Talk:Biblical narratives in the Quran

Wikipedia policy
In view of the potential for sensitivity of religious content, it is particularly important for this article to adhere closely to Wikipedia policy. The following quotes are extracts only: the full policies can be found by following the links.

Treatment of Primary Sources (WP:PSTS)

 * "Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source.


 * "To the extent that an article or particular part of an article relies on a primary source, that part of the article should (1) only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims, unless such claims are verifiable either from the primary source itself or from another source. Contributors drawing on primary sources should be careful to comply with both conditions."


 * "While primary sources are authoritative in the sense that they are made by people closely related to the facts, their authoritativeness is relative, and not absolute. While a primary source is usually considered to be more authoritative on a given topic than a secondary source that cites it, many primary sources are in error, and may be discredited by other primary sources. Sometimes, a secondary source containing corrected information is considered to be more authoritative than a discredited primary source."

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 * "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and, as far as possible, without bias all significant views (that have been published by reliable sources).


 * "A balanced selection of sources is critical for producing articles with a neutral point of view. For example, when discussing the facts on which a point of view is based, it is important to also include the facts on which competing opinions are based since this helps a reader evaluate the credibility of the competing viewpoints. This should be done without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. It is also important to make it clear who holds these opinions. It is often best to cite a prominent representative of the view."

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Jheald 14:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Google links to possible academic discussions/surveys
Some bookmarks of possibly relevant books and papers found by Google. Mostly subscription-only, only abstracts freely available.


 * Michael E. Pregill, The Hebrew Bible and the Quran: The Problem of the Jewish ‘Influence’ on Islam
 * Review of "Islam, Judaism, and Christianity: Theological and Historical Affiliations" by Heribert Busse, tr. Allison Brown
 * John C. Reeves, Bible and Quran: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality
 * Camilla Adlang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm
 * Kenneth Cragg, various.
 * Brannon M. Wheeler, Prophets in the Quran: An Introduction to the Quran and Muslim Exegesis

...both including many citations and links.
 * http://www.answering-islam.org.uk/Quran/Sources/ and linked resources, incl. Geiger and Tisdall (anti-Islamic site)
 * http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/Bibindex.html (Muslim rebuttal)

This article is biassed or partial
This article mentions that the Quran has anachronisms. Also the burden of proof is that on the book that came later. Since there is no proof of the statements in the Quran being anachronisms. This article is biased against the Quran by claiming something without proof. Muslims believe the Quran says it is from God and also more importantly the Quran says it is directly from God. So any article claiming something else is totally biased because the proof that it is not from God also lands directly on the writers of the article. The article writers believe they can place their biased beliefs of no God being existent over the beliefs of others who believe in a single God which is the creator and the master of the day of judgement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.201.235.22 (talk) 06:24, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

This article is biassed or partial if it dos not have an article also from differenceses between Holy Bible and Holy Qur'an. If we leave this matter and do nothing, then this article is saying that Islam and Chritianity have same source in deepen meening it's meen that we have same God. Here are some links to help someone to get started: I wrote from those diffenrences article in Finnish and I hope that someone can do it in English also. Thanks to you all! Aadesig (talk) 16:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The Difference between the Bible and the Qur'an
 * Differences between the Bible and the Qur'an
 * Why do the Bible and the Qur'an not agree?
 * Differences between the Noble Quran and Bible only prove Islam's Truthfulness and Divinity
 * The Difference Between the Bible and the Qur'an
 * The difference between Bible and Quran

The Striking Resemblence
Most of the times, events and incidents in the Quran and the Bible resemble although the details. It may be strongly considered that because Bible is ancient than Quran, hence it contains an account of the events of the relevant times in more detail while the Quran offers a hint towards the relevant event (as details have already been revealed in the Bible).

Another aspect may be the purpose of the revelation of Quran and the Bible where by the as per the Islamic prespective, the Quran is supposed to be a guidance till the end of the world as no new prophet will be send be God, while the Bible was for the time in between the revelation of the Bible and the Quran. Quranic content contains details of social behaviour, scientific knowledge, Islamic laws and rules and issues that may be confronted by a human being during the course of his life (just like a manual for the human beings) while also summarizing the accounts of the previous prophets like Jesus, Moses, Issac, Ishmail, Abraham, Lot, Solomon, Noah, Adam and many others which are not mentioned here.

While Quranic content broadly defines the general requirements, is mostly supported by the Hadith giving much more details of the account of the events to make them more understandable for the Muslims and humanity as a whole. The accounts between the Quran and Bible may vary due to the non-availability of the orignial scripture while the Quran is still available in its true scripture.

