of it by men. At last, persistent questioning drove him to an outburst. "The Qur'an is the Word of God and is uncreated. The speech of man is created and inquisition (imtihan) is an innovation (bid'a)." But beyond that he would not go, even to draw the conclusion of the syllogism which he had indicated. Some, as we may gather from this story, had felt themselves driven to hold that not only the Qur'an in itself but also the utterance of it by the lips of men and the writing of it by men's hands—all between the boards, as they said—was uncreated. Others were coming to deny absolutely the existence of the eternal Logos and that this revealed Qur'an was uncreated in any sense. But others, as al-Bukhari, while holding tenaciously that the Qur'an was uncreated, refused to make any statement as to its utterance by men. There was nothing said about that in Qur'an or tradition.

The second form of opposition was to any upholding of their belief by arguments, except of the simplest and most apparent. That was an invasion by reason (aql) of the realm of traditional faith (naql). When the pious were eventually driven to dialectic weapons, their arguments show that these were snatched up to defend already occupied positions. They ring artificial and forced. Thus, in the Qur'an itself, the Qur'an is called "knowledge from God." It is, then, inseparable from God's quality of knowledge. But that is eternal and uncreated; therefore, so too, the Qur'an. Again, God created everything by the word, "Be." But this word cannot have been created, otherwise a created word would be a creator.

Therefore, God's word is uncreated. Again, there stands in the Qur'an (vii, 52), "Are not the creation and the command His?" The command here is evidently different from the creation, i.e., not created. Further, God's command creates; therefore it cannot be created. But it is God's word in command. It will be noticed here how completely God's word is hypostatized. This appears still more strongly in the following argument. God said to Moses, (Qur. vii, 141), "I have chosen thee over mankind with my apostolate and my word." God, therefore, has a word. But, again (Qur. iv, 162), He addresses Moses with this word (kallama-llahu Musa taklima, evidently regarded as meaning that God's word addressed Moses) and said, " Lo, I am thy Lord." This argument is supposed to put the opponent in a dilemma. Either he rejects the fact of Moses being so addressed, which is rejecting what God has said, and is, therefore, unbelief; or he holds that the kalam which so addresses Moses is a created thing. Then, a created thing asserts that it is Moses' Lord. Therefore, God's kalam with which He addresses the prophets, or which addresses the prophets, is eternal, uncreated.

But if this doctrine grew up early in Islam, opposition to it was not slow in appearing, and that on different sides. Literary vanity, national pride, and philosophical scruples all made themselves felt. Even in Muhammad's lifetime, according to the legend of the poet Labid and the verses which he put up in challenge on the Ka'ba, the Qur'an had taken rank as inimitable poetry. At all points it was the Word of