Divineness regarding the words of the Holy Qur'an

Abstract

One of the many questions concerning the words of the Holy Qur'an is whether their content and meaning were truly a divine revelation or they were revealed to the Prophet from God and then transferred into the form of words. In this regard, there are two perspectives. First, as all Muslims believe, the words of the Qur'an are the result of a divine revelation, where­as the second viewpoint is that the words of the Qur'an are written by a human and not God. According to this latter perspective, the words of the Qur'an are sayings of the Prophet of which only the contents are based on a divine revelation. The theory of the words of the Qur'an not being a divine revelation has been an abandoned and rejected one throughout the Islamic history. This is the reason it has not been the subject of any pertinent discussions. How can the words of the Qur'an be created by Muhammad or Gabriel even though it is believed that the Qur'an is a miracle? This article first defines the concept of revelation and then analyzes various viewpoints and opinions regarding this topic in order to conclude (with evidence) that the Qur'an is the word of God and not the word of the Prophet. If he had composed the words of the Qur'an and expressed the meaning of the revelation in his own words, then the Qur'an would not be the word of God. In this case, the term 'word of God' indicates that the concept of the 'word' should be considered. Thus, it is clear that the words of the Qur'an are divine and they can be referred and attributed to God.