The Muslims probably have mixed opinions about the Bible as the word of God leaning towards it not being the word of God at this point but made by several writers as it claims, rather than the direct products of the "Book Bringing" Prophets.
"
In two
surah (chapters), which are dated from the first
Meccan period, there is a reference to the 'Leaves, Scrolls, Journals' (
Suhuf) of Abraham (and the
Scrolls of Moses), by which presumably certain divinely inspired texts handwritten by the
patriarchs are meant. "
The Book Bringing Prophets are usually considered to be Abraham and his Suhuf, Musa and his Tawrat, David and his Zabur, Jesus and his Injeel, and Muhammed and his Qur'an.
A part of the Bible is just traditionally thought to be by Moses but pretty clearly is not by Moses because of how it was written, the other writings that have similar sections not associated with Moses directly like from writings of neighboring cultures and then bypasses his life and also speaks of him and not to him.
Its also unlikely that the Zabur are the Psalms, though its possible that is what was intended, there were other words that might have corresponded better.
"
The Arabic word
zabūr means "book" "inscription," or "writing."
[2]
An alternate, less accepted origin for the title
zabuur in the meaning of "psalm" is that it is a corruption of the
Hebrew zimrah (
Hebrew:זִמְרָה) meaning "song, music" or
sipur(
Hebrew: סִפּוּר), meaning "story." "
So the Qur'an seems to suggest there were books in resemblance of the Qur'an which had come from the "Mother Book".
43:4
"And Verily, it (this Quran) is in the Mother of the Book (i.e. Al-Lauh Al-Mahfuz), before Us, indeed Exalted, full of Wisdom."
13:39
"Allah eliminates what He wills or confirms, and with Him is the Mother of the Book."
These were expected not to be written in the style that the Psalms or Tanakh is written, but in the style of the Qur'an, namely "Spoken To" and spoken in rhythmic and rhyming language easy for memorization and transmission and locking its careful structure making it difficult to change words without breaking the rhyme structure, rhythm, or meaning.
All the texts were also generally expected to be written in the Semitic Tongue which resembles Arabic, but may have been in other tongues, though this was probably not imagined by people.
The New Testament was knowm even in the earliest times not to be written by or dictates by Jesus but about Jesus and written as collected stories after his death, thus making it most similar to the Hadiths, which are popular among Muslims but supposedly was requested by Muhammed not to write those things but they did anyway.
So, the New Testament are some books written about Jesus and letters sent by Paul and stuff like that, and the Book of Revelations and whatever else. No one educated even thinks it was written by or dictated by the living human Jesus.
The Qur'an is the only scripture where academics suspect it really was authored by someone who was likely the Muhammed who is mentioned within the text.
The Torah, Psalms, and New Testament are the three most important Pre-Islamic scriptures, and the Torah or Tanakh makes no attempt to even appear like it was actually written by Moses or direct revelation to Moses.
So many Muslims who actually read these books and topping it off with reading the Qur'an further defaming the books and the followers of the books are unlikely to believe these are really the same as the Qur'an.
Yet! The Qur'an seems to feel no trouble in taking into its contents some very unusual things, such as a chunk from the Syriac Alexander Romance, the alleged dialogue of a Jinn convert, and stories that appear in the other scriptures. It also includes answers to questions posed by locals and local issues happening at the time supposedly and contemporary and sometimes perhaps petty seeming issues. Likewise, the Qur'an says that God does not have any trouble using even examples like gnats or mosquitos to demonstrate things or to make references to popular notions and literature that people were familiar with or asking about.
The style remains very consistent though and does not break from the impression that Muhammed is being spoken to and directed rather than speaking for himself ever.
That style is not at all present or reflected in practically any otherm scripture around the time or before (as far as I am aware).
My personal stance is heterodox to the mainstream, which is that God necessarily generates all experiences and everything in any experience in every detail down to how we interpret such, an idea that is strongly implied or outright repeatedly stated through the Qur'an but not very strongly accepted or seemingly comprehended by mainstream Muslims in that way. Thus, Moby Dick, Paradise Lost, The Holy War by John Bunyan, or even a Hustler magazine are all created by God but not necessarily good or for good, and can be used to mislead people as well.
The mainstream view though, which I also pretty much share, is that the Qur'an is especially a revelation which claims other revelations before it which we expect would be the same or very similar in style to the Qur'an.
I personally think the Bible is almost immediately a pretty terrible book and anyone "Islamified" by a strong positive feeling for the text and translations of the Qur'an, I believe in reading the Bible carefully would want to destroy the book as truly evil, easily misleading, slanderous and vile text. Even the psalms are often quite hateful and annoying:
Psalm 78:65
Then the Lord rose up as though waking from sleep, like a warrior aroused from a drunken stupor.
If I thought that David really wrote such a hideous thing, or even God, I'd despise them even more. No true Muslim in my opinion could ever accept such trash as the words supposed to be from God directly or a real Prophet. The Muslims typically accept these things only because of the opinion presented to them that these are the scriptures of the Prophets they heard about, but they would likely shoo away any of this by saying its changed or corrupted, in case they don't feel confident enough in stating that it is trash and descipable writing by people with really terrible minds / hearts.
So, Unlike the Bahai people and many Muslims as well who might claim these are really supposed to represent the words of God, to a "true Muslim" like I deem myself to be, they cause nothing but total revulsion and hatred really because of how different they are from the Qur'an, not only in its original language but also in translation and content, style, and description.
