AN EVALUATION ON SUHUF/BOOKS SENT TO THE PROPHETS IN QURAN / KUR’AN’DA PEYGAMBERLERE GÖNDERİLEN ‘SUHUFLAR/KİTAPLAR’ ÜZERİNE BİR DEĞERLENDİRME

In Arabic, while the word ‘sahife' which is used for books and booklets composed of one or a few pages, it has a broad range of meaning in Quranic terminology such as; “book of deeds” which contains the record of person's all actions, “main source” and for the holy books like Quran, Zabur, Torah and Bible. After Quran was written down, it is named with the words; Mushaf, Kitab and Suhuf. But in time the term Suhuf was non-used, and gave its place to the names Mushaf and Quran. Allah has sent the same religion to all prophets therefore holy books are in harmony and accordance in core belief issues such as theology and being a prophet. In other words, the message that one prophet brings is the same as with those messages which are brought by former prophets. This reality is mentioned in many verses by indicating that Quran is comfirmatory of previous scriptures. This case, contrary to classical understanding, attests that previous suhuf included more subjects and large volumes. Quran states that books were sent to some other prophest in addition to Hz. Adam, Hz. Idris, Hz. Sheth and Hz. Abraham which are told to be sent suhuf in Hadiths. On the other hand, when Quran is read it is understood that, there is no difference between Rasuls and Nabis in regard of sending books and books are sent to both Rasuls and Nabis. Books which are sent to previous prophets are expressed mostly as “kitâb”, “suhuf” and “scripture” in Quran. There is no precise information in Quran and Hadiths about the number of suhuf and to whom they were sent. In this article the term suhuf and in which meanings this word was used in Quranic terminology will be studied to determine. Subsequently, opinions of mufassirs concerning suhuf will be included then these opinions will be comparatively evaluated.