You find out that what you had said was very different from what he has reported.

You find out that what you had said was very different from what he has reported. He has interpolated your statement, deleting words which conveyed your intent and adding others on his own account, with the result that your statements have been distorted and totally altered.

Then you would say that this person has misrepresented your statements Especially, if someone tampers with an official document, he is said be guilty of causing tahrif in it These examples were meant to elucidate the meaning of the term tahrif, and it does not need any further explanation or clarification. Now we shall take up the different forms of tahrif. There are various kinds of tahrif, the most important of which are tahrif in words and tahrif of meaning.

Tahrif of wording occurs when the literal form of a statement is changed. For instance, when words and phrases are deleted or added to a statement or the sequence of sentences is altered in such a manner as to change its meaning. In this case tahrif occurs in the outward form and wording of a statement. Tahrif of meaning occurs when one does not change the words, which remain in their original form, but the statement is interpreted in a manner that is contrary to the intent of its speaker.

It is interpreted in such a manner as to express one's own intent, not that of its author. The Noble Qur'an employs the term tahrif specifically in relation to the Jews. A study of history shows that they have been the champions of tahrif throughout the course of history. I don't know what kind of race this is that has such an amazing penchant for misrepresenting facts! Accordingly they always take up professions in which they can distort and misrepresent events.

From what I have heard, the world's well-known news agencies, which are perpetually quoted by the radios and newspapers, are exclusively in the hands of the Jews. Why? Because they can report the events as they wish. How amazing is the Qur'an's statement about them! This characteristic of the Jews, the tendency for tahrif, is considered a racial trait by the Qur'an. In one of the verses of the Sura al-baqarah, the Qur'an declares: Are you then eager that they (i.e.

the Jews) should believe in you, while a party of them had heard Allah's word, and then consciously misinterpreted it, after they had understood it, and did that knowingly? (2:75) 1 This means, 'O Muslims, have you pinned your hopes on their telling you the truth?