The Qur’an’s Borrowed Theology
The Qur’an presents itself as a divine revelation in “clear Arabic,” perfectly preserved, internally consistent, and comprehensible to its original audience. Yet upon closer inspection, this claim begins to unravel. Embedded throughout the Qur’anic text are dense theological terms of Hebrew origin—words with no triliteral Arabic root, no explanation within the text, and no native parallel in pre-Islamic Arab culture. These are not incidental borrowings or loose cognates from Semitic linguistic overlap; they are high-context Jewish religious terms transplanted into a new scripture without their original narrative, legal, or liturgical framework.

The term sakīnah (سَكِينَةٌ), derived from the Hebrew Shekhinah (שכינה), is one such example. In Jewish theology, the Shekhinah denotes the indwelling divine presence of God—most vividly manifest between the cherubim atop the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. The Qur’an, however, invokes sakīnah in Surah Al-Baqarah (2:248) with no definition, context, or explanation—referring vaguely to a “tranquility from your Lord” contained in a box. There is no mention of divine indwelling, no cherubim, no priestly function, and no sacred dwelling space. The theological concept is borrowed, but stripped of meaning.

This pattern repeats across the Qur’an without explanation—severed from the complex Jewish tradition that gave them their theological weight. Rather than forming a self-contained Arabic revelation, the Qur’an leans on Jewish vocabulary while discarding Jewish structure. It adopts sacred words but detaches them from their scriptural, legal, and historical roots.

This paper will argue that the presence of these terms poses a direct challenge to the Qur’an’s claim of clarity, independence, and divine authorship. We will first identify key Hebrew theological loanwords in the Qur’an and trace their original meaning in Jewish tradition. We will then examine how these terms are presented—or misrepresented—in the Qur’anic text. Next, we will evaluate how their presence contradicts the Qur’an’s claim to be a message in “clear Arabic.” Finally, we will assess the interpretive crisis that results when a supposedly self-sufficient scripture depends on undefined foreign concepts, contradictory hadith, and post-Qur’anic commentary to make sense of its core theological claims.

What emerges is not a unified revelation, but a patchwork scripture—woven together from borrowed fragments, loosely assembled, and heavily reliant on traditions it simultaneously rejects. The Qur’an’s architecture is not original, but derivative; not internally clear, but externally dependent.

 

Hebrew Loanwords in the Qur’an – A Linguistic Inventory
The Qur’an contains a significant number of foreign words, many of which originate from Hebrew and Aramaic—the sacred languages of Jewish law, scripture, and liturgy. These are not linguistic coincidences or Semitic cognates; they are specialized theological terms, many of which appear in the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic tradition, imported into the Qur’anic text without translation or explanation. Unlike ordinary Arabic vocabulary, these words lack triliteral Arabic roots and cannot be derived from internal grammatical patterns. Their presence constitutes a direct contradiction to the Qur’an’s assertion of linguistic purity and self-sufficiency.

The classic 1938 study by Arthur Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’an, catalogued more than 275 non-Arabic words in the Qur’anic text, including dozens with clear Hebrew or Jewish liturgical origins.[1] Far from being obscure or marginal, many of these words play central roles in the Qur’an’s religious message and narrative framework. Terms like ḥaber (الأحبار ) are introduced without definition, presupposing that their meaning is already known to the audience—an assumption that is difficult to reconcile with the Qur’an’s claimed Arabian pagan context.

The following table highlights a sample of ten key Hebrew-derived words in the Qur’an, alongside their source, original meaning, and Qur’anic usage:

#	Qur’anic Word	Root	Meaning	Verse(s)
1	السكينة (Sakīna)	Shekhinah  (שכינה)	Divine presence / tranquility	2:248, 9:26
2	الزبور (Zabūr)	mizmor, zamar (מִזְמוֹר)	Psalms	4:163, 17:55
3	السبت (Sabbāt)	Shabbat  (שבת)	Sabbath	4:154, 7:163
4	ميكائيل (Mīkā’īl)	מיכאל (Mikha’el)	Archangel Michael	2:98
5	إسرائيل (Isrā’īl)	ישראל  (Yisra’el)	Israel / Jacob	3:93
6	الأحبار (Aḥbār)	ḥaber  (חָבֵר)	Scribes / Jewish scholars	5:44, 9:31
7	اليمّ (Yamm)	Yam  (ים)	Sea	20:39, 28:7
8	تابوت (Tābūt)	Tevah  (תֵּבָה)	Ark / Box	2:248
9	توراة (Tawrāh)	Torah  (תּוֹרָה)	Law / Instruction	3:3, 5:44
10	أسباط (Asbāṭ)	Shevatim  (שְׁבָטִים)	Tribes of Israel	2:136

