in the Qur'an and Traditions (احاديث), yet it is so widely held and so often asserted publicly among Muslims that it may be worth while to quote a book of some authority among them to confute it. Shaikh Haji Rahmatu'llah of Dehli, in his Izharu'l Haqq (إظهار الْحقّ), published in A.H. 1284, Vol. i, pp. 11 and 12, says that the statement that the Torah was abrogated by the Zabur and the Zabur by the appearance of the Injil "is1 a falsehood of which there is no trace in the Qur'an or in the Commentaries; nay, there is no trace of it in any authoritative book belonging to the People of Islam. And in our opinion the Zabur does not abrogate the Torah, nor is it abrogated by the Injil. David was subject to the religious law of Moses, and the Zabur was (a collection of) prayers." This writer asserts that only the ignorant and the common people among Muslims hold the erroneous idea which he is confuting.

It is true that such an idle fancy can have arisen and can continue to exist only through want of knowledge of the Qur’an in the first place, and of the Old Testament and the New in the second. For if anyone carefully and prayerfully studies the Bible, when he comes to understand its teaching he will clearly perceive that the doctrines of the Old Testament and of the New are in harmony with one another. By this we mean that their teaching is given in a definite order of instruction, and in this is gradually unfolded to men the knowledge of God's Eternal Purpose.

In the Old Testament we are informed how men were created by God Most High, how they fell into sin, how a Divine promise was then given of the coming of a Man born of the seed of the woman, how (many

‫1 فقوله نسخ التّوراة بنزول الزّبور ونسخ الزبور بظهور الانجيل بُهتان لا اثر لهُ في القرآن ولا في التّفاسير بل لا اثر لهُ في كتابٍ من الكتب المعتبرة لاهل الاسلام ـ والزّبور عندنا ليس بناسخ للتّورة ولا منسوخ من الانجيل وكان داوود عليهِ السلام علىَ شريعة موسىَ عليهِ السّلام وكان الزّبور ادعية‫.

years later, when all the nations had wandered far from the truth) God called Abraham and made a covenant with him, declaring that the Promised Saviour would be born of his progeny through Isaac. We are then told that this promise was renewed to Isaac and his son Jacob; that the children of Israel were trained in Egypt and Canaan for the work to which God had called them. We learn also how the Torah was given to Moses, and in it these promises were recorded and fresh ones added. Prophets were raised up generation after generation, to reprove the Israelites for their sins and to explain God's will. These prophets, one succeeding another, gave teaching which gradually grew in spirituality, and taught those who were pious and faithful to attain to a fuller knowledge of God. Prophet after prophet explained more and more clearly the work of the coming Saviour, telling beforehand where He was to be born, what He would do, and what He was to suffer. Then in the New Testament it is related how these prophecies were fulfilled, and how the Saviour commanded His disciples to preach the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth, to make all nations disciples, and to await His promised return, to judge both the quick and the dead, to restore the earth itself to perfection, and to reign for ever and ever. The Acts and the Epistles tell us how this work of evangelization was begun by the Apostles and the other disciples. Finally, the Book of Revelation prophetically narrates the conflict of the Christian Church against Satan and wicked men, and the ultimate triumph of God's eternal kingdom. Thus the Old and the New Testaments taken together form one consecutive system of instruction and of the gradual revelation of the accomplishment of God's gracious purpose and the final victory of good. The Bible forms a marvellous structure, the Torah being the foundation and the other books the completion of the glorious edifice. The whole of the perfected building shows forth the wisdom, the justice, and the unfathomable love of God