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light, guiding thereby whom We please of Our servants; and most surely
you show the way to the right path....

W. Montgomery Watt (1968:18-19) paints a similar picture, though he includes other
Arabic terms that also conveyed a doctrine of inspiration, noting as well that Islamic
scholars over the centuries have enumerated between five and ten "manners" (kayfiyyat)
by which revelation reportedly came to Mohammed. Watt interprets some of these
mechanisms as meaning that Mohammed "simply found the words in his heart somehow,
and eventually came to regard this as occurring by the operation of Gabriel" though
many would certainly disagree with this latter assessment. In general, there seems to be
at least some affinity with accounts of revelation in both Old and New Testaments, and
the late Hammudah Abdalati, a specialist in Islamic studies, even commented (1975:12):
"The true Muslim believes...in all the scriptures and revelations of God." In theory, he
placed the inspiration of the Qur'an on the same footing as the Bible.

However, consistent with mainstream Islam, Abdalati then goes on to dismiss

"the books of Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus" as having been lost or corrupted during
transmission, leaving the Qur'an behind as "The only authentic and complete book of
God in existence today...complete and authentic" (ibid). Putting aside the theoretical
status granted the Judaeo-Christian scriptures, he then addresses why the Qur'an may be
viewed with such confidence:

Nothing of it is missing and no more of it is expected. Its authenticity is
behind doubt, and no serious scholar or thinker has ventured to question
its genuineness. The Qur'an was made so by God Who revealed it made it
incumbent upon Himself to protect it against interpolation and corruption
of all kinds. He cites the following suras in support: 15:9; 2:75-79;
5:13-14,41,45,47; 6:91; 41:43).

Holy writ, then, is described as originating from God and as having perpetual protection
by God the divergence between our respective views starts to become clear.

Further insight into what Abdalati (and mainstream Orthodox Islam) believe

regarding the divine origin of scripture is found in a footnote on pp.3-4, in which he
intimates an additional facet of the Islamic doctrine or inspiration:

Good literary works cannot be fully translated into any other language.
This is more so in the case of the Qur'an, the Book that challenged (and
still does) the native masters of the Arabic language and literature and
proved their inability to produce anything even remotely similar to the
shortest chapter of the Book. It is impossible, therefore, to reproduce the
meaning, beauty, and fascination of the Qur'an in any other form. What
appears, then, is not the Qur'an proper or its perfect translation even if
such were possible. Rather, it is a human interpretation in a different
language that falls far short of the forcefulness of the original Book of
God.