These terms are neither explained nor defined within the Qur’an. For example, Tawrāh is referenced more than a dozen times, yet its content, purpose, or distinction from the Qur’an is never described. Likewise, Zabūr (الزبور ) is cited as scripture given to David, but the function of psalmody in Jewish worship is entirely absent.

The importation of these terms raises important questions. If the Qur’an truly emerged in a pagan, unlettered Arab society unfamiliar with Jewish scripture, how could such specialized theological vocabulary be intelligible without prior instruction? Why are these words—central to another religious system—inserted into the Qur’an without adaptation or definition? And if they reflect inherited traditions, why does the Qur’an neither credit them nor consistently interpret them?

As we will now explore, the use of such high-context theological terms directly contradicts the Qur’an’s repeated claim to be a revelation in “clear Arabic.”

 

The Myth of “Clear Arabic”—A Scriptural Contradiction
The Qur’an insists repeatedly that its language is “ʿarabiyyin mubīn”—clear, eloquent, and purely Arabic. This assertion is not a passing rhetorical flourish, but a foundational theological claim. The Qur’an stakes its divine authority on its linguistic clarity and accessibility to its original audience. The implication is simple and emphatic: God reveals His message in the language of the people so that they may understand, obey, and believe without ambiguity or foreign dependence.

Key verses reinforce this claim:

Surah Ash-Shu‘arā’ (26:195):
بِلِسَانٍ عَرَبِيٍّ مُّبِينٍ
“In a clear Arabic tongue.”

Surah Ibrāhīm (14:4):
وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِن رَّسُولٍ إِلَّا بِلِسَانِ قَوْمِهِ
“We did not send any messenger except [speaking] in the language of his people…”

Surah Yusuf (12:2):
إِنَّا أَنزَلْنَاهُ قُرْآنًا عَرَبِيًّا لَّعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ
“Indeed, We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur’an so that you may understand.”

Surah An-Naḥl (16:103):
وَلَقَدْ نَعْلَمُ أَنَّهُمْ يَقُولُونَ إِنَّمَا يُعَلِّمُهُ بَشَرٌ… لِّسَانُ الَّذِي يُلْحِدُونَ إِلَيْهِ أَعْجَمِيٌّ وَهَـٰذَا لِسَانٌ عَرَبِيٌّ مُّبِينٌ
“And We certainly know that they say, ‘It is only a human being who teaches him.’ The tongue of the one they refer to is foreign, while this is a clear Arabic tongue.”

Such verses leave little room for ambiguity. The Qur’an’s clarity is not merely poetic—it is functional. It is presented as immediately intelligible to its first recipients, unmediated by external languages, and self-contained in meaning.

And yet, the Qur’an depends heavily on untranslated, undefined, and high-context foreign theological terms—primarily from Hebrew and Aramaic. These include Jahannam, Sabbāt, Isrā’īl, and many others. These are not Arabic words. They do not derive from Arabic triliteral roots, they are not explained in the Qur’anic text, and they had no clear meaning in pre-Islamic Arab religion.

The contradiction is stark:

• If the Qur’an is in “clear Arabic,” then its use of unexplained foreign theological vocabulary violates that standard.
• If the audience was expected to understand these terms, it presupposes exposure to Jewish or Christian theology—a context the Qur’an denies as authoritative and claims to correct.
• If the Qur’an depends on prior scriptures for understanding, it is not a self-contained revelation, but a derivative one.

Moreover, the Qur’an’s claim to have been revealed “in the language of its people” (Q 14:4) collapses when confronted with the foreign theological vocabulary it adopts wholesale and without explanation. Words like Shabbat are not native to 7th-century pagan Arabia—they are dense, covenantal concepts rooted in Jewish ritual, law, and metaphysical structure. Yet the Qur’an uses them as if its audience already possessed detailed familiarity with Jewish theology. There are no glossaries, no interpretive frameworks, and no internal exegesis—just unexplained imports from a rival faith.