A Muslims belief is not complete until and unless he does not acknowledge s the prophets before Muhammad (and that includes Jesus, Moses, Issac and Abraham) to be the true messengers of God (prophets) and accepts that the revelations (torah, Injeel, Zabur, and other scriptures) sent to the prophets were true (though time has altered the true context of the actually revealed scriptures).

Because Muslims (followers of Muhammad and practioners of Islam) believe in the same true one God as preached by Jesus, Moses and Abrahim (and other prophets) so there cannot be any contradictions in the revelations of God from time to time (as God cannot contradict Him self). This is also the reason that Muslims are instructed by the prophet Muhammad to honour and respect the prophets and teachings of the prophets before Him as they all represent the same God and not different Gods.

Contradictions between Quran and Bible or other scriptures may be attributed to the human factor over the centuries whereby addition/ deletion of content to the scriptures before Quran may have been exercised with or without the intention of Vandilism.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.106.74.191 (talk) 12:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC) Islamomt (talk) 21:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Title unclear & Introduction unsubstantiated
This article should be split into 2:

"The what" One article dealing with a textual comparison of the similarities & differences.

"The how & why" One article dealing with the debate about structuralist/traditional/muslim/scholarly/christian beliefs about what the similarities & differences mean.

In its current form the tone of language in the Introduction is too misleading for the rest of the article. Perhaps this is because there's only 2 reference citations for the whole introduction, which tries to summarise the whole debate on the 'how & why' of the textual similarities.

--Lskil09 (talk) 12:28, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This article's primary focus is the "what".


 * We already have articles for the "how" and "why", namely History of the Qur'an and tahrif, which is where we consider those questions in depth.


 * The intro here is not to duplicate those articles, merely to put the "what" into some sort of context, particularly its context in orthodox Islam, which is where the Quran as text has its most primary significance. Jheald (talk) 17:56, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, there is nothing called 'orthodox Islam', my friend who hath commented here a long time ago a.k.a. Jheald. The Qur'an has had, does have, and InshaAllah will always have primary significance in Islam whatever the condition may be. &#39;Abd el &#39;Azeez (talk) 12:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Shaitaan/Satan
They are the one and the same being from an Islamic viewpoint, so the Bible and the Quran are in agreement on this point. There is therefore no need for this to be mentioned, as Shaitaan is simply the Arabic name for Satan. Furthermore, the serpent being Satan is mentioned twice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.227.159.148 (talk) 18:33, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * So what's your point? Please do contribute positively to the article (rather than just on the talk page) wherever you deem fit. &#39;Abd el &#39;Azeez (talk) 12:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Jesus/Isa Speaking from the Cradle
I can't speak for the Q'ran but the canonical Bible books do not describe Jesus as speaking from the cradle. It might be in some later Christian apocrypha, but it's not in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Suggest you remove this from the list of common items between the two traditions. Rob Burbidge (talk) 19:37, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Two particular references to this can be found in Surat Maryam (19:29-33) Jesus speaks to people right after being born and identifies himself as a prophet of God. Whatever the original genesis of this post, Jesus speaking from the cradle is most definitely a Quranic reference. Michael Sheflin (talk) 02:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Miriam in the Qur'an
Maryam is Jesus's mother, to whom a Surah is devoted. However, the section on Moses appears not to distinguish between the Miriam mentioned in the Bible, and this absence in the Quran.

Additionally, in the Quran, Samiri leads the creation of the golden claf (not Aaron - who either directs or allows this in the Biblical account). This article simply restates that Haroun, Aaron, is a prophet - nevertheless it does this at inappropriate points because it does not discuss the character-distinction in the Golden Calf story.

The analysis of differences is topical owing to the improper recounting of the Islamic version. This is highly inappropriate with regard to the accurate portrayal of a major religion. I realize it is a minor point, but it may also be a microcosm.

