Q 5:47 commands the people of the Gospel to judge by what Allah has revealed in it. Read with Q 5:43 and Q 5:46, the verse treats the Gospel that Muhammad's contemporaries had as a real, living, authoritative scripture. If that Gospel had already been corrupted, the command would be incoherent. Classical Muslim commentators have wrestled with this honestly, and most read the verse as a real appeal to the actual Gospel of the seventh century.
What Q 5:43-47 actually says
The passage is a single argument running across five verses. Read together, the cumulative force is unmistakable.
- Q 5:43 — "How is it that they come to you for judgment when they have the Torah, in which is the judgment of Allah?"
- Q 5:44 — Allah revealed the Torah, a guidance and light, by which the prophets judged.
- Q 5:45 — Allah ordained for them in the Torah a life for a life.
- Q 5:46 — Allah gave Jesus the Gospel, containing guidance and light.
- Q 5:47 — "And let the people of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed in it."
Classical tafsīr (Ibn Kathīr, al-Ṭabarī, al-Qurṭubī) reads these verses as commanding both the Jewish and Christian communities to live by their actual scriptures. The Gospel here is the Injīl as Christians had it in Muhammad's day — the canonical four Gospels.
The tension this creates
Two facts cannot both be true together:
- The Gospel Christians had in Muhammad's lifetime was textually corrupted before Muhammad.
- Q 5:47 commands the people of the Gospel to judge by what Allah has revealed in it.
If (1) is true, (2) becomes Allah commanding people to obey a corrupted text — which is unjust. If (2) is true, (1) is false. Most thoughtful Muslims will not deny (2), so (1) is what bears the weight.
The simplest honest reading is the classical reading: the textual integrity of the Gospel was preserved, and any "corruption" in view is interpretive (taḥrīf al-maʿnā), not textual (taḥrīf al-naṣṣ). For more, see Did Muhammad confirm the Bible available in his time?.
What that Gospel actually says about Jesus
The Gospel the Qurʼān commands Christians to judge by is the same Gospel preserved in Codex Sinaiticus (c. 350 AD) and Codex Vaticanus (c. 325 AD), centuries before Muhammad. That Gospel says:
- John 1:1, 14 — the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
- John 20:28 — Thomas falls before the risen Jesus and confesses, "My Lord and my God!"
- Matthew 28:19 — disciples are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
- 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 — the earliest Christian creed: Christ died for our sins, was buried, was raised on the third day.
If Q 5:47 commands judging by this Gospel, then this is the standard the Qurʼān itself directs Christians toward.
Why this matters in conversation
Q 5:47 is one of the most direct and most underused passages in Christian-Muslim conversation. Many Muslims have never been told that the Qurʼān itself appeals to the Gospel as authoritative. When a Christian friend reads it with them in context (Q 5:43-47), often the conversation slows down considerably — not because the Christian has "won," but because something deeply shared has emerged.
The path back to the gospel from here is short. The Qurʼān itself sends the Christian friend back to John 1, John 14, Matthew 28, 1 Corinthians 15 — the heart of the Christian witness to Jesus.
Sources to read
Click a source title to read it on an authoritative site (quran.com for the Qurʼān and tafsīr; sunnah.com for ḥadīth).
| Source | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Q 5:43-47 | The single passage commanding both Jews and Christians to judge by their scriptures. |
| Q 5:68 | The People of the Book commanded to uphold the Torah and the Gospel. |
| Q 7:157 | The Prophet found written in the Torah and Gospel they have. |
| John 1:1 | The Word was God. |
| John 20:28 | My Lord and my God. |
| Matthew 28:19 | Trinitarian baptismal formula. |
| 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 | Earliest Christian creed. |
How to think about it
- Read Q 5:43-47 as one passage. The cumulative force only lands if you let the five verses run together. Allah commands both Jews and Christians to live by their actual scriptures.
- Hold the verse and the corruption claim together. If the Gospel was already corrupt, Q 5:47 is unjust. Classical Muslim commentators usually solve this by holding to taḥrīf al-maʿnā, not taḥrīf al-naṣṣ.
- Bring the gospel in gently. The Gospel the Qurʼān commands Christians to judge by tells of a Christ who died for sinners and rose. That is the deepest possible end of the conversation.
Common objections
- Doesn't Q 5:47 only command this if the Gospel were intact?
Then the question is whether the Gospel was intact in Muhammad's day. The Qurʼān treats it as intact in Q 5:43, 5:46, 5:68, 7:157, and 10:94. The corruption claim has to be smuggled in from outside the Qurʼān.
- But the Gospel was changed after Q 5:47 was revealed.
We have New Testament manuscripts that predate the Qurʼān by centuries — Codex Sinaiticus (c. 350 AD) and Codex Vaticanus (c. 325 AD). The Greek text in those codices matches what Christians read today. The post-Muhammad corruption claim has no manuscript basis.
- Couldn't Q 5:47 just mean the original Injīl Allah gave Jesus, not the four Gospels?
If so, Q 5:47 is meaningless to its first-century audience, who had the four Gospels and not a separate "original Injīl." The Qurʼān is addressing real people with real scriptures in their hands.
Related questions
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