Muslim
Did Christians corrupt the Gospel (Injil)?
No textual corruption of the Gospels is historically demonstrable; thousands of manuscripts, some fragments dating within decades of the originals, show remarkable consistency across centuries and continents, long before Islam arose, ruling out any large-scale later alteration of the text.
Catholic teaching
The Church holds that the Gospels, composed by the first generation of Christians and their close associates, faithfully transmit what God wished written for salvation, preserved integrally through a documented, continuous manuscript tradition rather than a single lost 'original' Injil later replaced.
Biblical foundation
The Gospel writers claim eyewitness-based accuracy — 'that which we have seen with our eyes... concerning the word of life' (1 John 1:1) — and John closes his Gospel invoking a curse-like warning against anyone adding or subtracting from the prophetic text (cf. Rev 22:18-19), a standard ancient safeguard against tampering.
Scripture references
Historical evidence
The Rylands Papyrus (P52), a fragment of John's Gospel dated to the early second century, and complete manuscripts like Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus from the fourth century — all predating Muhammad by centuries — match the text used by Christians today in all essentials, leaving no plausible window for the wholesale corruption sometimes alleged.
The Church Fathers
“We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim... and afterwards, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures.”