Introduction

Aḥmad Dīdāt (1918–2005) was a South African Muslim scholar and preacher of Indian descent, born in Surat, Gujarat, and raised in South Africa from the age of nine. He founded the Islamic Propagation Centre International (IPCI) in Durban in 1957 and dedicated decades of his life to comparative religion and dawah, emerging as one of the most prominent Muslim voices in interfaith dialogue during the latter half of the twentieth century. His skill in public debate, his thorough familiarity with biblical texts, and his ability to engage Christian missionaries on their own terms earned him an international following. Is the Bible God's Word? was composed during a period when Christian missionary activity in Africa and among Muslim communities globally was intensifying, and it represents one of his most focused and methodically argued treatises, distilling arguments he had refined through years of public lectures and written correspondence.

The book addresses a foundational question in the Muslim-Christian dialogue: whether the Bible as it exists today can be considered the uncorrupted, verbatim word of God. Dīdāt examines the matter from several angles. He surveys the textual history of the Bible, drawing attention to manuscript variants, the process of canonization, and the acknowledgments of textual uncertainty found within biblical scholarship itself. He presents internal contradictions and passages he argues are irreconcilable with the concept of divine authorship. Crucially, he situates this critique within the Quranic framework, which affirms that God revealed scriptures to earlier prophets, including the Torah (Tawrāh) and the Gospel (Injīl), while indicating that these revelations were subsequently altered through human transmission. The book thus moves between textual analysis and theological argument, making a case that the Bible, as canonized, does not correspond to the original revelation given to the Prophets Mūsā and ʿĪsā, upon them be peace.

The work achieved wide circulation within Muslim dawah circles and became a standard reference for Muslims engaged in dialogue with Christians, particularly in Africa, South Asia, and diaspora communities in the West. It helped establish a template for Muslim engagement with biblical criticism, encouraging readers to study Christian scripture carefully rather than avoid it. Scholars have noted both its usefulness as an introductory comparative text and its limitations as a work of rigorous academic biblical scholarship, since Dīdāt wrote primarily as a da'ī rather than a trained textual critic. Nonetheless, it has introduced countless readers to questions of hermeneutics, canon formation, and the Islamic understanding of scriptural revelation, serving as a gateway to more advanced works in both Islamic theology and comparative religion.

A reader approaching this work should do so with a clear understanding of its purpose and scope. Dīdāt wrote for a general audience seeking accessible arguments rather than for academic specialists, and the book rewards reading alongside classical Islamic texts on the nature of revelation, such as the discussions found in the works of Ibn Taymiyyah and later scholars on the question of taḥrīf (scriptural alteration). The reader will gain a structured overview of the Muslim objections to biblical inerrancy, a familiarity with the internal debates that biblical scholars themselves have raised about their own scriptures, and a framework grounded in Quranic teaching for understanding the relationship between Islam and the earlier Abrahamic revelations. Used with appropriate scholarly context, it remains a useful starting point for Muslims entering the field of comparative religion and interfaith dialogue.