Frankly, I'm not going to read more of the article now, but this really deserves to be re-examined and changed. Michael Sheflin (talk) 21:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok... also, in that there is a section delineating this difference (apparently without regard to the rest of the article), it dates the existence of both literary characters/real people. However, knowing what little I do about the appallingly polemical state of Biblical Archaeology, I wonder if Miriam's birth (apparently c. 1450 BC) should be cited in that I kind of always though she lived in some other time period that I don't care to elaborate on (or cite).  I suppose also, Mary mother of Jesus's birth-date is more easily inferred.  Nevertheless, one would think that in an article like this facts should carry weight - whereas this appears to be a hastily set up article.  Since nobody will reply to my posts, I assume that people are taking this information at face value.  I should point out that the genesis of my concern for this article is in a friend talking with me about that conflagration of "Mary's."  Whereas that conflagration does not exist in the Qur'an (i.e. I am Michael... I am a person and not the angel Michael or any of the saints Michael), it appears to exist largely on Wikipedia.  In that I have an interest in a factual portrayal of Islam, I wonder if anyone else cares... ? Michael Sheflin (talk) 06:11, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I am quite certain that many seekers after truth care very much, in all the major religious traditions. If only it were possible to join all such seekers in respectful conversations, honoring that which comes of God in every person, as well as we can discern it!
 * But it is very difficult. In particular, we would need to recognize the possibility that we will need to listen more than we talk, and that some of our personal, cherished, store of "Truth" will probably need to be adjusted as it is illuminated by the Truths in others.  Wwheaton (talk) 17:35, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Verse/Aya
This article refers to "books" of the Qur'an as Suras, but does not refer to the "verses" as Ayas. Wikipedia should probably be consistent with this nomenclature on all pages dealing with the Qur'an. Unless there's a good reason the erroneous "verse" is being used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.126.158.140 (talk) 05:05, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Not Neutral
This article is fully from a MUSLIM author or an ISLAM-SYMPHATIZING author.Not a NEUTRAL article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.120.52.35 (talk) 16:23, 11 June 2013 (UTC)


 * By your logic, then any Christian editor should also not work on this article? Would you agree with that? Also what do you mean by 'Islam-Sympathising'? Rohonk1 (talk) 12:42, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Can we improve the format?
Hi. I am thinking if we can format this article such that there are two columns side by side and in one of them we can give the biblical narrative and in the other the quranic. and following each topic should be a subheading of differences between the two narratives(which although is present in some topics but not in all). Also, IMO, more importance should be given to the differences in narratives. No? I mean they should be more detailed. What do u say? Sohebbasharat (talk) 11:32, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree about the change in format. Is it possible to do two columns in Wikipedia? (New to contributing, still learning format.) If that is impossible, then I think we could set up a precedent where each source gets its own paragraph summary like in the Gideon/Talut subsection. Right now it is hard to follow when the prose is summarizing the details of one or both versions. I'd also guess that the authors have been predominantly more studied in Quranic texts than Biblical. My concern about including a subheading that emphasizes the differences is that it risks elevating one version over the other (either as more 'civilized,' 'accurate,' or some other relative measure). I think just summarizing the respective versions should provide enough comparison/contrast for the readers. But maybe there should be a following paragraph telling how each religion interprets the value of said version respectively? Like, how do Muslims apply their version of the virgin birth to their belief and how do Christians apply their version/s of the virgin birth to theirs? That would bring in some secondary sources. Thoughtjot 3 November 2017 —Preceding undated comment added 18:55, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Adam and Eve and 400CE+ tradition influence
We might possibly need to find better references to mention it, but various people have noted the possible influence of Christian-era apocrypha or literature. An example in relation to the creation myth and spiritual beings prostrating before Adam (which seems to be a 400CE+ development): 76.10.128.192 (talk) 14:34, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Questionable statement in the section "Sacrifices his son":

"It may be added that the name Abraham is a literary trope in Genesis Ab- "father-of(-many-nations)" while the Arabic name masks the connection."

The sentence begins with weasel words "it may be added that" to say (without writing it) that the Arabic version of "Abraham" is Ibrahim, a fairly obvious cognate, and has the same meaning in Arabic, "father of many". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Argantael (talk • contribs) 19:26, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Arabic names in section headings
I removed Arabic names (duplicated transliteration and Arabic script) from section headers, because these figures all have accepted English names that are similar to the Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Latin, and other languages. Additional languages in the headers clutters them up. User:SharabSalam undid this, .--Geshem Bracha (talk) 13:50, 27 May 2020 (UTC) strike sock
 * , the Quranic name is quite different from the biblical name. There is no policy that says we shouldn't use the Quranic name when there is a biblical equivalent. In fact, we should use the Quranic names as to tell the differences between the biblical names and the Quranic names.-- SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 13:54, 27 May 2020 (UTC)


 * You also didnt explain your edit. Please write edit summaries.-- SharʿabSalam▼  (talk) 13:59, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The English name varies quite a bit from the Hebrew and Greek. We still use the English one throughout articles. It's the same figures, and the whole point of section headers is to be concise. You can put the multi-linguistics in the section text if it is important. This is an overview article, I remind you.--Geshem Bracha (talk) 14:03, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * No, I disagree, we can use these names in the section header.-- SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 14:12, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * We can do anything, but headers are supposed to be concise.--Geshem Bracha (talk) 13:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Noah
"Unlike the Bible, one Quranic verse implies that Noah's people rejected not only Noah but multiple prophets who warned them."

