with the accessibility of ancient manuscripts, has now established the fact that many alterations were made in it; it is over thirteen hundred years since the Holy Qur’ān charged the followers of the Bible with altering its text, and that at a time when nobody knew that such alterations had been made in its text. Only one quotation may be given in this connection: “Do you then hope that they would believe in you, and a party from among them indeed used to hear the word of Allāh, then altered it after they had understood it, and they know (this) … Woe, then, to those who write the book with their hands and then say, This is from Allāh; so that they may take for it a small price!” (2:75-79).10 Hence it should be borne in mind that though the Holy Qur’ān speaks again and again of “verifying” what is before it, yet it does not and cannot mean that there have been no alterations in them. On the other hand, it condemns many of the doctrines taught by the followers of the earlier scriptures, and this shows that while their origin is admitted to be Divine, it is at the same time pointed out that these books have not come down in their original purity, and that the truth revealed in them has been mixed up with errors due to alterations effected by human hands.

Door to revelation is not closed

In almost every great religion, Divine revelation is considered to be the particular experience of a particular race or nation, and even in that nation the door to revelation is looked upon as having been closed after some great personage or after a certain time. But Islām, while making revelation the universal experience of humanity, also considers its doors as standing open for all time. There is an erroneous idea in some minds that, in Islām, the door to revelation was closed with Holy Prophet Muḥammad, because it is stated in the Holy Qur’ān that he is the last of the prophets. Why there shall be no prophet after him will be discussed in the next chapter, but it is an error to confuse the discontinuance of prophethood with the discontinuation of revelation. It has been shown that of the three kinds of revelation, two are common to both prophets and those who are not prophets, while only one form of revelation, the highest, in which the angel Gabriel is sent with a message in words, is peculiar to the prophets; and therefore when it is said that no prophet shall