.

5.2 The Qur’an’s Textual Record

No complete Qur’anic manuscripts from the first generation after Muhammad’s death.
Fragments (like the Ṣanʿāʾ palimpsest) show textual variants and editing layers.
Historical sources report that Caliph ʿUthmān ordered competing codices burned to enforce a single recension.
The canonical readings (qirāʾāt) differ in wording, verse count, and even syntax — acknowledged by Muslim scholarship itself.

In other words: the Qur’an’s textual history is not immaculate.
Its standardisation was a political and administrative process, not an act of divine holography.

To accuse the Bible of corruption while ignoring that record is to stand in a glass house with a flamethrower.

6. The Psychological Layer: Why “The Bible Is Corrupted” Must Exist

Behind the textual argument lies a psychological necessity.
Islam’s self-definition depends on the claim that Muhammad’s message restores rather than contradicts previous revelation.

But the Qur’an’s narrative of Jesus — denying his divinity, crucifixion, and resurrection — is irreconcilable with the New Testament’s.

If the Bible stands intact, then Islam’s Christology collapses.
If the Bible is trustworthy, Muhammad is a false prophet.

Therefore, “the Bible was corrupted” becomes a theological survival mechanism — not a discovery of textual criticism, but a reflex of cognitive dissonance.

It’s not about manuscripts; it’s about maintaining Muhammad’s legitimacy.
To admit the Bible’s reliability would detonate Islam’s foundation from within.

7. The Double Standard in Preservation

Here lies the ultimate irony.

When Muslims say “the Bible was corrupted,” they are making a claim the Qur’an never makes — and in doing so, they undermine their own doctrine of revelation.

They imply either:

Allah’s word can indeed be changed (contradicting Qur’an 6:115), or
Allah didn’t care enough to preserve it (implying divine negligence).

Either way, the theological cost is catastrophic.

If Allah failed once, why trust Him now?
If humans overpowered divine preservation once, why assume it couldn’t happen again — this time to the Qur’an itself?

The moment you say “God sent the Bible and then lost it”, you have reduced omnipotence to administrative incompetence.

8. A Fair-Minded Objection: Isn’t This Just Christian Polemics in Reverse?

It would be dishonest to end without recognising the mirror image.
Christians, too, have oversimplified Islam’s textual history; Muslim preservation was impressive by ancient standards.
And yes, Christianity also has internal contradictions, later traditions, and political canons.

But the purpose of logic is not to defend one religion — it’s to expose when a claim refutes itself.

Here, the self-refutation is explicit:
Islam affirms what it simultaneously denies.

It affirms the divine origin of the Torah and Gospel.
It denies their integrity.
It claims Allah’s word cannot be changed.
It insists those words were changed.

That’s not mystery; that’s incoherence.

9. Toward an Honest Theology

There are only three logically consistent options:

The Qur’an is wrong about the Torah and Gospel.
Then its claim to confirm previous revelation collapses, and Islam’s self-consistency dissolves.
The Qur’an is right, and the Torah and Gospel are uncorrupted.
Then Muhammad’s message cannot overturn the core of the Gospel — including the deity and resurrection of Christ — and Islam’s doctrinal structure implodes.
Both were human compositions claiming divine origin.
Then neither enjoys supernatural exemption, and both must face historical scrutiny on equal terms.

Each option demands intellectual honesty, not loyalty.
Truth doesn’t need protection; it only needs examination.

10. Conclusion: Truth Under Its Own Rules

If a believer claims,

“Allah revealed the Bible, but humans changed it,”
they’ve already contradicted the Qur’an’s central premise that no one can change the words of Allah.

If they claim,

“Allah revealed the Bible, but then replaced it,”
they’ve turned revelation into trial-and-error — a deity correcting His own drafts.

And if they say,

“Allah revealed the Qur’an perfectly, even though He failed before,”
they’ve admitted divine inconsistency.

Logic leaves no refuge.

Faith may still believe; that’s its right.
But belief cannot rewrite its own evidence and still call itself truth.

So when the conversation next turns to “Your book is corrupted,” remember:
the Qur’an itself is standing behind you, saying “absolutely not.”

References & Suggested Reading

Primary Texts

The Qur’an (Yusuf Ali, Saheeh International, Pickthall)
The Holy Bible (Hebrew, Greek, and English editions)

Islamic Commentaries

Tafsīr al-Jalālayn
Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr
Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī

Academic Works on Textual History

Bruce Metzger & Bart Ehrman — The Text of the New Testament
F. F. Bruce — The Canon of Scripture
Keith Small — Textual Criticism and Qur’an Manuscripts
Angelika Neuwirth — The Qur’an and Late Antiquity
Michael Cook & Patricia Crone — Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World

Author’s Note:
The aim of this essay is not to mock belief, but to insist that revelation, if true, must survive reason.
Any truth that collapses under logic was never divine — only dogma.