This undermines not only the linguistic integrity of the Qur’anic message but also its theological claim to universality. A scripture that cannot be understood apart from the very religious texts it seeks to abrogate is neither independent nor self-contained. It is not mubīn (clear), as it repeatedly claims to be—it is parasitic.

The problem deepens when considering the post-Muhammad influence of Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, an allegedly rabbinically trained Jew from Yemen who converted to Islam during the caliphate of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (r. 634–644 CE), after Muhammad’s death. Although Kaʿb never met Muhammad and is not considered a companion (ṣaḥābī), he became a dominant transmitter of Jewish lore (Isrā’īliyyāt) within Islamic tradition. He advised both Caliph ʿUmar and ʿUthmān and is widely credited with shaping early tafsīr (Qur’anic commentary) and sīrah (biography of Muhammad), especially regarding stories drawn from the Torah and Talmudic sources.

This creates a critical theological and chronological problem. If Kaʿb al-Aḥbār introduced Jewish-derived theology into Islamic discourse after Muhammad’s death, then it follows that major strands of Qur’anic interpretation were shaped not by divine revelation but by posthumous rabbinic interpolation. Muslims cannot claim that Kaʿb corrected or clarified the original revelation—because he never witnessed it. Nor can they deny his influence—because much of the Qur’an’s theological scaffolding depends on traditions he transmitted.

Worse still, Kaʿb’s Jewish background raises uncomfortable questions about motive and authenticity. Later Islamic sources are divided (see details in the Sources and Reference section below); some praise him as a sincere convert, while others accuse him of deliberately inserting corrupt or misleading material into Islam’s foundational texts. Either way, the result is devastating. A supposed expert in the Hebrew scriptures either allowed—or intentionally introduced—gross theological errors that remain embedded in the Qur’an and its commentary to this day.

This is not a case of divine revelation misunderstood—it is a tradition derailed in its earliest interpretive phase. The Qur’an’s identity as a “clear Arabic message” is shattered when its vocabulary demands a rabbinic lens for comprehension, and its post-prophetic theology depends on a Jewish convert who never met the prophet.

 

Tafsir, Hadith, and the Collapse of Qur’anic Clarity
If the Qur’an were genuinely a “clear Arabic” revelation, its meaning would be accessible without external explanation. And yet, from the earliest generations of Islam, scholars were compelled to construct vast interpretive traditions—tafsir (exegesis) and hadith (narrative reports)—to explain verses whose meanings were obscure, contradictory, or contextually incomprehensible. Far from supporting the Qur’an’s clarity, these auxiliary texts expose its dependency on post-revelation scaffolding.

The hadith corpus, upon which tafsir overwhelmingly depends, is plagued by epistemological instability. Islamic scholars themselves acknowledge the sheer volume of unreliable reports that flooded the tradition within two centuries of Muhammad’s death. Out of over 600,000 narrations, only a small fraction were deemed authentic by compilers such as al-Bukhari, who included roughly 7,275 narrations in his Ṣaḥīḥ, many of which are repeated variants. Yet even within “authentic” collections like those of Bukhari and Muslim, there are contradictory reports about the same events, rituals, and interpretations—contradictions that directly affect the meaning of Qur’anic verses.

For example:

• The Qur’an never specifies how to pray, how many rakʿāt are required, or what precise words to recite. These are determined entirely through hadith.
• The punishment for apostasy, stoning for adultery, or the rules of inheritance often rely on hadith explanations or abrogation (naskh) not evident in the Qur’an itself.
• Contradictory hadith exist on the interpretation of verses involving jihad, the nature of sakīnah, or even the identity of “the Spirit” mentioned in Surah 17:85.

Moreover, the Prophet Muhammad is portrayed in hadith as offering tafsir of verses that contradict previous surahs or even his own earlier explanations. In some cases, he introduces new theological categories—such as the idea that the Qur’an was written on a heavenly tablet (al-lawḥ al-maḥfūẓ) or descended in seven modes (ahruf)—neither of which are clearly stated in the Qur’an. These ideas serve to explain away textual variants, obscure meanings, or doctrinal conflicts, but at the cost of doctrinal coherence.

