Godly Utterance or Angelic Intelligence: Ibn ʿArabī's Theory of Revelation as a Response to the Philosophers.

God's 'down-sending' (inzāl/tanzīl) of words in the form of the Quran is arguably one of the most important problems in Islamic theology. Mu?yī al-Dīn ibn al-ʿArabī's views on this topic - as well as his theory concerning the reality of Quranic recitation - inform this consideration of revelation, which responds to positions both contemporary and classical. By investigating a theory attributed to the philosopher Abū Na?r al-Fārābī, one championed by later Muslim philosophers, this paper addresses an ongoing question: What does it mean for the Quran to be revealed to a human being? Ibn al-ʿArabī's distinctive hermeneutics and cosmology help navigate a response that acknowledges the complexities raised in the model attributed to al-Fārābī. In discovering Ibn al-ʿArabī's points of divergence from al-Fārābī, however, the centrality of language to Ibn al-ʿArabī's metaphysics comes to light. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]