Surah 28. Al-Qasas, Ayah 48

As the Qur'an frequently points out, the basic ethical truths enunciated in it are the same as those of earlier revelations. It is this very statement which induced the opponents of Muhammad - in his own time as well as in later times - to question the authenticity of the Qur'an: "If it had really been revealed by God," they argue, "would so many of its propositions, especially its social laws, differ so radically from the laws promulgated in that earlier divine writ, the Torah?" By advancing this argument (and quite apart from the question of whether the text of the Bible as we know it today has or has not been corrupted in the course of time), the opponents of Muhammad's message deliberately overlook the fact, repeatedly stressed in the Qur'an, that the earlier systems of law were conditioned by the spiritual level of a particular people and the exigencies of a particular chapter of human history, and therefore had to be superseded by new laws at a higher stage of human development (see in this connection the second paragraph of 5:48 and the corresponding note [66]). However, as is evident from the immediate sequence - and especially from the last sentence of this verse - the above specious argument is not meant to uphold the authenticity of the Bible as against that of the Qur'an, but, rather, aims at discrediting both - and through them, the basic religious priciple against which the irreligious mind always revolts: namely, the idea of divine revelation and of man's absolute dependence on and responsibilty to God, the Ultimate Cause of all that exists.

A contemptuous allusion, on the one hand, to Old-Testament predictions of the coming of the Prophet Muhammad 9cf. surah {2}, note [33]), and, on the other, to the oft-repeated Qur'anic statement that this divine writ had been revealed to "confirm the truth of earlier revelations". As regards my rendering of the term sihr (lit., "magic" or "sorcery") as "delusion" - and occasionally as "spellbinding eloquence" - see note [12] on 74:24 .

 The pagans of Mecca demanded that the Quran should have been revealed all at once like the Torah, and the Prophet (ﷺ) should have had some tangible signs like the staff of Moses.

 Some Meccan pagans approached some Jewish authorities to inquire about the Prophet’s message and they were told that there are references of him in the Torah. So the pagans immediately rejected both the Torah and the Quran as two works of magic.

When a Revelation is sent to them, in the Qur-an, adapted to all their needs and the needs of the time they live in, they hark back to antiquity. The holy Prophet was in many respects like Moses, but the times in which he lived were different from the times of Moses, and his age did not suffer from the deceptions of sorcery, like that of Moses. The remedies which his age and future ages required (for his Message was universal) were different. His miracle of the Qur-an was different and most permanent than the Rod and the Radiant-White Hand of Moses. But supposing that the Quraish had been humoured in their insincere demands, would they have believed? Did they believe in Moses ? They were only put up by the Jews to make objections which they themselves did not believe in.

Moses was called a sorcerer by the Egyptians, and the wonderful words of the Qur-an were called sorcery by the Quraish. As the Qur-an confirmed the Message of Moses, the Quraish objectors said that they were in collusion. The Quraish did not believe in Allah's Revelation at all.