This leads to an inescapable dilemma:

• If the Qur’an needs hadith to be understood, but hadith are unreliable, then the Qur’an’s intelligibility is compromised.
• If the Qur’an contradicts the hadith, then either the Qur’an is incomplete, or the hadith are illegitimate.
• If both are needed, but both contain internal contradictions, then Islam lacks a coherent foundation for its doctrine, law, and theology.

The situation becomes even more untenable when one considers that different Islamic sects (Sunni, Shi’a, Kharijite) accept different hadith collections, interpret Qur’anic verses differently, and disagree fundamentally on matters such as leadership, revelation, and legal procedure. If the Qur’an were truly “clear,” such divergence would not be necessary or sustainable.

In practice, the Qur’an functions not as a self-contained revelation, but as a skeletal text, fleshed out and animated by layers of speculative tradition. Without the hadith and centuries of interpretive labor, large portions of the Qur’an would be incomprehensible or functionally inert.

Thus, the Qur’an’s supposed clarity is a myth. It requires not only extrinsic Jewish-Christian knowledge to decode its borrowed terms, but also thousands of contested post-prophetic narrations to construct its theological framework.

 

The Epistemological Collapse—A Scripture Without a Foundation
At the heart of any religious system lies its claim to truth: that its scripture is intelligible, trustworthy, and capable of guiding belief and action. Islam asserts that the Qur’an is such a scripture—perfect, preserved, clear, and sufficient. Yet as we have seen, each of these pillars rests on unstable ground. The result is not a revelation with clarity, but a systemic epistemological failure.

The Qur’an claims to be:

• Internally coherent, yet it borrows foreign theological terms that it does not define.
• Sufficient on its own, yet it cannot be understood without hadith literature—much of which is admitted by Islamic scholars to be fabricated or contradictory.
• Revealed in clear Arabic, yet it contains dense Hebrew terminology and Judeo-Christian theological fragments.
• Preserved, yet it depends on variable readings (qirā’āt), doctrinal abrogation (naskh), and textual ambiguity.

This convergence of contradictions generates a structural crisis of knowledge. At its core, the Qur’an demands belief in its divine origin while simultaneously requiring:

• Extrinsic Jewish and Christian frameworks to supply meanings it never offers.
• Volumes of contradictory hadith to resolve tensions or fill in gaps.
• Centuries of human commentary to build the doctrinal architecture of Islam.

The implications are staggering. The original message, supposedly clear and accessible to Muhammad’s contemporaries, is now filtered through layer upon layer of fallible interpretation, speculative theology, sectarian tradition, and linguistic obfuscation. To make sense of the Qur’an, one must leave the Qur’an.

Moreover, when faced with theological difficulty or textual incoherence, Islamic tradition often resorts to doctrinal mystification: appeals to hidden meanings (bāṭin), divine wisdom beyond comprehension, or recourse to miraculous linguistic beauty—none of which resolve the underlying contradiction. Instead, they function as rhetorical shields against critical inquiry.

This is not a feature of divine revelation. It is the hallmark of retrofitted theology: a scripture patched together from previous traditions, wrapped in the language of finality, but dependent on precisely the sources it claims to supersede.

No other major religion centralizes a text that simultaneously:

• Borrows from earlier revelations without acknowledgement,
• Denounces those revelations as corrupted,
• And then requires those corrupted revelations to understand itself.

In philosophical terms, Islam’s scriptural model is circular: the Qur’an affirms the Torah and Gospel as originally divine (e.g., 5:44, 5:46), but when pressed on inconsistencies or demands for clarification, it claims those same texts are corrupted (e.g., 2:79). Yet it continues to depend on their structure, terminology, and legal vocabulary. This is not theological clarity—it is epistemic collapse.

In the end, the Qur’an’s authority rests not on what it says plainly, but on how later interpreters have explained it. This is not a revelation. It is reanimation—a dependent, derivative text requiring centuries of human commentary to appear coherent.

 

Implications of the Qur’an’s Linguistic and Theological Dependency
The presence of dense, foreign theological vocabulary in the Qur’an is not a minor lexical curiosity—it is a foundational breach in Islam’s claim to divine originality. These words are not inert: they carry deep theological meaning, and when inserted into the Qur’anic text without explanation or context, they expose Islam’s dependence on traditions it claims to supersede.

