The Scrolls of Moses ( ''Ṣuḥuf Mūsā'') are an ancient body of scripture mentioned in the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

, once each in

Surah A ''surah'' (; ; ) is an Arabic word meaning 'chapter' in the Quran. There are 114 ''suwar'' in the Quran, each divided into ayah, verses (). The ''suwar'' are of unequal length; the shortest ''surah'' (al-Kawthar) has only three verses, while ...

Al-Aʻlā and Surah An-Najm. They are part of the religious scriptures of

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

Background

In two Chapters, which are dated from the first

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

n period, there is a reference to the 'Leaves, Scrolls, Journals' (''Suhuf'') of Abraham (and of Moses), by which certain divinely inspired texts handwritten by the

patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and ...

s are meant. These passages refer to the fact that the truth of God's message was present in the earliest revelations, Given to Abraham and Moses. Although ''Suhuf'' is generally understood to mean 'Scrolls', some translators - including Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Marmaduke Pickthall - have translated the verse as "The Books of Abraham and Moses".

Qur'anic mention

Moses In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...

, being a righteous prophet of God, received many revelations over his lifetime - the contents of which could be contained in this Book of Moses. * *

Identification

Jordanian scholar and professor of philosophy Ghazi bin Muhammad mentions that the "Scrolls of Moses" are identical to the Torah of

. Many scholars have speculated whether the "''Books of Moses''" refer to the Torah or other scriptures of Moses. But the Islamic belief that the Torah was, in its original form, a single scripture of Law, the plural emphasis on ''Books'' and not ''Book'' leads many to believe that these Books are different. Qur'anic commentator Abdullah Yusuf Ali mentions that it could be a possible reference to a lost book of the

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

, suggesting the Book of the Wars of the Lord, an apocryphal book referred to in the Bible, in Numbers 21:14. However, it is well known that the Jews usually refer to the Torah as The Five Books of Torah. Most notably, Deuteronomy, the fifth book, is distinct in many ways, and is referred to as 'Mishneh Torah' - a review of the Torah. There's also an ancient guideline requiring religious scribes to leave four blank lines between each of the books. This custom (recorded in Babylonian Talmud, bava batra pg.13) predated Muhammad by hundreds of years. For this reason it is plausible to assume that the Quran is referring to the five scrolls of Moses as they were known.

References

{{Characters and names in the Quran Islamic texts Texts attributed to Moses

Background

Qur'anic mention

Identification

See also

References