Islam's Burden of Proof Against Judaism

Introduction

Islam's view on Judaism may be accurately described as considering it to be a remnant of God's first revelation to the human race. To that end, while the Tawrat (Tanakh) and Zabur (Psalms) contain within them many great points of wisdom and commandments, they have been both deliberately and accidentally modified, in terms of both their actual text and interpretations. Their tampered-with state required a second revelation known in Islam as the Injil (Gospels) revealed by Jesus, which was also corrupted, and culminated in the final revelation of the Q'uran revealed by the angel Gabriel to Muhammad.

Are the Arguments Equally Valid?

It is noteworthy that Judaism's and Islam's view on each other are virtually identical; each holds that the scripture of the other is not the absolute Word of God. In this way they are locked in an unresolveable stalemate. However, their ability to argue against the validity of the other is not identical; Judaism has a distinct advantage.

Judaism's argument in defense of itself (or against Islam, depending on how you want to see it) has three distinct advantages over Islam's argument against Judaism:

• Point 1 - Textual Support
• Point 2 - Burden of Proof
• Point 3 - The Seal of the Prophets
• Case Study - Discrepancies in Dietary Commandments
• Conclusion

Point 1 - Textual Support

The first and basic point is the argument made by any religion that proposes itself to have been revealed by God; a scripture containing any fundamentally different commandments is a priory assumed to not have been revealed. This is substantiated by the verse in Deuteronomy 4:2 in the Torah, which states, "Do not add to the word which I command you, nor diminish from it...".

Point 2 - Burden of Proof

Point 1 is corroborated by a well-known logical and legal requirement known as "the burden of proof." According to Wikipedia's article titled Burden of proof (law), "In a legal dispute, one party is initially presumed to be correct, while the other side bears the burden of producing evidence persuasive enough to establish the truth of facts needed to satisfy all the required legal elements of legal dispute." Further, the "burden of proof is always on the person who brings a claim in a dispute." Applying these legal definitions to the case at hand, Judaism is initially presumed to be correct, and the burden of proof falls on Islam, which is the Plaintiff.

Point 3 - The Seal of the Prophets

Not only is the argument in Point 1 a logically valid presupposition, it is used by Islam as well when rejecting the Divine authority of all religions subsequent to Islam. This is formalized as doctrine in the verse "Muhammad is not the father of [any] one of your men, but [he is] the Messenger of Allah and last of the prophets. And ever is Allah, of all things, Knowing." (Surah 33 [al-Ma'idah], ayah 40)

Case Study - Discrepancies in Dietary Commandments

For example, the Q'uran's dietary laws are different than the ones found in the Torah; the Q'uran only forbids the consumption of carrion, blood, and pig:

Prohibited to you are dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah, and [those animals] killed by strangling or by a violent blow or by a head-long fall or by the goring of horns, and those from which a wild animal has eaten, except what you [are able to] slaughter [before its death], and those which are sacrificed on stone altars, and [prohibited is] that you seek decision through divining arrows. That is grave disobedience. (Surah 5 [al-Maʼidah], ayah 3)

The Q'uran explains this discrepancy by claiming that the Jews of Muhammad's time invented their own dietary restrictions that God did not reveal. For example, the Q'uran says that the Jews invented the prohibition against the consumption of camel meat:

"All food was lawful to the Children of Israel except what Israel had made unlawful to himself before the Torah was revealed. Say, [O Muhammad], 'So bring the Torah and recite it, if you should be truthful.'" (Surah 3 [al-Imran], ayah 93)

According to the Muslim tafasir (commentators on the Q'uran) on this verse, Jacob took vows not to eat certain foods (camel meat and camel milk) before the revelation of the Torah, although the Jews deceitfully claimed that the Torah itself restricted it. This is why the verse says, "So bring the Torah and recite it, if you should be truthful." Muhammad wanted the Jews to show him the verse in the Torah forbidding the consumption of camel meat. According to the commentary on this Q'uranic verse the Jews were unable to show him the Torah source, indicating that they had lied about the prohibition of eating camel meat.

The Jews' inability to produce these verses is strange given that the Torah contains two verses forbidding the consumption of camel meat:

1. But these you shall not eat among those that bring up the cud and those that have a cloven hoof: the camel, because it brings up its cud, but does not have a [completely] cloven hoof; it is unclean for you. (Leviticus 11:4)


2. But you shall not eat of those that chew the cud, or of those that have the split hooves: the cloven one, the camel, the hyrax, and the hare, for they chew the cud, but do not have split hooves; they are unclean for you. (Deuteronomy 14:7)

Their inability to produce proof texts also indicates that the Jews (deliberately or in-deliberately) confused between rabbinic legislation and Divine revelation. According to an article by faith columnist Imam Jawad Rasul of the Augusta Chronicle, "The addition of rabbinic commentary within the general definition of Torah complicates and confuses between word of God and word of man." However, Orthodox Jews today understand the distinction between laws found in the Torah and legislation introduced by the rabbis, and there is no reason to think the Jews of Saudi Arabia in the seventh century were not aware of this distinction.

Interestingly enough, Islam has its own sources of legislation outside of the Q'uran, namely Hadith, Sunnah, and fiqh, some of which which add dietary restrictions to the ones found in Surah 5 (al-Maʼidah), ayah 3. The conclusion is that in addition to prohibiting the consumption of carrion, blood, and pig meat, Islam as well most likely prohibits the flesh of donkeys, predatory animals with fangs (such as cats, dogs, and bears), predatory birds with talons (such as owls), lizards, snakes, scorpions, and mice. Muslim scholarship disagrees on whether shrimp is a permitted form of seafood, but prohibits crocodiles, crabs, lobsters, and mollusks. These restrictions are not found in the Q'uran.

Conclusion

Even if the rules prohibiting the consumption of animals in the Torah were rabbinic (which they are not because they are found in actual verses), Islam itself accepts the validity of its own sources of extra-Q'uranic legislation. As long as Islam relies on fiqh to properly observe the religion of Islam, Surah 3 [al-Imran], ayah 93, which claims that the Jews added rabbinical legislation and/or interpretation to the corpus of their Divinely revealed scripture, is an essentially meaningless criticism. In other words, Fiqh is Islam's corollary to Judaism's Halacha. On the same grounds this argument can be applied to other Q'uranic criticisms of the Torah as well. It seems that as Islam found itself increasingly needing to grapple with the complexities of the application of law, it became increasingly similar to the Judaism that it challenged.

Note that Jews may (and perhaps should) consider the Arabs' adoption of a legal monotheistic code a positive thing without assuming that it replaces the Torah. It may be binding on them with having no effect on the Jews.