1. Presumed Familiarity with Foreign Theology
The Qur’an assumes its audience already understands complex theological concepts such as the Shekhinah, Torah, Sabbath, and Gehinnom—all of which are deeply embedded in Jewish tradition. But this assumption collapses under historical scrutiny. The average 7th-century Arab pagan would have had no knowledge of Jewish covenantal law, no access to temple liturgy, and no framework to interpret these terms. The Qur’an presupposes a Jewish cultural-linguistic environment that did not exist in Meccan society.

2. Borrowed Theology Without Context
The Qur’an borrows sacred theological terms from Jewish tradition but severs them from their function, depth, and meaning—reducing complex, covenant-bound concepts to hollow abstractions.

• Sakīnah becomes nothing more than a vague tranquility in a box, stripped of its identity as the concentrated, manifest presence of God dwelling between the cherubim.
• Zabūr is treated as a “scripture of David,” without the slightest reference to its function in Temple worship, its liturgical use, or its poetic structure as Hebrew psalms.
• Tawrāh is invoked repeatedly as a divine book, yet nowhere does the Qur’an explain its legal architecture, its covenantal authority, or its foundational role in the identity of Israel.

Nowhere is this confusion more glaring than in Surah 2:248, which speaks of the sakīnah being found in the tābūt (Ark), vaguely described as a sign of kingship. But in the Hebrew Bible, this is no mere container of relics. The Ark of the Covenant (אֲרוֹן הַבְּרִית) is the epicenter of Israelite theology, the most sacred object in the Tabernacle and later the Temple—the literal meeting point between God and man. Above it hover the cherubim, not angels but non-messenger throne guardians, fashioned from gold, marking the space where the Shekhinah—God’s presence—speaks to Moses (Exodus 25:22). The cherubim are stationary, non-anthropomorphic, and belong to a symbolic system involving throne mysticism (merkavah), covenantal law, and priestly mediation. The entire Levitical system revolves around the Ark—not as a box of “tranquility,” but as the architectural and theological core of divine indwelling.

The Qur’an collapses this rich system into something unrecognizable. The sakīnah is reduced to an ambiguous inner calm, the cherubim are erased, the priesthood is omitted, and the Ark becomes a relic-bearing chest—void of ritual, covenant, or presence. The result is not reinterpretation—it is theological erasure. What took centuries of divine revelation and temple precision to develop is flattened into a symbol of political legitimacy.

Even more egregiously, the Qur’an claims that the Ark was “carried by the angels” (2:248)—a statement that flagrantly contradicts the biblical text. Nowhere in Tanakh do angels (malakhim) ever carry the Ark. That task was entrusted exclusively to the Kohathite Levites (Numbers 4:15; Deuteronomy 10:8), under the strictest ritual regulations. The cherubim are not angelic messengers—they are guardians, symbols, and spatial sanctifiers—positioned above the Ark, not beneath it. By confusing cherubim with angels and ascribing to celestial beings a task divinely assigned to a consecrated human priesthood, the Qur’an does more than make a lexical mistake—it commits a category error of theological magnitude. It fuses distinct concepts, collapses sacred hierarchies, and rewrites God’s prescribed order in service of narrative convenience.

This is not a subtle misreading. It is a blatant misunderstanding of one of Judaism’s most sacred institutions. No one even moderately literate in the Hebrew Bible or rabbinic tradition could make such an error. That it appears in a book claiming divine authorship reveals something damning: not divine insight, but superficial borrowing—a patchwork of sacred terms copied without structure, absorbed without understanding, and recast without reverence.

What remains is semantic residue—vocabulary detached from theology, symbols hollowed of meaning, and fragments of a tradition the Qur’an claims to supersede, but clearly does not comprehend. This is not revelation. It is theological mimicry by misfire.

3. Contradiction with Qur’anic Claims of Clarity
The Qur’an proclaims itself a “clear Arabic message” (Q 26:195, 12:2, 14:4), yet imports foreign terms without translation or definition. There are no glossaries, no interpretive bridges, no analogies. If the message is truly self-contained and universally accessible, as claimed, then these unexplained insertions are a direct contradiction. Rather than clarity, the text requires external scaffolding to make sense of its core vocabulary.

4. A Scripture by Accretion, Not Revelation
Rather than descending as a unified revelation, the Qur’an reads as a collage: fragments of Jewish theology, echoes of Christian apocalypticism, elements of Syriac liturgy, and Arab tribal myth woven together. These strands are not harmonized into a coherent whole. The seams are visible—characters lack backstories, doctrines lack definitions, and borrowed phrases are left unanchored. This is not the mark of divine authorship but of cultural absorption and theological repackaging.

