Islam is the primacy their adherents give to holy
books, scriptures believed to have been revealed or
inspired by the one God. Jews look to the torah
(Hebrew: “teaching” or “law”), the revelation
given by God in Hebrew to moses at Sinai, which
consists of written and oral components. The writ-
ten Torah includes the five books of Moses (the
Pentateuch), the Prophets, and the Writings (for
example, the books of Psalms and Proverbs). The
oral Torah, known as the Talmud, is said to have
been inherited by the rabbis, Jewish sages, from
Moses. It consists of the Mishnah (Hebrew: “rep-
etition”), a collection of legal prescriptions plus
extensive rabbinic commentaries. Scripture for
Christians is the Old Testament, which includes
the books of the Hebrew written Torah, and the
New Testament, composed of the four Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, letters of Paul and
other early church authorities, an early history of
the church (Acts of the Apostles), and the conclud-
ing book of Revelation. In Islam, the holy book is
the qUran (Arabic: “recitation”), which Muslims
believe to be the word of God as communicated
to mUhammad during the last 23 years of his life
(between 610 and 632 c.e.). It is complemented
by the hadith, accounts of Muhammad’s deeds and
sayings transmitted and assembled into books by
his followers after his death. Both Sunni and Shii
Muslims look to the Quran and hadith for guid-
ance, but the Shia prefer to interpret both in light
of the teachings of the imams (divinely inspired
descendants of Muhammad).
Jewish, Christian, and Muslim holy books
have historically defined communities of religious
belief and action, serving as the basis for their
understandings of God and his creation, ritual
life, ethics and law, history, and ways to salvation
in this world or in the aFterliFe. Indeed, member-
ship in the Abrahamic communities is defined,
in part, by believing what is taught in them. The
communities, however, are not passive recipients
of scriptures, blindly following their teachings.
Rather, Jews, Christians, and Muslims continually
preserve and infuse them with new life from gen-
eration to generation by studying and memorizing
them, using them in worship, and interpreting
and debating their meanings in accordance with
lived experience and changes in the world around
them. The ways communities give life to scripture
are represented, for example, by the Jewish rabbi,
a “master” of the Torah, who is charged with
teaching and upholding its commandments. His
counterpart in Islam is the alim (pl. Ulama), “one
who knows” the Quran, hadith, and the sharia
(Islamic law). Any person who has memorized
the Quran is called hafiz, “one who preserves” the
sacred text. Muslims are obliged to recite short
passages from the Quran during their five dailyPage from modern print edition of the Quran showing
the first verses of Sura 2, with Arabic text on the right
and Hindi transliteration on the left (Quran majid, New
Delhi, 1987)holy books 307 J