Quran 5:32 closely resembles Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5, and critics conclude that Muhammad (PBUH) copied it - some even that he "mistook the Mishnah for the Torah." But the similarity is not an embarrassment the Quran was caught in; the Quran announces it itself. It introduces the teaching as something Allah had already prescribed for the Children of Israel, and it never claims these words are in the written Torah.
The two texts
Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul, unless for a soul or for corruption in the land, it is as if he had slain all mankind; and whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved all mankind.
Quran 5:32
Whoever destroys a single soul, Scripture counts it as though he had destroyed a whole world; and whoever saves a single soul, Scripture counts it as though he had saved a whole world.
Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5
The resemblance is real and specific - and it goes further: both traditions attach this principle to the story of Cain and Abel. In the Quran, 5:27-31 narrates the first murder, and then 5:32 opens with "Because of that." The Mishnah likewise ties the value of a single life to Cain's killing of Abel and to Genesis 4:10.
The Quran announces the similarity itself
This is the heart of the matter. The Quran does not slip this teaching in as if it were original and get caught. It presents it as a prior decree upon the Children of Israel. So a Jewish tradition preserving the same principle is exactly what the verse leads us to expect - not a problem for it. The real question is therefore not "why does a Jewish tradition resemble Quran 5:32?" but "does the existence of that tradition prove Muhammad (PBUH) copied it?" The mere fact that an earlier community held a teaching the Quran also affirms does not establish literary dependence.
"Decreed upon the Children of Israel" - not "written in the Torah"
The precise wording matters. The verse says:
كَتَبْنَا عَلَىٰ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ
katabna ala bani Israil - "We prescribed / decreed / ordained upon the Children of Israel."
It does not say "We wrote this in the Torah." It speaks of what was prescribed upon a people, not of a sentence located in a particular book. So the popular charge that "the Quran confused the Mishnah with the Torah" does not follow from the verse at all - it rests on a claim the Quran never makes. The Quran locates this teaching in the moral law given to the Children of Israel, and that is precisely where Jewish tradition also preserved it.
What the Mishnah is - and why its date does not settle the matter
The Mishnah is a compilation of rabbinic oral tradition. It reached its edited, written form around the late second or early third century CE, traditionally associated with Judah ha-Nasi. But a redaction date is not an invention date: the Mishnah gathers and preserves teachings that circulated long before it was written down. So the argument "the Mishnah was written around 200 CE, therefore this saying was invented around 200 CE" simply does not hold. A teaching recorded in the Mishnah may be far older than the book that records it.
A textual variant worth stating honestly
There is also a variation in the Mishnah's own text. Many printed editions read "whoever destroys a single soul from Israel," a narrower form. Other important manuscripts omit "from Israel," giving the broader, universal form - the one much closer to Quran 5:32. It would be misleading to quietly pick one reading; the honest point is that the more universal wording is genuinely attested in the Jewish textual tradition, not something the Quran alone produced.
The Quran confirms what was always true
Underlying all of this is how the Quran understands itself. It does not claim to bring a brand-new religion invented in seventh-century Arabia. It presents itself as confirming the truth that earlier prophets brought, while standing as a guardian and criterion over what later became mixed with human additions:
And We have revealed to you the Book in truth, confirming that which preceded it of the Scripture and as a criterion (muhaymin) over it.
Quran 5:48
On this view, when the Quran and an earlier tradition agree on a genuine moral truth, that is not plagiarism - it is exactly what confirmation of an earlier revelation should look like. A true teaching given to the Children of Israel need not have survived only inside the present canonical Torah; it could be preserved through oral tradition, commentary, or other Jewish literature, alongside later human material. The Quran affirms the part that was always true and lets it stand.
Conclusion
The similarity between Quran 5:32 and Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 is not a secret the Quran was caught keeping; the Quran declares the connection by calling this a decree upon the Children of Israel. The presence of a matching Jewish tradition does not prove copying, the Mishnah's redaction date does not fix when the teaching arose, and the "he mistook the Mishnah for the Torah" charge collapses because the Quran never says these words are in the written Torah. Read on its own terms, the verse is doing exactly what the Quran says it does throughout: confirming a truth that was given before, and affirming the part of it that was always true.