Revisiting the Charge of Taḥrīf: The Question of Supersessionism in Early Islam and the Qurʾān

In recent times, a great deal of interest in bringing about peace and harmonious relations between Muslims and Christians has been generated, both within the walls of the academy and beyond.This renewed interest has caused many aspects of the interactions between the two communities to be reassessed, resulting in an explosion of new research, editions, and translations of significant texts, and fresh insights into ancient questions.On the whole, this movement has been positive and productive, engaging people from around the globe in an endeavor that could have far-reaching consequences.There has also been the propensity, however, to downplay real points of disagreement in an effort to reach the goal of peace.Nowhere is this more apparent than in the tendency to discount the importance of the theological convictions of the communities being studied.In many cases, researchers with little interest in or sensitivity to theological questions discount such evidence as 'bias' in an effort to find 'what really happened.'For some, the answer to tensions between adherents of the two religions is simply to conclude that debates about 'abstract and theoretical' questions of truth are useless in the academy, since no definitive conclusions can be reached by human inquiry.Unfortunately, in many cases this has led to historical and linguistic studies that, although helpful, neglect the cultural values and overall intentions of the author(s) of the texts or of the community within which these texts were preserved and transmitted.Thus, conclusions are drawn concerning texts and accounts of events without taking seriously the theological impact they have had on the communities that preserved them.This approach, moreover, imposes contemporary (often academic) interests and assumptions on authors and communities far removed from our own concerns.One can identify such non-theological interpretations in almost every area of Islamic studies, which has generally been relegated to history, political science, or religious studies.Nevertheless, these non-theological interpretations obscure the religious convictions of the founder of Islam and his followers.It seems that almost from the very beginning, Muḥammad understood himself as a religious reformer, drawing his listeners back to the primordial worship of the One God.It is very clear from the earliest sources that Muḥammad and his followers believed that he was a prophet like the prophets of the Jews and Christians,