INTRODUCTION

Who is the author of the Qur’an? On this subject scholars have flagrantly contradicted each other. This paper attempts to make a critical review of the major authorship theories by pressing into service logical arguments, historical evidence, textual analysis and scientific data.

Probably, the only point of agreement about the Qur’an is that it was uttered for the first time by a man who was born in Makkah, a city of Arabia in the 6th Century by the name of Muhammad(’~. As to the source of the Qur’an, scholars arc divided into three main groups:

those who believe that Muhammad(~) himself was the author, those who believe that he was not the author but learned it from another human author or authors and those who believe that the Qur’an has no human author but it is a word for word revelation from God.