The Islamic Dilemma: A Fair Guide for Doubters

If you met the Islamic dilemma in a video, a comment thread or a debate clip, you probably met the Islamic dilemma as a trap: two doors, both said to lead out of Islam. This guide is for the person who saw it and could not stop thinking about it. It sets out the Islamic dilemma as its proponents make it, gives the classical Muslim answers, and is honest about where each side is strong. You do not need to have settled anything to read it.

One thing first. Being shaken by the Islamic dilemma is not a sin and not a sign that something is wrong with you. The Prophet’s Companions told him they found thoughts in themselves they could hardly bring themselves to speak, and he told them that this was clear faith (Muslim 132). A question that frightens you is still a question, and it can be looked at calmly.

What the Islamic dilemma says

The Islamic dilemma is an argument made popular by Christian apologists, among them James White and David Wood, in debates and online videos. In its usual form it runs like this. The Qur’an speaks well of the Torah and the Gospel. It says it was sent down “confirming what was before it” (3:3). It tells the people of the Gospel to judge by what God revealed in it (5:47). It tells the People of the Book that they stand on nothing until they uphold the Torah and the Gospel (5:68). It even tells the Prophet, if he is in doubt, to ask those who read the Scripture before him (10:94).

From there the Islamic dilemma offers two options. If the Torah and Gospel the Qur’an affirms are the Bible Christians and Jews read today, then the Qur’an is contradicted by them, most obviously on the crucifixion and the divinity of Jesus. If instead those books were corrupted, then the Qur’an affirmed corrupted books, or failed to notice that they were. Either way, the argument concludes, the Qur’an is wrong, and Islam fails.

That is a fair summary, and the Islamic dilemma is cleverly built: it uses the Qur’an’s own words, asks a real question, and fits in a single sentence, which is why the Islamic dilemma travels so well online.

Why the Islamic dilemma feels so strong online

The Islamic dilemma works by making you accept two options before you have checked whether they are the only ones. In a ninety-second clip on the Islamic dilemma there is no time to ask what the Qur’an means by “the Torah” and “the Gospel”, or whether “confirming” means “vouching for every word of a later book”. The format rewards the person who asks the question and punishes the person who needs a paragraph to answer it.

That is a description of the medium, not an accusation against those who present the Islamic dilemma. This site has written about how online argument shapes what feels convincing, in the polemical echo chamber and in the doubt websites confirmed my doubts. With the Islamic dilemma, the useful habit is simple: before choosing a door, check the walls.

What “Tawrat” and “Injil” mean in the Qur’an

The first answer to the Islamic dilemma is about words, and it is the one most often skipped in debates about the Islamic dilemma. When the Qur’an says Tawrat, it means the revelation God gave to Moses. When it says Injil, it means the revelation God gave to Jesus: “We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light” (5:46). It speaks of the Injil in the singular, as something given to Jesus, not as four biographies written about him by others.

The Bible as Christians hold it is a different kind of object. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are accounts of Jesus’ life composed after his ministry, and the New Testament also contains letters, including those of Paul of Tarsus, and other writings, gathered into a canon over the following centuries. Whether those books preserve the Injil given to Jesus, in part or in whole, is exactly the question. The Islamic dilemma assumes the answer at the start, by treating “the Gospel” in 5:47 as a name for the New Testament. The sister site apostleofdoom.org takes up that assumption in detail, in its piece on Paul and the Islamic dilemma.

The classical scholars did not hold that every word in the Bible is false, and they did not hold that every word in it is the Injil. Ibn Taymiyya, in al-Jawab al-Sahih, reports a range of Muslim views and says that the view that the altered wording is a small part is the more evident one, while adding that alteration in the Gospels is more evident than in the Torah, and that many hold the Injil which is God’s speech is not these Gospels.¹ That nuanced position is not one of the two doors the Islamic dilemma offers.

