Islam's Response to Contemporary Issues — Page 29
Inter-Religious Peace 29 strange order. The efforts of European scholars to prove the existence of later interpolations in the Quran have failed. 26 It is a completely different domain of controversy as to which Book was authored by whom. But the same Book whose authorship by God is challenged by the other People of the Book stands witness to the fact that, not only the Torah and the Injeel (collectively the Old Testament and the Gospels) were authored in part by God Himself, but also other Books belonging to different religions in other parts of the world were, without question, also authored by the same God— only the contradictions one finds in them today are man-made. Need it be said that the attitude of the Holy Quran is by far the most realistic and conducive to peace among religions. 2) As to the second question, the Holy Quran draws our attention to the process of evolution in every sphere of human society. New religions were needed not only for the sake of restoring the fundamental teachings of older religions which had been mutilated at the hands of man, but also, as society evolved, more teachings had to be added to previous ones to keep up with the pace of progress. 3) That is not all. Another factor at work in this process of change was the element of time-related secondary teachings which were revealed to meet only the requirements of a certain people or period. This means that religions were not only made of central cores of unchangeable principles, but were also dressed-up with peripheral, secondary and even transient teachings. 4) Last but not least, man was not educated and trained in Divine instructions in one single stride, but he was gradually carried forward step by step to a stage of mental adulthood where he was considered fit and mature to receive all the fundamental principles which were