Tahrif (alteration of scripture)

Tahrif is the alteration of speech from its places in earlier scriptures. In his commentary on al-An'am 115, Muhammad Rashid Rida holds that the verse saying that God's words cannot be changed concerns their truth, justice and binding force, not the wording of earlier books. ^{1 2}

Rida states that the Qur'an established the alteration by the People of the Book before us of their speech, and their forgetting a portion of what they were commanded. He holds that God did not take on the preservation of the text of any one particular book of His. ² Al-An'am 115

In his commentary on al-Nisa' 153 to 161, Rida asks whether it is surprising that the Children of Israel, after breaking the covenant of the Torah, would alter the good tidings of Jesus and Muhammad and oppose them. ³ An-Nisa 155

This is Rida's reading of the verses of the Qur'an, and it is presented here as his opinion. The views of other exegetes on the difference between altering the wording and altering the meaning have not yet been presented, nor the view of contemporary researchers.

The statements of the earlier exegetes on the verses of the "perfect words" and on the alteration by the People of the Book need to be presented, and page 13 of the eighth volume needs to be checked for the sentence whose text ends at a page break.