Muhaymin: the Qur’an as a guardian over earlier scripture

The verse the Islamic dilemma quotes most, 5:48, says more than “confirming”. It says God sent down the Book “confirming that which preceded it of the Scripture and as a criterion over it”. The Arabic word rendered “criterion” is muhaymin. Ibn Kathir collects the early explanations: a trustee, a witness, a judge over the books before it. He reports Ibn Jurayj’s gloss that the Qur’an is a trustee over the earlier books, so that what agrees with it in them is true and what differs from it is false, and he says the explanations all come to the same thing.²

This matters for the Islamic dilemma. A book that confirms earlier scripture and also checks it is not claiming that every copy in circulation is intact. It is claiming that the earlier revelation was true, and that the Qur’an is the measure by which later readers can tell what survives of it. One may disagree with that claim. But it is a third option to the Islamic dilemma, stated in the very verse the Islamic dilemma cites.

Tahrif: changed meaning or changed words?

The Qur’an accuses some of the People of the Book of tahrif, distorting “words from their places” (4:46; 5:13), of hearing God’s words and distorting them after understanding them (2:75), and of writing a book with their own hands and calling it God’s (2:79). Muslim scholars have long distinguished two kinds of tahrif: tahrif al-ma’na, distorting the meaning by interpretation, and tahrif al-lafz, changing the wording itself.

Both positions have classical defenders, and both bear on the Islamic dilemma. In the chapter headings of Sahih al-Bukhari, a gloss explains yuharrifun as “they remove”, then says that no one removes the wording of any of God’s books, but they distort it by interpreting it otherwise than it should be.³ At the other end, Ibn Hazm in al-Fisal argued at length, passage by passage, that the Torah in circulation in his day was altered.⁴ Ibn Taymiyya took a middle course: Muslims do not claim that every copy in the world, in every language, was altered since the Prophet’s time; some wording was changed and much was changed in meaning.⁵

For the Islamic dilemma, the point is that “corrupted” is not one thing. The second door says that if the books were corrupted, the Qur’an affirmed corrupted books. But no classical scholar held that the Qur’an affirmed whatever later copies contain. They held that it affirmed the revelation, and warned that people had changed its meaning, its wording, or both.

“Let the people of the Gospel judge”: reading 5:47 and 5:68

The strongest form of the Islamic dilemma rests on 5:47: “let the People of the Gospel judge by what God has revealed therein.” If the Gospel was lost, how could they judge by it? Ibn Kathir records that the verse was read in two ways. In one reading it is a command: let them judge by it. In the other it describes a purpose: We gave him the Gospel so that its people might judge by it, in their own time.⁶ On the second reading the verse describes what the Gospel was given for, and the Islamic dilemma loses its premise.

Ibn Kathir also explains the command reading: the people of the Gospel were to believe all that is in it, including, as he says, its good news of a prophet to come, and to follow him when he appeared. That is how he connects 5:47 with 5:68, the other verse at the heart of the Islamic dilemma, which tells the People of the Book they stand on nothing until they uphold the Torah, the Gospel and “what has been revealed to you from your Lord”.⁶ On this reading, upholding the earlier scripture means accepting what it pointed to, which rules out using it to overrule the Qur’an.

There is also a report in Abu Dawud, graded hasan by al-Albani, in which a group of Jews brought the Torah to the Prophet in a case of adultery; he placed it on a cushion and said, “I believe in you and in the One who revealed you”.⁷ The respect shown to the Torah there is real, and it fits the classical view: honour the revelation, and judge what has been done with it.

10:94: “ask those who read the Scripture”

Presentations of the Islamic dilemma often close with 10:94: if you are in doubt, ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you. The verse ends: “The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord, so never be among the doubters.” It is addressed to the Prophet, it is conditional, and it points to the People of the Book as witnesses to something specific, that earlier revelation and earlier prophets were real. It does not tell Muslims to treat later scripture as the judge of the Qur’an.

The Prophet’s own instruction is preserved in al-Bukhari. When the People of the Book read the Torah in Hebrew and explained it in Arabic, he said: “Do not believe the People of the Book and do not disbelieve them, but say: We believe in God and what was sent down to us”.⁸ For the Islamic dilemma that is a third door again: caution about a text whose transmission one cannot check, with nothing accepted or rejected wholesale.

Where the Islamic dilemma is weak, and where it has a point

Put together, the classical answers to the Islamic dilemma make the same move. The Islamic dilemma says the Qur’an must either vouch for today’s Bible or condemn the revelation it praises. The scholars said the Qur’an praises the revelation given to Moses and Jesus, is a guardian over it, and accuses later communities of changing its meaning and, in some places, its words. That is a coherent position, and it is not caught by either horn of the Islamic dilemma.

