Are the Holy Qur’an and the Bible overlapping scriptures?

In a sense, yes. The overlap shows that all scriptures come from the same God. As the last scripture, however, the Holy Qur’an covers far wider ground, and it takes over nothing of what in today’s Bible cannot be upheld.

The fact that the Holy Qur’an and the Bible overlap is no objection. It confirms what the Holy Qur’an itself strongly emphasises. All true scriptures are the work of the same God. Wherever His word has remained intact, it must say in the earlier scriptures the same as it says in the Holy Qur’an.

The overlap, however, is only partial. Religion unfolded step by step. Each new scripture had a broader base than the one before. The Holy Qur’an came last and covers more than all that preceded it. So some of what is in the Bible is found in it, but much of it is found in no earlier scripture.

Some use the word overlap to suggest that the Holy Qur’an simply borrowed good things from the Bible. Then they have a riddle to solve. Whoever copies also copies mistakes. The Bible as we have it today contains stories that are hard to uphold, such as God wrestling with a prophet, or not knowing where Adam was hiding in the Garden of Eden. The Holy Qur’an takes over none of this. It simply leaves it out.

Anyone who claims it is an imitation would have to show a single verse that is absurd because it was not taken from the Bible. On the contrary, there are hundreds of verses that repeat nothing from the Bible. Non-Muslim researchers have compared the statements of both scriptures with firmly established scientific knowledge and found the Holy Qur’an in agreement with it. The same could not be said in the same way of the biblical texts.

The verses above describe this relationship. The Holy Qur’an confirms what was revealed before it and at the same time watches over it. It does not merely repeat. It preserves what is true and carries it further.