A Critical Analysis of Uri Rubin's View on the Adaptation of Verse "Become you Apes, Repelled!" from the Bible

In his study entitled "Become you apes, repelled!" [Quran 7:166]: The transformation of the Israelites into apes and its biblical and midrashic background, Uri Rubin relies on some reasons and evidences and uses a comparative-analytic method to claim that the qur’anic story of the metamorphosis of the Sabbath people into apes is taken from the biblical story Al-mann and al-salwa. The study at hand set out to analyze and evaluate Rubin's views and evidences through an analytical-critical method. Consequently, in addition to rejecting his claim using the qur’anic verses and biblical statements, this study has proved that the two stories are different from each other. Rubin's claim on the adaptation of the qur’anic verse "Become you apes, repelled!" from the Bible is under the influence of his view that the Qur’an is not a revealed book and is rather an adaptation of the Testaments. This wrong premise has caused him to adopt such a view and consider the qur’anic story as a reflection of the biblical story. Rubin has done a shallow comparison between the qur’anic verse "Become you apes, repelled!" and the biblical story of al-mann and al-salwa without any reference to the Islamic interpretive resources and merely based on the biblical and midrashic books and so, has ruled for their sameness. However, due to the different dates of the two stories, these two incidents have been distinct and Rubin's comparison is against the history and the narrative context of these two incidents.