(a) The Prophet speaks of revelation as “coming down” (_nazala_) from God and refers to the “mother of the book” which seems to designate the unrevealed source from which the revealed words are derived. It may be that this refers to the idea of which the word is the expression, and that in this the Prophet was influenced by Christian or Jewish theories which had originally a Platonic colouring, but it seems probable that he had no very clear theory as to the “mother of the book.” At an early date the view arose that the Qur´an had existed, though not expressed in words, that the substance and meaning were eternal as part of the wisdom of God, though it had been put into words in time and then communicated to the Prophet, which is now the orthodox teaching on the basis of Qur. 80. 15. that it was written “by the hands of scribes honoured and righteous,” this being taken to mean that it was written at God’s dictation by supernatural beings in paradise and afterwards sent down to the Prophet. That is not the necessary meaning of the verse, which may refer to the previous revelations made to the Jews and Christians which the Prophet regarded as true but afterwards corrupted, so that the Qur´an is simply the pure transcription of Divine Truth imperfectly represented by those earlier revelations. Under the `Umayyads, when a rigid orthodoxy was taking form in quarters not sympathetic towards the official Khalif, a view arose that the actual words expressed in the Qur´an were co-eternal with God, and it was only the writing down of these words which had taken place in time. It seems probable that this theory of an eternal “word” was suggested by the Christian doctrine of the “Logos.” It can be traced primarily to the teaching of St. John Damascene (d. circ. 160 A.H. = A.D. 776) who served as secretary of state under one of the `Umayyads, either Yazid II. or Hijam, and his pupil Theodore Abucara (d. 217 = 832), who express the relation of the Christian Logos to the Eternal Father in terms very closely resembling those employed in Muslim theology to denote the relation between the Qur´an or revealed word and God. (cf. Von Kremer: _Streifzuege_. pp. 7-9). We know from the extant works of these two Christian writers that theological discussions between Muslims and Christians were by no means uncommon at the time.