The Status and Position of the Qur'an: An Analytical Discussion. Zakaria Stapa. 1996. Islamiyat 17ABSTRACT
The aim of this article is to explore two different views held by the traditional Muslims and the modern Western scholars regarding the status and position of the Qur'an. It is extremely obvious that the traditional Muslim views uphold the Qur'an as the sacred book of Islam, which is divine in origin where the words of God are revealed, word by word, through Prophet Muhammad s.a.w to be the guidance to all mankind and jinn. Meanwhile, the modern Western scholars apparently reject the divine origins of the Qur'an. In their views, the Qur'an was either directly written by Muhammad, or at least altered here and there by him. However, the analytical discussion of this article shows that the rejection of the divine origins of the Qur'an by the modern Western scholars is nothing but a lack of understanding on their part upon the Qur'an itself as well as the nature of the revelation in Islamic perspective. Should they have thoroughly researched the content as well as the whole language and literary structure of the Qur'an, they would find infallible evidence that no human being, including Muhammad, could have written, administered or altered even a single word of the Holy Qur'an.