Fairness asks us to say what the Islamic dilemma gets right. It is right that Muslims sometimes answer the Islamic dilemma badly, by saying the Bible is “all corrupt” in one breath and quoting it as evidence for Muhammad in the next. It is right that the meaning of 5:47 and 5:68 needs explaining rather than waving away. And it is right that a reader is owed the reasons. Compelling Evidence sets out the textual argument at more length in the Islamic dilemma: the Qur’an and the Bible, and bestofislam.org gives a clear Muslim answer to the Islamic dilemma for general readers.

If the Islamic dilemma has shaken you

You may have read all of this and still feel unsettled by the Islamic dilemma. That is allowed. An argument can stay with you long after you understand the reply. Our guide on how to assess a doubt gives a way of taking a question apart without being swept along by it, and doubt and the inner life looks at how al-Ghazali lived through a much deeper crisis than one debate clip.

The Islamic dilemma is rarely only an intellectual question. If the Islamic dilemma reached you while you were already struggling, with family, with faith, with your own mind, please do not carry it alone. Our page on where to find support lists ways to reach help. If you are in danger or thinking of harming yourself, contact your local emergency number now.

You may also find it useful to read believe without knowing and why this religion and not another, which deal with the wider question the Islamic dilemma often opens.

Questions readers ask about the Islamic dilemma

Does the Qur’an say the Bible is preserved? No verse says that the Bible as it exists today is preserved. The Qur’an praises the Torah and the Injil as revelations and accuses some later communities of distorting them. The Islamic dilemma needs the first claim, and the Qur’an does not make it.

Is the Islamic dilemma a new argument? The modern form of the Islamic dilemma is recent, but the underlying question is old. Ibn Taymiyya’s al-Jawab al-Sahih was written in the fourteenth century in reply to a Christian letter making related points, and Ibn Hazm took up the question two centuries earlier.

Is it wrong to find the Islamic dilemma persuasive? No. Finding the Islamic dilemma persuasive is something that happens to a reader, without a decision. What you do next, reading, asking, waiting, is up to you.

Sources

1. Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawab al-Sahih li-man Baddala Din al-Masih: Muslim views on how much of the earlier books' wording was altered; 'the view that what was altered in wording is little is the more evident'. https://shamela.ws/book/170/804
2. Ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-Qur'an al-'Azim (ed. al-Salama), on 5:48: muhaymin as trustee, witness and judge; Ibn Jurayj: what agrees with the Qur'an in the earlier books is true and what differs is false. https://shamela.ws/book/8473/1393
3. Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Tawhid, chapter heading before no. 7553: the gloss on yuharrifun, 'no one removes the wording of a book of God, but they distort it by interpreting it otherwise'. https://shamela.ws/book/1681/11194
4. Ibn Hazm, al-Fisal fi al-Milal wa al-Ahwa' wa al-Nihal: the argument, passage by passage, that the Torah in circulation was altered. https://shamela.ws/book/6521/115
5. Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawab al-Sahih: Muslims do not claim that every copy in the world in every language was altered; the distinction between altered wording and altered meaning. https://shamela.ws/book/170/831
6. Ibn Kathir, Tafsir, on 5:47: the two readings of wa-l-yahkum (command, and purpose: 'so that its people might judge by it in their time'), and the link to 5:68. https://shamela.ws/book/8473/1391
7. Sunan Abi Dawud 4449 (Ibn 'Umar): the Prophet placed the Torah on a cushion and said 'I believe in you and in the One who revealed you'. Al-Albani: hasan. https://shamela.ws/book/1726/6117
8. Sahih al-Bukhari 7362 (also 4485), Abu Hurayra: 'Do not believe the People of the Book and do not disbelieve them, but say: We believe in God and what was sent down to us'. https://shamela.ws/book/1681/10949
9. Sahih Muslim 132 (Abu Hurayra): troubling thoughts the Companions could hardly speak of, 'that is clear faith'. https://shamela.ws/book/1727/298
10. Qur'an 2:75; 2:79; 2:97; 3:3; 4:46; 5:13; 5:46; 5:47; 5:48; 5:68; 10:94, checked against api.quran.com (Saheeh International).