Muslims believe Allah sent tens of thousands of Prophets to all of the tribes, nations and kingdoms in the world; and 313 Messengers who like Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and Muhammad, brought to their believers a special sacred book. Jews and Christians can agree to this.

All prophets and their followers were Muslims (submitters to the one and only God), though Muslims do tend to conflate the general and specific meanings of the words Islam and Muslim.

Five messenger prophets received scriptures from Allah prior to the Qur’an, notably the Scrolls of Abraham (now lost), the Torah of Moses, the Psalms of David, and the Gospel of Jesus. Most Muslim scholars in later generations claimed that the messages and books had become corrupted or were lost.

Jews and Christians strongly reject this slander because the Qur’an itself states: “So if you are in doubt, [O Muhammad], about that which We have revealed to you, then ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you (the Jews and Christians). The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord, so never be among the doubters.” (10:94)

Also many Qur’an verses have been abrogated by other verses. Not all Muslims believe that the Quran abrogates itself and would reject these traditions. Yet, many Muslims do believe that the Quran abrogates itself. According to some scholars the Qur’an abrogates only the Qur’an. They base their view on verses 2:106 and 16:101.

According to them the Qur’an does not abrogate the sunna (law) nor does the sunna abrogate the Qur’an. This is the view held by Shafi’i. Others claim that the Qur’an may abrogate the Qur’an as well as the sunnah (law). They base their view on Sura 53:3-4

The Muslim scholar Ahmad Von Denffer said regarding the conflicting views held by Muslim scholars over the precise nature of abrogation: “The number of verses that are considered to have been abrogated increased dramatically between the eighth and eleventh centuries (al-Zuhri mentions 42 abrogated verses, al-Nahhas 138, and Ibn Salama, 238), at which point an upper limit seems to have been reached (Ibn ‘Ata’iqi identifies 231 abrogated verses, and al-Farsi, 248).

Yet “al-Suyuti (died 1505 CE) recognized only twenty instances of true abrogation, and Shah Wali Allah (died 1762 CE) reduced that number to five.

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