Allah, may He be glorified and exalted, has guaranteed to preserve His Holy Book. As for the Books which came before it, He entrusted them to the rabbis and scholars to protect them, but they were not saved from distortion, change and alteration.

He, may He be exalted, says, "Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted to Allah judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the Scripture of Allah, and they were witnesses thereto." (al-Ma’idah 5:44) Ibn ‘Ashur said: ‘The Book was entrusted to them for them to understand it properly, according to what was indicated by its verses.’ [59] See: Tafsir Ibn ‘Ashur, 6/209; ‘Iyad: Tartib al-Madarik, 4/283.

And Allah, may He be exalted, says, "Do you O believers then hope that they will respond to your call, when a party among them used to hear the word of Allah, and they distorted it knowingly after having understood it?" (al-Baqarah 2:75) Ibn Jarir said: ‘they distorted it means: they changed its true meaning and made it mean something else. Hence Allah, may He be glorified and exalted, tells us that they did what they did knowingly, even though they knew the true meaning of what they distorted and that the true meaning was different to the distorted meaning that they introduced, as He says, "And they distorted it knowingly after having understood it." (al-Baqarah 2:75) That is, after they had understood what its true meaning was. knowingly that is, they were aware that by distorting the meaning they were committing evil and lying.’ [60] See: Tafsir Ibn Jarir, 2/144.

Ibn Hazm said, ‘As for the Christians, they do not require us to put effort into proving that their Books are distorted, because they do not claim that the Gospels were revealed from Allah to the Messiah, or that the Messiah brought them to them. Rather all of them, from the first of them to the last – the Melkites, the Nestorians, the Jacobites and the Maronites – do not differ regarding the fact that the Gospels are four accounts written by four well-known men at different times.’ [61] See: al-Fasl, 2/2.

Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi said, ‘The Jews are unanimously agreed that a Jewish sect called the Samaritans distorted the Torah greatly, and the Samaritans make a similar claim against the Jews. Perhaps both groups are correct, for is there any part of the Torah that can be trusted in the light of these competing claims from Jewish sects? Thus they spared us the effort of having to prove anything.’ [62] See: al-Ajwibah al-Fakhirah ‘an al-As’ilah al-Fajirah fi’l-Radd ‘ala al-Yahud wa’l-Nasarah, p. 258.

Ibn ‘Uthaymin said, ‘It should be understood that the Torah that is in the hands of the Jews today and the Gospel that is in the hands of the Christians, cannot be trusted, because they distorted and altered them, and concealed the truth.’ [63] See: Tafsir Ibn ‘Uthaymin – al-Fatihah wa’l-Baqarah, 3/445.

The scholars differed regarding the nature of the distortion to which the previous Books were subjected
Ibn Taymiyah said, ‘The People of the Book, the Jews and Christians, as well as the Muslims, are agreed that the previous Books have been subjected to distortion, either deliberately or by mistake, in their translation, interpretation, commentary and exegesis. Rather the scholars differ as to whether specific phrases were subject to distortion.’ [64] See: al-Jawab al-Sahih, 5/123.

Ibn al-Qayyim said, ‘The scholars differed regarding the Torah that the Jews have in their hands: has it been altered? Did the alteration in distortion occur in its interpretation, and not in the revealed text? There are three views, two of which are extreme and one is moderate. One group went to extremes and claimed that all of it or most of it has been altered and changed, and it is not the Torah which Allah, may He be exalted, sent down to Musa (peace be upon him). This group discussed the contradictions therein, and how one part proves another to be false. Some of them went even further than that, and regarded it is permissible to clean oneself with pages from the Book after urinating.

On the other hand, another group of scholars of hadith, jurisprudence (fiqh) and Islamic philosophy (kalam) said, Rather the alteration took place in the interpretation of the Book, not what was revealed. This is the view of Abu ‘Abdillah Muhammad ibn Isma‘il al-Bukhari.’ [65] Al-Bukhari said: No one distorted the wording of any of the Books of Allah, may He be glorified and exalted; rather they distorted the meaning and misinterpreted it. Sahih al-Bukhari, 6/2745. Ibn Hajar said: What al-Bukhari meant by misinterpreting is that they distorted the meaning by giving it a far-fetched interpretation. For example, if the word in Hebrew could have two meanings, one of which was a regular meaning and the other was far-fetched, and what was intended was the regular meaning only, they would interpret it according to the far-fetched meaning, and the like. Fath al-Bari, 13/526. He also said: Distortion of the meaning is not something rare; rather it happens a great deal among them. Fath al-Bari, 13/524.

Among the evidence presented by this group is the fact that the Torah is widely circulated throughout the world, East and West, North and South, and no one knows how many copies of it there are except Allah, may He be exalted. It is impossible that the same alterations and changes could have been made in all of these copies to the extent that there is no copy on earth that has not been subject to alterations and changes, all in the same manner. This is impossible, and reason suggests that this notion is false. They said: Allah, may He be exalted, said to His Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him), referring to the Torah to prove an argument against the Jews, "Say, O Muhammad, “So bring the Torah and recite it, if you should be truthful.” (Al ‘Imran 3:93)

They said: They had all agreed to abandon the obligation of stoning, but they could not change it in the Torah. Hence when they read it to the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him), the reciter placed his hand over the verse of stoning. But ‘Abdullah ibn Salaam said to him: Lift your hand from the verse of stoning. So he lifted his hand, and there the verse was beneath it. [66] Narrated by al-Bukhari, 3635 and Muslim (1699) in a lengthy hadith from ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with him). According to the version narrated by Bukhari: ‘Abdullah ibn Salaam said: You are lying; stoning is mentioned in it. So they brought the Torah and spread out the scroll, and one of them placed his hand over the verses of stoning, then he recited what came before it and what came after it. ‘Abdullah ibn Salaam said to him: Lift your hand. So he lifted his hand, and there was the verses of stoning in [the Torah]. If they had altered the words of the Torah, this would have been one of the first things they changed.

They said, Similarly, the description of the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) and where he would emerge is mentioned very clearly in the Torah, and they could not remove it or alter it. In fact, Allah, may He be exalted, only criticised them for concealing it. If they were confronted with what it says in the Torah about his description and that they should follow him, they said: It is not him; we are still waiting for him!

… They said: And Allah, may He be exalted, says, "And the word of your Lord has been fulfilled in truth and in justice. None can alter His words, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing." (al-An‘am 6:115) And the Torah is part of His words.

They said: The reports which speak of the Jews concealing the description of the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) in the Torah, and their preventing their children and common folk from finding out about it, are well known. Those of them who found out about that said: It is not him. These are some of the arguments of this group who said that the wording has not been altered. There is a third, moderate group who said: Some things have been added to it and a few phrases were changed, but most of it remained as it was revealed, with very little alteration. One of those who favoured this view was our Shaykh Ibn Taymiyah in his book, al-Jawab al-Sahih liman baddala Din al-Masih. [67] See: Ighathat al-Lahfan, 2/1136.