5. Interpretive Instability and Sectarian Divergence
The Qur’an’s lack of internal definition has produced centuries of sectarian disagreement. Terms like Tawrāh are at times affirmed, at times rejected. Concepts like sakīnah remain undefined and disputed. As a result, tafsir (exegesis) becomes an act of theological reconstruction, not clarification. To understand the Qur’an, scholars turn to the very traditions the Qur’an claims to abrogate—Jewish midrash, Christian legends, apocryphal literature. Others surrender to ambiguity, elevating vagueness as divine mystery. In either case, the Qur’an fails as a self-sufficient scripture. It is not original, and it is not clear. It is either derivative or incoherent.

 

The General Ark Problem
The Qur’an’s description of the Ark of the Covenant—al-Tābūt—in Surah al-Baqarah 2:248 is itself factually incorrect, even before later Islamic exegesis attempts to expand on it. The verse claims that the Ark contains:

“A remnant of what the family of Moses and the family of Aaron left behind, carried by the angels.”
(Qur’an 2:248)

This phrasing—“relics of the family of Moses and the family of Aaron” (بَقِيَّةٌ مِمَّا تَرَكَ آلُ مُوسَىٰ وَآلُ هَارُونَ)—is not only vague, but entirely foreign to the Hebrew Bible, which never describes the Ark in these terms. The Torah is explicit: the Ark contained the two stone tablets of the covenant—and nothing else (see Exodus 25:16, 1 Kings 8:9). No biblical passage ever refers to the Ark as holding “relics” of Moses or Aaron’s families, nor does it attribute any familial bequeathal to its contents.

In fact, the only scriptural text to give a fuller list of Ark contents is not Jewish but Christian: the New Testament in Hebrews 9:4, which adds a golden pot of manna and Aaron’s rod that budded to the tablets. Thus, even the Christian addition maintains a focus on priestly symbols—not the lineage or personal effects of Moses and Aaron.

Yet the Qur’an diverges from both: it introduces a completely novel and incorrect framing, claiming the Ark preserved unspecified heirlooms from Moses’s and Aaron’s households. There is no precedent in Jewish scripture for this. The concept of “relics” (baqiyya) of Moses’s family is a foreign interpolation, likely influenced by Christian relic cults and Jewish oral expansions.

Later Islamic commentators like al-Baghawī, al-Baydāwī, and others try to flesh out this Qur’anic error by itemizing the contents of the Ark based on Isrāʾīliyyāt and Christian lore. Their inventories include:

• Moses’s staff (which the Hebrew Bible never says was inside the Ark),
• Aaron’s turban,
• Moses’s sandals,
• A vessel of manna,
• And broken fragments of the tablets (missing the second pair of whole tablets).

None of these details can be found in the Tanakh. Their inclusion reflects midrashic storytelling, Christian liturgical tradition, and the influence of Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, a Yemenite rabbi turned post-Prophetic informant, who played a critical role in smuggling these elements into early Islamic exegesis.

The tafsīr tradition does not correct the Qur’an’s vague assertion—it amplifies its foundational misidentification. In seeking to explain what the “relics” were, exegetes imported a patchwork of non-canonical Jewish myths, New Testament motifs, and invented details. Rather than exposing the Qur’an’s ambiguity, they locked it into a cycle of derivative dependency, mistakenly validating an error through sheer repetition.

Epistemic Crisis
The core issue is not that tafsīr misinterprets the verse. It is that the Qur’an itself fundamentally misrepresents what was in the Ark. The exegetes, relying on foreign religious traditions, try to make sense of a claim that has no basis in the original Hebrew sources. If the Qur’an truly descended from a divine source, it would not need to rely on incorrect paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible, nor would it describe sacred objects using language found nowhere in Mosaic tradition.

The tafsīr authors were not discovering truth, they were reverse-engineering religious artifacts to give Qur’anic ambiguity the illusion of scriptural precision. But the illusion fails when one returns to the primary source texts. The Qur’an’s reference to “relics of the family of Moses and Aaron” is simply false. The items it vaguely refers to never existed, and the scholars who tried to define them only dug deeper into the error, relying on Kaʿb al-Aḥbār and other transmitters who themselves misunderstood or reimagined biblical content.

