It is common knowledge that Muslims recognize four remaining holy books out of a total of 104 revelations, of which 100 are missing. Although Muslims are often taught that the 3 remaining books previous to the Koran have been altered, still, Muslims for the most part, respect those 3 holy books. The 3 holy books are known as the Tawrat, Zabur, and Injil.This article will not deal with the Muslim belief in abrogation of previous scriptures, nor will it major on the Muslim belief in the corruption of the scriptures by Jews and Christians. The purpose of this paper is to examine the various opinions held regarding these 3 holy books. How did they come up with that understanding?
Let it be stated here that this author has confidence that the Tawrat, Zabur and Injil extant today amongst Jews and Christians (i.e. the Holy Bible), are the same as those books originally given by almighty God.
Muslim belief about the previous holy books has been in part shaped by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)'s interaction with Jews and Christians of his time. Some of these Jews and Christians were his earlier converts. The prophet's first wife, Khadijah was known as a Christian before converting to Islam, as was her cousin Waraka (or Warqa), who was considered a serious Bible student and perhaps even a translator of Scripture. So it would be beneficial to try to understand exactly what the Koran says about those holy books, and also what Jews and Christians of that time would have thought about the books. In doing this, we will also look at the holy Injil's use of various titles for different Scriptures.
