What Protestant Scholars Say

Some Protestant scholars have honestly admitted that the oral traditions are as authentic as the sacred books. The Catholic Herald vol. 2 page 63 has:

Dr. Bright, a distinguished Protestant scholar, said on page 63 of his book that it is evident from the sacred book that the Christian faith was transmitted to the followers of the disciples and the early bishops through oral tradition, and they were asked to preserve it and convey it to the succeeding generations.

We do not find any evidence in the books, be it from Paul or any other disciple, that they had individually or collectively written all the things related to our salvation. There is no indication that every essential doctrine necessary for salvation is confined only to the written law.

 On pages 32 and 33, he tells you that you already know that Paul and other disciples have transmitted the tradition to us not only in writing but also as verbal statements. So those are lost who do not preserve both of them. The oral tradition concerning the Christian faith is equally trustworthy and acceptable.

The Bishop Munich. 6[6] said that the oral traditions of the disciples are as acceptable as are their epistles and other writings. No Protestant can deny the fact that the oral traditions of the disciples are superior to their writings. Chilingworth has said that the dispute about which Gospel is canon and which is not, can be decided through oral tradition which is a reasonable source to resolve any dispute.

The bishop Thomas Inglis in his book Miraatu-Sidq printed in 1851 said on pages 180 and 181:

Bishop Maniseek, a Protestant scholar, observed that there are six hundred precepts, ordained by God and followed by the Church that are not stated in the sacred books.

This proves that six hundred precepts are based on oral tradition and they are followed by the Protestants.

It is human nature that an extraordinary or unusual event leaves a lasting impression on human mind while usual and routine events are not permanently stored in memory. For example a rare event like the appearance of a comet will be remembered by those who saw it. On the other hand they would not be able to say exactly what food they had eaten three or four days ago.

Since the memorization of the Holy Qur’an has been a matter of the greatest significance in every age for the Muslims, there has always been a large number of people who have learnt the whole of the Qur’anic text by heart. They are called hafiz.

More than one hundred thousand such hafiz are present in our time in the Muslim countries, in spite of the fact that Islam does not rule over those countries. There are always more than one thousand hafiz in the University of Al-Azhar, Egypt alone, not to speak of Egyptian villages, where even cart drivers and loaders are frequently fully qualified hafiz who have memorised the whole of the Qur’anic text.7[7]These ordinary men are certainly superior in this respect to the bishops of the Christian world. We are sure that even ten such hafiz of the Bible cannot be found throughout the Christian world.

It is a fact that anything important and of significance is imprinted and preserved easily in a way which is not affected by the passage of time. The Holy Qur’an alone fulfils the requirement of being completely unaltered and miraculously genuine. Throughout these twelve hundred and eighty years,8[8] the Holy Qur’an was not only preserved in writing but also in human hearts. Besides, the recitation of the Qur’anic text is in itself a part of Islamic worship and a usual practice of the Muslims, while the recitation of the Bible is not a ritual practice among Christians.

One of the Protestant scholars, Michael Mechaka, observed on page 316 of his book, Kitab-ad-Dalil of 1849:

One day I asked a Catholic priest to tell me honestly how many times he had read the sacred book in full in his life. He said that in his early age he had read it many times in full but for the last twelve years he could not spare any time for reading it as he was busy serving the Christian brethren.

6[6] I doubt the spelling of this name as the Arabic and Urdu equivalents are incompatible. (Raazi).


7[7] .There must be more than a hundred thousand hafiz in the Indo-Pak subcontinent in our time, that is 1988 (Raazi)


8[8] Now 1409 years. (Raazi)