Footnotes
[1] Qur’an 2:248: “…a remnant of what the family of Moses and the family of Aaron left behind…”
[2] Exodus 25:16: “You shall put into the Ark the testimony which I shall give you.”
1 Kings 8:9: “There was nothing in the Ark except the two stone tablets…”
[3] Hebrews 9:4: “The Ark… in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.”
[4] Al-Baghawī, Maʿālim al-Tanzīl, commentary on Qur’an 2:248.
[5] See al-Baydāwī, Anwār al-Tanzīl wa-Asrār al-Taʾwīl, and al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, sub 2:248 for similar lists.
[6] Kaʿb al-Aḥbār’s influence is discussed in:

• Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-Rusul wa’l-Mulūk, ed. de Goeje, Vol. I, pp. 444–451.
• Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Madīnat Dimashq, Vol. 51, pp. 364–378.
• Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb, entry on Kaʿb.
• Ibn Saʿd, Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, Vol. 6, p. 13.

 

The Shiʿa Ark problem
The Shiʿa claims about the Ark of the Covenant do more than merely echo early exegetical confusion—they amplify the Qur’an’s original blunder and introduce new errors that even classical Sunni sources often avoided.

While the Qur’an itself (2:248) misidentifies the Ark’s contents by referring vaguely to “relics of the family of Moses and the family of Aaron”—a phrase entirely absent from the Hebrew Bible—the Shiʿa article goes further, attempting to retroactively define those relics using a patchwork of New Testament references, Christian relic theology, Jewish midrash, and fabricated Shiʿa eschatology.

In doing so, it commits a more severe theological and historical error than most Sunni sources. Sunni tafsīr, while guilty of importing Isrāʾīliyyāt, often limits itself to Aaron’s rod or the stone tablets—items at least mentioned in Hebrews 9:4. The Shiʿa account, by contrast:

• Invents a link between Moses’s baby basket and the Ark,
• Attributes the Ark’s origin to Adam,
• Declares it a prophetic relic passed down through the generations, and
• Asserts it is a messianic artifact to be retrieved by the Mahdi from a cave in Antioch.

None of these claims appear in the Qur’an, the Tanakh, or even the New Testament.

Instead, what we see is a direct and unambiguous reliance on biblical and Christian post-scriptural sources to fill in the Qur’an’s conceptual gaps—a move that fatally undermines the Islamic claim that the Qur’an is mubīn (clear), self-contained, and independent of foreign scripture. When the Qur’an falters in precision, the Shiʿa tradition does not seek clarification through divine revelation—it borrows from the very traditions it claims to abrogate, and when those run dry, it invents new content entirely.

The Shiʿa claims are thus not merely mistaken—they constitute proof beyond reasonable doubt that:

1. The Qur’an’s statement about the Ark’s contents is borrowed and incorrect; and
2. The Shiʿa tradition must rely on external Jewish and Christian materials to rationalize that foundational error—thereby compounding it with sectarian embellishment and theological invention.

[1] “Ark of the Covenant,” WikiShia, accessed July 31, 2025, https://en.wikishia.net/view/Ark_of_the_Covenant#cite_note-7.

Sources and References
[1] Arthur Jeffery. The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’ān. Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1938.
Identifies over 275 foreign words in the Qur’an, many from Hebrew and Aramaic origins.
[2] Christoph Luxenberg. The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 2007. Argues that the Qur’an was originally composed in a Syriac liturgical context, heavily influenced by Jewish and Christian texts.
[3] Günther Lüling. A Challenge to Islam for Reformation: The Rediscovery and Reliable Reconstruction of a Comprehensive Pre-Islamic Christian Hymnal Hidden in the Koran Under Earliest Islamic Reinterpretations. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003.
Claims that significant portions of the Qur’an are pre-Islamic Jewish-Christian hymns later reinterpreted by early Muslims.
[4] Alfred-Louis de Prémare. Les fondations de l’islam: Entre écriture et histoire. Paris: Seuil, 2002.
Argues that the Qur’an evolved over time from a corpus shaped by Jewish-Christian traditions, only later codified into canonical form.
[5] John Wansbrough. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Asserts that the Qur’an is the product of a long editorial process within a sectarian milieu steeped in biblical interpretation.
[6] Yehuda D. Nevo and Judith Koren. Crossroads to Islam: The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003.Suggests that Islam and the Qur’an developed after the Arab conquests and were shaped by existing Jewish-Christian traditions.
[7] Michael Cook. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Summarizes key scholarly challenges to traditional Qur’anic origins, including the influence of biblical themes and Semitic languages.
[8] Fred M. Donner. Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
 Describes early Islam as a reformist movement deeply entangled with Jewish and Christian ideas and apocalyptic expectations.
[9] Gabriel Said Reynolds, ed. The Qur’an in Its Historical Context. London: Routledge, 2008.
Collection of essays examining how the Qur’an was shaped by contemporaneous Jewish and Christian traditions.
[10] Joseph Schacht. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950.
While focused on Islamic law, he identifies clear borrowings from biblical legal codes and rabbinic traditions in Qur’anic verses.

