imagine an agreement between them to falsify the Old Testament. Had any one sect of
Christians or Jews, or those living in any country, for instance in Arabia, all agreed to
corrupt their Scriptures, then the other sects and all those in other parts of the world
would have raised a great outcry against them for such a terrible sin. We have histories
written by Jews, others by Muslims, others by Christians, and yet in none of these do we
find any account of it ever being proved that such an attempt was made whether during
Muhammad's time or after it.
Moreover, had any sect ever thought of the commission of this crime, its accomplishment
would have been found absolutely impossible. For before the Hijrah the Christian faith had
spread so widely that the greater portion of the population of Asia Minor, Syria, Greece,
Egypt, Abyssinia, North Africa, Italy, all professed belief in Christ. Besides this, very
many had accepted Christianity in Arabia, Persia, Armenia, Georgia, India, France, Spain,
Portugal, England, and Germany. In all these lands different languages were spoken, and
into many of these tongues translations of the Bible had been made before Muhammad's time;
viz. into Latin, Armenian, Syriac, Coptic, Æthiopic, Gothic, Georgian. Besides
this, the Old Testament existed in the original Hebrew, and the New Testament in the
original Greek. The Old Testament had also been translated into Greek, and much of it into
Aramaic.
The Jews also were to be found in all the countries we have mentioned. They were
divided into more or less opposed parties, and the Christians into many sects hostile to
one another. Had any Jewish or Christian sect therefore attempted to corrupt any one of
the Sacred Books, the others would at once have detected and mercilessly exposed the
crime. Hence no madman is mad enough to be able to imagine all Jews and Christians
agreeing to corrupt the Bible. But, if this had taken place, the crime would have
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