Introduction

Ahmed Deedat (1918-2005) was a South African Muslim scholar and public speaker of Indian origin who became one of the most prominent figures in twentieth-century Islamic dawah. Born in Gujarat and raised in South Africa, he spent decades studying comparative religion and engaging Christian missionaries in debate, a vocation shaped in part by his early encounters with proselytizing activity directed at Muslim communities in Natal. He founded the Islamic Propagation Centre International and produced a large body of written and recorded material that has circulated widely across Muslim communities in Africa, South Asia, and the broader English-speaking world. His distinctive approach combined direct scriptural quotation with a pointed rhetorical style that drew large audiences and generated significant controversy in equal measure.

What the Bible Says About Muhammad focuses on two bodies of scriptural text that Muslim scholars have long interpreted as containing prophetic references to the Prophet Muḥammad, peace be upon him: Deuteronomy 18:18, in which Moses announces a prophet to come from among the brethren of the Israelites, and John 14-16, in which Jesus, peace be upon him, speaks of the coming of the Paraclete. Deedat argues that the Hebrew and Greek terms in these passages correspond more naturally to the Prophet Muḥammad than to the figures identified in mainstream Christian exegesis. He supplements these central arguments with additional Quranic and biblical cross-references, situating the discussion within the Islamic understanding that the Torah and Gospel in their original forms contained explicit announcements of the final prophet.

This work belongs to a genre of Muslim apologetic writing with roots in classical Islamic theology, including the works of Ibn Ḥazm and Ibn Taymiyyah on the textual history of the previous scriptures. In its popular form, however, it represents a mid-twentieth century development, shaped by the context of interreligious encounter in post-colonial settings. Its readership has been predominantly Muslim, and it has served as a reference text for those engaged in dialogue with Christians. Biblical scholars and historians of religion note that the textual arguments involve disputed philological questions, particularly regarding the meaning of the Greek term parakletos and its relationship to the Arabic name Muḥammad, and that these questions require engagement with the manuscript traditions and hermeneutical methods of specialists in both fields.

Readers will gain the most from this work by treating it as an introduction to the Islamic perspective on prophethood and scriptural interpretation rather than as a final word on complex questions of biblical philology. The Quranic claim that previous scriptures contained references to the Prophet Muḥammad is itself a matter of Islamic belief, grounded in verses such as al-Aʿrāf 157 and al-Ṣaff 6, and the classical commentaries on those verses provide a more theologically grounded foundation for the discussion than popular apologetic presentations alone. Consulting the works of classical Muslim scholars alongside this text, and engaging the responses of Christian scholars in a spirit of genuine inquiry, will produce a more complete picture of this longstanding and significant interfaith conversation.