Samples of Hebrew Word usage in various Surahs
1. Surah Al-Baqarah
سكينة (Sakīnah) → שכינה (Shekhinah) – Divine presence
↳ 2:248: Refers to the Ark and the “tranquility from your Lord.”

تابوت (Tābūt) → תֵּבָה (Tevah) – Ark/box
↳ Also 2:248: Used in reference to the Ark of the Covenant.

إثم (Ithm) → אָשָׁם (Asham) – Sin/guilt
↳ 2:219: Mentioned in the context of intoxicants and sin.

إسرائيل (Isrā’īl) → יִשְׂרָאֵל (Yisra’el) – Israel/Jacob
↳ 2:40, 2:47, 2:122: “O Children of Israel…”

2. Surah Al-Mā’idah
توراة (Tawrāh) → תּוֹרָה (Torah) – Law
↳ 5:44, 5:46, 5:66, 5:110: Refers to the scripture revealed to Moses.

إنجيل (Injīl) → From Greek Evangelion via Christian usage, but linked to Hebrew בְּשׂוֹרָה (besorah) – good news

أحبار (Aḥbār) → חֲבֵרִים (Ḥaverim) – Jewish scholars/scribes
↳ 5:44, 5:63: Refers to scholars among the Jews.

ميكائيل (Mīkā’īl) → מִיכָאֵל (Mikha’el) – Archangel Michael
↳ 2:98 (but referenced in the same legal context repeated in 5).

3. Surah Al-Isrā’
زبور (Zabūr) → מִזְמוֹר (Mizmor) – Psalm
↳ 17:55: Mentions the Zabur given to David.

داوود (Dāwūd) → דָּוִד (David) – King David
↳ 17:55: In context of divine election and scripture.

4. Surah Al-A‘rāf 
سبت (Sabbāt) → שַׁבָּת (Shabbat) – Sabbath
↳ 7:163: Refers to the people who violated the Sabbath by fishing.

إسرائيل (Isrā’īl) → יִשְׂרָאֵל (Yisra’el)
↳ Multiple references to the Children of Israel (e.g., 7:105–137).

5. Surah Āl ʿImrān
توراة (Tawrāh) → תּוֹרָה (Torah)
↳ 3:3: “He has sent down the Torah and the Gospel.”

أسباط (Asbāṭ) → שְׁבָטִים (Shevatim) – Tribes
↳ 3:84: “…to Moses, Jesus, and the prophets from their tribes.”

 

What is Rakʿāt?
Rakʿāt (Arabic: رَكَعَات, singular rakʿah / رَكْعَة) are the prescribed units of movement and recitation that make up a single prayer (ṣalāh) in Islam.

Each rakʿah includes the following components:

1. Standing (qiyām) – Recitation of verses from the Qur’an, including al-Fātiḥah.
2. Bowing (rukūʿ) – Bending at the waist with hands on knees while praising God.
3. Standing again (iʿtidāl) – Returning to a standing posture after rukūʿ.
4. Prostration (sujūd) – Kneeling and touching the forehead to the ground.
5. Sitting (jalsah) – Sitting briefly between two prostrations.
6. Second prostration (sujūd again) – Another full prostration.

Each obligatory prayer has a different number of rakʿāt:

Prayer Name	Arabic	Rakʿāt (Units)
Fajr (dawn)	الفجر	2
Ẓuhr (noon)	الظهر	4
ʿAṣr (afternoon)	العصر	4
Maghrib (sunset)	المغرب	3
ʿIshāʾ (night)	العشاء	4