It looks like the usual interpretation of 25.37 is that the people of Noah denied him, and by extension all of the Messengers/Prophets - not that there were many messengers who all came and warned about the flood. https://quranx.com/tafsirs/25.37 פֿינצטערניש (Fintsternish), she/her (talk) 10:52, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Pro-islamic framing in the Mary-Miriam section
Why does this article fail to state that Mary allegedly was not only called "sister of Aaron" in Surah 19:29 but also "daughter of Amram" according to Surah 66:12??

If the islamic honor title theory you backed up with an hadith would be accurate two different honor title would have been given and not just one which makes this islamic theory much less likely to be true.

Also, in the entire Quran not a single prophet or person has been linked to a previous pious figure by calling him or her "sister of/brother of/ daughter of/son of".

62.226.85.77 (talk) 02:50, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

List of useful refs

 * A Comparative Study of Magic from the Perspective of the Qur'an and the Testaments ~ Habibi Houra*, Naderi Mohammad Mehdi
 * Asian Journal of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities
 * Year : 2021, Volume : 11, Issue : 9
 * First page : ( 23) Last page : ( 33)
 * Online ISSN : 2249-7315.
 * Article DOI : 10.5958/2249-7315.2021.00032.0
 * URL: https://www.indianjournals.com/ijor.aspx?target=ijor:ajrssh&volume=11&issue=9&article=005

&#32;Bookku, &#39;Encyclopedias &#61; expanding information &#38; knowledge&#39; (talk) 11:14, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

The authors of the Quran have stolen/copied content from the Bible...
simply because the book of the Christians existed hundreds of years before Islam came along. Any similarity between both religions is a problem for Muslims, NOT Christians. 2003:DA:C74C:F300:50AF:2286:ECB9:C942 (talk) 01:18, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

the deliberate manipultion the reader by contributors
i enjoy wikipedia and have for a long time but am troubled to see a dramatic rise in the tilt of articles where the information being presented is done so to make it appear as if that topic being written about is being presented in a strasihhtforward truthful way and further the onclusion to be drawn  hasd been vetted by and is the product of a wide consensus of agreement which it isnt, and that compromises the integrity of wikipedia as a whole. Philos. if you would would like to see what i am referring to google the following type of question or any variation of it in which islam is being compared to a competing philosophy... for instance when the question is asked is the quran is scientifically accurate, and we know through sceintific discovery the nature of many things d that were unknown when the quran was written there is a large number of proven difference between what the quran says and what science proves and yet the  short answer offered from google...almost without fail..and 90 percent of the time it is a quote from wikipedia will say something like this... " in the view of some scholars or experts, the muslim opinion / belief / teaching is the correct one.  while that may be technically true  - there are no qualifications to the number of scholars or what their credentials are or if the view espoused is representative of  majority opinion or a belief held by a scant few it gives the false impression that it is a widely held view and because of that it an abuse of the truth as it gives a false prominence to islam,- it is an attempt to elevate above other opinions and beliefs and it doesn't deserve to be held up that way because by doing so it unfairly excludes everyone else who deserved or qualifies to be mentioned if we set the bar so low.i could say that some experts and scholars believe the moon is made of green cheese and produce a few people who believe that to be true, but does it rise to the level of mentioning ? of course not. again this not an isolated phenomenon but an ongoing and increasing trend i have observed please watch this carefully as muslims apologists are attempting to legitimatize their beliefs and institutionalize their way of seeing things at the expense of competing philosophies and those that do no support its claims nor wish it to speak on our behalf - signed by the 75% of the rest of us people who arent muslim 2601:447:C200:5A80:B084:B978:1DAC:AE4B (talk) 22:37, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Please please delete or rename this article.
The entire article is derived from a single source with the same name as the article. Either heavily trim down the content and make clear that what is provided is a summary of that article, or just delete this entry completely. Hwalterman (talk) 01:17, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 7 April 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover)  ❯❯❯  Raydann  (Talk)   20:50, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Biblical and Quranic narratives → Biblical narratives in the Quran – The current title is unclear. It is impossible to tell what the article is really about. An alternative to my suggestion might be "Biblical figures in the Quran". The subject of the article is clearly Biblical persons and stories found in some form also in the Quran. Srnec (talk) 01:29, 7 April 2024 (UTC) — Relisting.  ❯❯❯  Raydann  (Talk)   17:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Bible, WikiProject Religion/Interfaith work group, WikiProject Religion, WikiProject Mythology, and WikiProject Islam have been notified of this discussion.  ❯❯❯  Raydann  (Talk)   17:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support a rename to Biblical narratives in the Quran which seems to define the article subject in a better and coherent way. ─ Aafī   (talk)  19:54, 17 April 2024 (UTC)