Zabur () is, according to

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 ...

, the holy book of Dawud (

David in Islam Dāwūd, or David, is considered a prophet and messenger of Allah (God) in Islam, as well as a righteous, divinely anointed king of the United Kingdom of Israel. Additionally, Muslims also revere David for receiving the divine revelation of the ...

), one of the holy books revealed by Allah before 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 ...

, alongside others such as the '' Tawrāh (Torah)'' and the Injīl (Gospel).

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

tradition maintains that the Zabur mentioned in the

is the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...

of Dawud (

). The Christian monks and ascetics of

pre-Islamic Arabia Pre-Islamic Arabia is the Arabian Peninsula and its northern extension in the Syrian Desert before the rise of Islam. This is consistent with how contemporaries used the term ''Arabia'' or where they said Arabs lived, which was not limited to the ...

may be associated in

pre-Islamic Arabic poetry Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry is a term used to refer to Arabic poetry composed in pre-Islamic Arabia roughly between 540 and 620 AD. In Arabic literature, pre-Islamic poetry went by the name ''al-shiʿr al-Jāhilī'' ("poetry from the Jahiliyyah" or " ...

with texts called ''mazmour'', which in other contexts may refer to palm leaf documents. This has been interpreted by some as referring to

psalters A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the emergence of the book of hours in the Late Middle Ages, psalters were ...

. Among many

Christians A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words '' Christ'' and ''C ...

in the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

and in

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

, the word ''mazmour'' ( Hindustani (

Nastaʿlīq ''Nastaliq'' (; ; ), also romanized as ''Nastaʿlīq'' or ''Nastaleeq'' (), is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write Arabic script and is used for some Indo-Iranian languages, predominantly Classical Persian, Kashmiri, Punjabi a ...

), (

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...

)) is used for the Psalms of David in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' means "book", "inscription", or "writing." In early sources it may refer to Ancient South Arabian writing on

palm leaves The Arecaceae () is a family of perennial, flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are colloquially c ...

. Much of Western scholarship sees the word in the sense "psalter" as being a conflation of Arabic , "writing", with the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

word for "psalm", () or its

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

equivalent (). An alternate, less accepted origin for the title in this sense is that it is a corruption of the

() meaning "song, music" or (), meaning "story."

Mention in the Quran

In the Qur'an, the Zabur is mentioned by name three times. The Qur'an itself says nothing about the Zabur specifically, except that it was revealed to Dawud and that in the Zabur is written "My servants the righteous, shall inherit the earth".

Connection to the Psalms

In the Quran and Urdu translation of the Bible, the Zabur refers to the

. The Quran 21:105 says that in the Zabur there is a quote "the land is inherited by my righteous servants". This resembles the 29th verse of

Psalm 37 Psalm 37 is the 37th psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity". The Book of Psalms is part of the third section ...

, which says " e righteous shall inherit the land, and abide forever in it." Ahrens supports the view that

al-Anbiya Al-Anbiyaʼ (, ; "The Prophets") is the 21st chapter (sūrah) of the Quran with 112 verses ( āyāt). Its principal subject matter is prophets of the past, who also preached the same faith as Muhammad. Regarding the timing and contextual b ...

105 is quoting from the Psalms (1930). He says that the verse in the Qur'an reads, "We have written in the Zabur after the reminder that My righteous servants shall inherit the earth." His conclusion is that this verse represents a close and rare linguistic parallel with the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' 9 ,11 ,29).

In Hadith

One hadith, considered valid by

Muhammad al-Bukhari Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm al-Juʿfī al-Bukhārī (; 21 July 810 – 1 September 870) was a 9th-century Persian Muslim '' muhaddith'' who is widely regarded as the most important ''hadith'' scholar in the histor ...

, says:

Ketuvim

Christian apologist Christian apologetics (, "verbal defense, speech in defense") is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity. Christian apologetics have taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in the early church and Pa ...

Karl Gottlieb Pfander suggested that the Qur'an's reference to Zabur actually refers to the third division of the Hebrew Scriptures, known as the Writings or

Ketuvim The (; ) is the third and final section of the Hebrew Bible, after the ("instruction") and the "Prophets". In English translations of the Hebrew Bible, this section is usually titled "Writings" or "Hagiographa". In the Ketuvim, 1–2 Books ...

, a broader grouping of Jewish holy books encompassing the Psalms and other collections of Hebrew literature and poetry.

References

{{Psalms Psalms Islamic texts Arabian Peninsula Islamic terminology David tr:Zebur

Mention in the Quran

Connection to the Psalms

In Hadith

Ketuvim

See also

References