No one knows how many books God actually revealed to the mankind in the past. It is possible that God may have sent hundreds of revelations that were lost over time. Since, all were from the ‘same source’, they all contained essentially the same central message across the different stages of evolution of the mankind. Each newer revelation came confirming the past ones, so much so that the last and final message (The Qur’an) has over 12 verses emphatically stating the fact that it came confirming the truth of whatever remained of earlier scriptures. It also affirms the names of all of the prominent prophets who are most well-known from human-history until today.
Sadly, most of God’s previous revelations have been lost, tampered with, or altered. Most of them have been combined with legend, folklore, personal accounts, and desires to create something very much unlike what God originally revealed. Not only the books, in most cases, the languages in which the earlier books were revealed itself is lost either completely or majorly; as they were not intended to be protected by God Himself. God had different design to perfect His revelations later, hence He made no arrangements of their preservation.
No matter how many prophets, revelations, and the books God revealed, we know the message was always the same:
“There is nothing worthy of worship (submission and obedience) except God (Allah).”
However, God’s plan with His last and final revelation (The Qur’an) was different. He not only preserved and protected the Qur’an fully and completely in its Text, but also in all of its Phonetic variations through oral recitation and memorization. God further preserved, not only the right meaning and interpretation of this final message, as it was understood and explained by Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and put in practice by his companions; but also, the language (Arabic) of its revelation with its dialect (Hijazi).
Today Qur’an remains fully and completely preserved in its original form and meaning. The “only book” of God which exists unaltered in its original language, which can be traced back, word for word, chapter for chapter, to the prophet it was revealed to.
Let’s examine a few known revelations:
Torah (Taurat) – The revelation that God sent to Musa (Moses, عليه السلام).
Psalms (Zabur) – This is the revelation that God sent to Daud (David, عليه السلام).
Gospel of Jesus (Injeel) – This is the revelation that God sent to Eesa (Jesus, عليه السلام).
Qur’an – This is the revelation that God sent to Muhammad (عليه السلام).
The Torah is usually referred to as the “Law” in the Qur’an. Specifically, the Law of Moses. Many people equate the Torah with the present-day Torah of the Jewish faith, or the Old Testament of the Christian faith.
In some ways this is true, as the Torah does contain some of the truths revealed to Prophet Musa (Moses, عليه السلام). However, it is not completely accurate because the Torah consists of much more than just the law revealed to the Moses. No one really knows the full history of the Torah, and there are several different versions of it. For instance, the Catholic Old Testament is different from the Protestant Old Testament.
And scholars have long since concluded the Torah was not written by one person, and certainly not by Moses directly (or even indirectly). The Torah that the Muslims accept as the true commands of The God is that which was revealed to Moses, and the essence of that message is still alive today in the message of the Qur’an, whereas the text revealed to Moses in his language is lost.
