Dr Noor Ali Tabande
In the name of God the most merciful and compassionate
In Quran, two sacred books are mentioned, The Bible and The Torah and of course, novelty apart, these two, Quran mentions The Scrolls of Abraham and Moses: “Indeed these are the first scrolls, Scrolls of Abraham and Moses2 “. This, in ancient books and writings, has been stated as The Doctrine of Abraham and Moses. However, no written material from Abraham has been passed down to us except for what have been mentioned by latter prophets quoting him. In Quran, the two holy books have been faulted which is an indication of both The Bible and Torah have gone through changes throughout the time.
In Bible there are only a few religious orders, as Jesus himself says: “Don’t think that I am here to negate Torah or The Prophet’s Scrolls. I am not here to negate, I am here to complete.” 3 It is for this reason that the religious orders in Bible is considerably less than in Torah. Although both sacred books have been distorted to some extent, I recommend that we read both of these books for as minimum to compare with the divine Quran and then realize that they are more like a history and tradition of the prophets particularly Bible is more of a prophets’ biography. Of course there are some accounts in Quran too. Comprising the stories in Surah Al-Kahf is the story that we are going to talk about. Quran’s method in telling stories is as it is stated: “We relate to you (O Muhammad), the best of stories.”4Some commentators call the above verse “The best of stories”. But a story which comes from God doesn’t have a “better” or “worse”. All the stories that are in Quran are decent. Furthermore, in Surah Al-Qasas, the totality of the Surah is one story, therefore it cannot be said that one story is better than another. Qasas is the plural of the word story but it means story telling. Therefore, in this verse it says that we are telling a story in the best way. The best is to our estimate. To God everything is good. God wants to draw the best conclusion from this story for us.
As we compare the stories in Quran to the stories in Torah and Bible, we appreciate that stories in Quran are more concise and condensed. God voices the abstract and the essence of every story, meaning the purpose of telling a story in Quran is not story telling but the purpose is to pay attention to the inner meaning and note the spiritual meaning of that story, while in the existing Torah and Bible most of their contents are stories with extensive details. There is no doubt that in Torah many of the religious orders of Moses’s path have been mentioned and later on other books have been written in Jewish path, comprising Talmud which is the collection of all Jewish orders. However, it would have been good if all Moses’s and Jesus’s orders were mentioned in Torah and Bible but unfortunately, many of the words of those honorable have been either removed or distorted. From this facet Quran is superior to them. Quran is the only sacred book encompassing all God’s orders and commandments, the prophet’s training programs are mentioned and have been immune from any deletion or distortion. Of course, the way we believe that Quran is God’s words, Jews do not believe the same. They call it holy since it contains their prophet’s words, as Christians The Bible was written by men, however, they were under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration.
In Torah many of the orders have been distorted because like Quran it was not a written book and the community did not have access to it but the Jewish clergymen would keep it hidden with them. If the Jewish people needed clarification they had to go see their scholars and elders since they had no access to their holy book. Of course, this is natural but the questions and answers did not resonate fully with the truth. The scholars would change the orders to suit them. It is as such that this holy book became the monopoly of a special group and others were not considered privileged. Therefore, after some attacks on Jews and events happening to them, some damage was done to Torah. However, later they found the opportunity to collect and adjust Torah.

An example of scholars and elders of Jewish path changing the contents of Torah to their liking, was when the grandees and nobles committed an act that was against the rules of Torah, they were minimize the punishment or change the rule completely. For example, it is said that once a man and a woman from Jewish nobles whom both were married committed a dishonorable crime. Since the rabbis did not want to sentence them to be stoned according to Torah, and on the other hand did not want to cause ill repute for themselves for not carrying out Torah’s orders, they said that we are from Medina and we should follow Median’s rules. We ask Mohammad who is in fact the ruler of Medina and whatever he says we carry out. They thought Mohammad would act on goodwill and would set the guilty parties free. Therefore, they went and asked the prophet. At that time the Surah of Maeda was descended upon Mohammad.5 The prophet said that God has sent you the book of Torah and in this case He has appointed stoning6 and you should act accordingly. Since the Jewish scholars had hidden this rule and were not willing to demonstrate it, they were not content with this ruling. At this time, Mohammad had a revelation and he appointed Abdullah Bin Suria who was a rabbi and was trusted amongst Jews, as a mediator between himself and them. His Holiness asked for Ibn Suria and I swear you to God, Moses and Torah to tell me whether in Torah God has appointed stoning for adultery or not? Ibn Suria said: “Yes and I swear to God that if you did not swear me to God, Moses and Torah, I would not have said that and would have kept this rule a secret. After that Jews objected to Ibn Suria for why he had revealed Torah’s rule and he said: “Mohammad swore me and if it was not the fear that if I lie, God would destroy me, I would not have confessed.”7
This event was amongst the secret deeds which became evident. There were other secret deeds which were not revealed. Including those are the three stories: Companions of the Cave; Moses and Khidr; and Dhul which was mentioned in the SuraAl-Kahf. Jewish and Christian scholars knew about them but not the public and like other secrets they were kept hidden. Therefore, as per commentator’s opinion, Sura Al-Kahf was descended for the reason that the infidels of Quraysh send a few people to Christian and Jewish scholars to ask questions that Mohammad could not response and hence, test the prophet on whether his words were from God or taught by others. They said ask Mohammad “what is the story of Companions in the Cave”, the story of Moses and the one who was supposed to follow him; and the story of the one who travelled the world from the East to the West? If his answer is similar to what we know, his claim is true and God is teaching him, since we do not tell anyone the secret to these stories. Of course it is known that it took forty days for the revelation to come. At last, after forty days, the verses of Sura Al-Kahf were descended and the prophet revealed all three stories to people.
The point in this subject that triggered our interest from the start is that there were other stories as well, but why Christian and Jewish scholars hid these stories? Maybe the reason would have been that there were qualities in these stories that revealing them would have caused Christians and Jews to criticize and object to their religious leaders. 
In the story of the Companions of the Cave, there were a few young courtiers who were Unitarians and because the king of the time was a tyrant, they did not dare to express their opinion. Sometimes they were forced to act against their beliefs and they did not know what to do. Therefore, they decided to flee and leave the eminence and glory of the court behind for the path of God. This story would have resulted in people to object their Christian or Jewish leaders for conforming to an unjust and tyrant ruler. They said if what the Companions of the Cave did was correct, why do you act against that? From the spiritual point of view, the story of the Companions of the Cave reveals that if you are in an environment where you fear for your life for worshipping God, you either have to prepare to let go of your life or to migrate from that place, as the prophet and his companions did – but under no circumstance we should worship anything but God. Migrating away from ego is the first stage of journey towards God.

1- Written script of two public speeches which the first part was expressed on 19/07/2007 and the second part on 24/06/2004. Since the two subject were related, they are presented as one article
2- Surah Al-A’la, verses 18 and 19
3- Bible, Matthew 17:5
4- Surah Yusuf, verse 3
5- Surah Al-Ma’idah, verses 41-50
6- The subject of Rajm in Torah, Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, chapter 22.
7- After this incident, Abdullah Bin Suria asked Mohammad questions and his Holiness answered them all. Ibn Suria after witnessing that had testified to the validity of Mohammad’s prophecy and turned to Islam. Immediately after this event, Jewish scholars, although previously testified for the knowledge and wisdom of Ibn Suria, they said that Mohammad had bought him out and he is no longer trust worthy.
8- Masnavi, Rumi, Tofigh Sobhani correction, Tehran, Rozaneh, 1999, First book, Verse 237.