A Critique of Nasr Abu-Hamid Abu-Zayd's View on the Nature of Quranic Revelation

One of the most important issues on which Abu-Zayd, a contemporary Egyptian thinker, presents challenging views is the nature of Quranic revelation. The present paper comments on his views on the nature of Quranic revelation. Therefore, the author criticizes Abu-Zayd views which are presented in his works through a descriptive-analytical method.The historicity of the Quran and its interaction with reality are the common core of Abu-Zayd's views about the nature of Quranic revelation. In his first theory, Abu-Zayd considers Quranic revelation as a man-made text and outcome of a verbal communication between God and the Holy Prophet. However, in his second theory, he defines the Quran as a kind of text and product of the Holy Prophet's religious experience, and in his third theory, he considers the Qur’an as a set of discourses.The proofs of the common core which Abu-Zayd uses to back his view contradict intellectual proofs and God's wisdom. The contradiction between his first view and those proofs proving the speaking of the Quran and the essential difference between the Quranic revelation and religious experience in addition to the incompatibility between the content of the Quran and experimental view of revelation are among the weaknesses in his second and third views.