Islam - Its Meaning for Modern Man — Page 125
125 7 Revelation IN ITS BROADEST CONNOTATION, REVELATION signifies guidance vouchsafed directly by God to man. It may take various forms. The most obvious and most familiar form of revelation is revealed law; for instance, the Books of Moses and the Quran. The difference between the two, so far as the form of revelation is concerned, is that while the Books of Moses contain an account of the law and the guidance accompanying it as revealed by God to Moses, only small parts of them are a literal translation of verbal revelation. The rest is claimed to be revelation in the sense that the substance or purport was revealed by God to Moses, but the actual words are not the words of the revelation. The meaning of the revelation was communicated by Moses to his people in his own words, and what were believed to be these words were recorded at some later period. In contrast with this, the Quran is a record from beginning to end of the verbal revelation vouchsafed by God to Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam,