Many Western authors writing about this cardinal question, begin with the assumption—often hidden in veils of so-called 'objectivity' and 'scholarship'—that the Quran is not really the Word of God, a revelation from heaven. Therefore, it must be explained away. Not being the Word of God, in their eyes it must naturally be the work of the Prophet who therefore must have been a very good poet and could not in fact have been unlettered. He must have learned bits here and there from the Jewish community in Medina or the Christian monks in Syria and put them together in a book that appears to these critics as a poor replica of other sacred books such as the Torah and the Gospels.

Ideals and realities of Islam On page 48 Monday, November 5, 2012 @ 1:54pm