Do Muslims Accept the Book of Enoch as Scripture?

The Book of Enoch — known in scholarly literature as 1 Enoch — is a Second Temple-period Jewish composition, likely compiled between the 3rd century BCE and the 1st century CE. Despite its Jewish origins, rabbinic Judaism never accepted it as part of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh). The rabbis who shaped the canon after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE) drew firm boundaries around the 24 books of the Tanakh, and Enoch didn't make the cut.

The text was largely lost to mainstream Jewish communities for centuries, surviving primarily in Ge'ez (Classical Ethiopic) among the Beta Israel — Ethiopian Jews — who do treat it as authoritative. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered from 1947 onward, revealed Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch, confirming its deep roots in Jewish thought, but this hasn't prompted any mainstream Jewish movement to reconsider its canonical status.

It's worth noting that the Talmud does reference Enoch obliquely — the figure himself is discussed in rabbinic midrash — but the book bearing his name carries no scriptural weight in normative Judaism. Scholar James VanderKam, whose 1984 work Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition remains foundational, argues the text was influential in certain Jewish circles but was deliberately sidelined by proto-rabbinic authorities who were wary of apocalyptic speculation.

The Book of Enoch had a surprisingly warm reception in early Christianity. The New Testament letter of Jude quotes it directly — "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: 'See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones'" (Jude 1:14-15) — which led some early Church Fathers, including Tertullian (c. 160–220 CE), to argue for its scriptural status. Origen and Irenaeus engaged with it as well, though with more caution.

By the 4th century, however, the emerging consensus among councils and influential bishops moved firmly against including 1 Enoch in the canon. Jerome and Augustine both expressed skepticism, and it was effectively excluded from the Western canon that crystallized after the Council of Carthage (397 CE). The Protestant Reformation did nothing to rehabilitate it — Luther and Calvin's canons were even narrower.

The one major exception is the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, which maintains a broader biblical canon of 81 books and includes 1 Enoch (called Henok) as fully canonical scripture. This isn't a fringe position within Ethiopia — it's the established tradition of one of Christianity's oldest continuous churches. Scholar Ephraim Isaac, in his 1983 translation of 1 Enoch, documented how central the text remains to Ethiopian Christian theology. So Christianity's answer isn't monolithic: mainstream Western Christianity says no, but Ethiopian Orthodoxy says yes.

No — mainstream Islam does not accept the Book of Enoch as scripture, and the reasons are rooted in how Islamic theology defines revelation itself. The Quran is understood as the final, preserved word of Allah, and the authenticated Sunnah (Hadith literature) complements it. No other text — however ancient or religiously themed — carries scriptural authority in Islam unless explicitly affirmed within these sources Quran 29:47.

The Quran does acknowledge earlier scriptures given to prophets, including the Torah (Tawrat) and the Gospel (Injil), but it frames these as revelations that have been altered or incompletely preserved over time Quran 28:53. The Book of Enoch doesn't even reach this level of acknowledgment — it's not mentioned in the Quran or in any authenticated hadith. The Prophet Idris, who many classical scholars (including Ibn Kathir, d. 1373 CE) identify with the biblical Enoch, is mentioned briefly in the Quran (19:56–57; 21:85), but no book or scripture is attributed to him.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ gave Muslims a clear epistemological framework for dealing with Jewish and Christian texts: don't simply accept or reject what the People of the Book say, but anchor yourself in what Allah has revealed Sahih al Bukhari 7362. This hadith from Sahih al-Bukhari (no. 7362) is particularly relevant here — it counsels a principled neutrality toward unverified scriptural claims, which would certainly apply to a pseudepigraphical text like 1 Enoch that even Jewish and Christian mainstream traditions rejected.

Some contemporary Muslim writers in online spaces have expressed curiosity about 1 Enoch, noting thematic overlaps with Islamic cosmology (fallen angels, heavenly journeys, eschatology). But curiosity isn't canonicity. No recognized Islamic scholarly body — not Al-Azhar, not the major Salafi institutions, not Shia marjas — has ever granted the Book of Enoch any scriptural standing. It remains, from an Islamic legal and theological standpoint, an unverified historical document at best Quran 29:47.

Not applicable. Concerns Islamic scripture/practice; no direct counterpart.

Not applicable. Concerns Islamic scripture/practice; no direct counterpart.

Short answer: No—Muslims treat only the Qur'an as the definitive Book of revelation sent down, so the Book of Enoch is not accepted as Islamic scripture Quran 29:47.

Guidance regarding materials from the People of the Book is to neither affirm nor deny their reports unless they conform to what Muslims already have, which functionally leaves texts like Enoch outside the Islamic canon Sahih al Bukhari 7362.

Muslims do affirm belief in revelation from God in general, but such affirmation is not an endorsement of any specific extra-biblical text as scripture unless it is established by Islamic sources Quran 28:53.