Ma`rifat Kalami

The majority of Islamic scholars hold that the Qur’an is the word of God and was revealed to the Prophet in these very words. In contrast, Abdolkarim Soroush argues that the Qur’an is a description of the Prophet’s own observations in a special visionary experience. Accepting or rejecting this claim can greatly affect our perspective on the Qur’an and the balance of divinity and humanity attributed to it. Soroush’s hypothesis can be examined from various hadithic, historical, philosophical, and phenomenological perspectives. One critical category of data for evaluating these two viewpoints concerns the internal textual features of the Qur’an, including the arrangement of speaker, addressee, and the presence or absence of various subjects within the text. Soroush maintains that these data support his hypothesis. This paper demonstrates, however, that these data actually undermine Soroush’s hypothesis and reinforce the conventional view.