The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page lxiv
GENERAL INTRODUCTION perpetuate one's name, what need is there for the brother to have marital relations with one's widow? If a brother's son can be treated as one's own son, there is no need to allow the brother to have immoral relations with one's wife. Far better would it have been for the Bible to declare that of the sons of the brother one may be attributed to the dead brother. This would have been reasonable enough. But it seems that as Jewish scholars invented a foul accusation against Lot, so God made them enter into the Torah an injunction the effects of which should recoil upon the Jewish scholars who had tried to defame Prophet Lot. God's vengeance was dire but well deserved. Jewish women were led by injunctions invented by Jewish scholars to do what Jewish doctors had attributed to Lot. These defects of the Old Testament clearly point to the need of a perfect Book which should be free from these defects, and that Book is the Quran. The New Testament Examined We have seen that the Old Testament has suffered interpolations and changes in form as well as matter. It is possible no longer to use it as a guide. Let us turn now to an examination of the New Testament. The books collected into the New Testament do not constitute the utterances of Jesus nor of his disciples. Jesus was a Jew and so were his disciples. If any of Jesus' utterances were to be found preserved in their originality, they could only be in the Hebrew language. So also with the utterances of his disciples. But no copy of the New Testament in ancient Hebrew exists in the world. The old copies are all in Greek. Christian writers try to cover this grave defect by saying that in the time of Jesus the language in general use was Greek. This is impossible for more reasons than one. Nations do not easily give up their language. It is for them as valuable an inheritance as any property or other possession. In Eastern Europe there are people who for three or four hundred years have lived under Russian rule, but their languages remain intact to this day. France has ruled over Morocco and Spain over Algiers for a long time. Yet the language of these subject peoples is still Arabic. Two thousand years have passed since the time of Jesus. Yet the Jews have not forgotten their language. Even today in parts of Europe and America, Jews speak Yiddish, a corrupt form of ancient Hebrew. If this long time spent amongst other peoples has not destroyed the Jewish language, could a brief association with the Romans destroy it? Let us remember that Roman rule in Palestine had begun only about 50 years before the advent of Jesus. This is not long enough for a people to forget their language. But there are other important considerations also to be kept in view: (i) Nations which attain to any importance in history do not give up their language, and the Jews were a very important people indeed. xxxviii