Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/225

 in the explanation and defence of religion came to be known as kalam, and those who employed it were called mutakallamin.

In dealing with the old problems of Muslim theology, such as the eternity of the Qur'an, the freedom of the will, etc., the Ash'arites do seem to have produced a reasonable statement of doctrine, which yet safeguarded the main demands of orthodoxy.

(a) As to the Qur'an, they held that it was eternal in God, but its expression in words and syllables was created in time. This does not of course mean that the expression was due to the Prophet to whom it was revealed, but to God, so that the doctrine of literal inspiration was asserted in the strictest form. Nor was it thus created when it was revealed, but long before in remote ages when it was first uttered to the angels and "august beings," and was afterwards disclosed by the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad. This, which is now the orthodox belief, has furnished an opportunity for controversy to Christians and modern rationalists, who have fixed upon the use of particular words, introduced into Arabic as loan words from Syriac, Persian, and Greek, and appear in the Qur'an: how, they ask, can it be explained that words revealed at a remote period of past eternity, long before the creation of the world, as it is commonly asserted, show the influence of foreign languages which were brought to bear upon Arabic in the 7th cent. A.D.? and Muslim apologists, who have always maintained the absolute