5. (a) What do Muslims believe regarding Islām? (b) What parallels are there between the Bible and the Qurʼān?

⁵ Muslims believe that their faith is the culmination of the revelations given to the faithful Hebrews and Christians of old. However, their teachings diverge from the Bible on some points, even though they cite both the Hebrew and the Greek Scriptures in the Qurʼān.b (See box, page 285.)

[Box on page 285]

The Qurʼān and the Bible

“He has revealed to you the Book with the truth, confirming the scriptures which preceded it; for He has already revealed the Torah and the Gospel for the guidance of men, and the distinction between right and wrong.”​—Surah 3:2, NJD.

“Almost all the historical narratives of the Koran have their biblical parallels . . . Adam, Noah, Abraham (mentioned about seventy times in twenty-five different sūrahs and having his name as a title for sūrah 14), Ishmael, Lot, Joseph (to whom sūrah 12 is dedicated), Moses (whose name occurs in thirty-four different sūrahs), Saul, David, Solomon, Elijah, Job and Jonah (whose name sūrah 10 bears) figure prominently. The story of the creation and fall of Adam is cited five times, the flood eight and Sodom eight. In fact the Koran shows more parallelism to the Pentateuch than to any other part of the Bible. . . .

“Of the New Testament characters Zachariah, John the Baptist, Jesus (ʽĪsa) and Mary are the only ones emphasized. . . .

A comparative study of the . . . koranic and biblical narratives . . . reveals no verbal dependence [no direct quotation].”​—History of the Arabs.