The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue, are a set of commandments which the Bible describes as being given to the Israelites by God at biblical Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments appear twice in the Hebrew Bible, first at Exodus 20:1–17, and then at Deuteronomy 5:4–21. According to the story in Exodus, God inscribed them on two stone tablets, which he gave to Moses. Modern scholarship has found likely influences in Hittite and Mesopotamian laws and treaties, but is divided over exactly when the Ten Commandments were written and who wrote them.
They include instructions to worship only God, to honour parents, and to keep the sabbath; as well as prohibitions against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, theft, dishonesty, and coveting. Different religious groups follow different traditions for interpreting and numbering them.
The Ten Commandments—with the exception of the fourth one, which deals with observance of the Sabbath—in essence and spirit constitute an integral part of the Qur’anic ethics and laws. The Qur’an presents itself as a book through which Allah has guided humankind to the noble ways of the previous prophets and messengers, who are to be emulated as the perfect role models of humanity. (See Qur’an 4:26; 6:90). Also, in a more fundamental sense, the Qur’an stresses that all the prophets and messengers, speaking different languages and raised in various times and places, taught essentially the same perennial religion (core religion called deen), although their precise promulgation of the laws of religion, responding to extremely divergent historical circumstances and milieu, assumed different forms. However, these fundamental commandments, in essence and spirit, belong to the perennial religion that allows for no abrogation or alteration.
