Criticism of the Views of Orientalists concerning Influence of Contemporary Poetry upon the Quran

The present article examines one of the serious doubts presented by orientalists concerning the Qurʿān; the alleged influence on the Qurʿān by poems from the era of revelation. A consequence of this belief is the notion of a human origin for the Qurʿān. The most important poems that orientalists based their statements upon include the poetry of Imruʾ al- Qays and Umayyah ibn Abī al-Ṣalt, contemporaries of the revelation era. These poems are critically examined in the present paper, demonstrating that the Qurʿān has not been influenced by Arabic poems. In fact, many of these poets may have been influenced by the Qurʿān, integrating Qurʿānic ideas into their poems.