Further evidence that these languages were not handed down from Adam is that most languages fall short of Arabic: they lack specific names for the young, dwellings, sounds, and other things associated with animals, using possessive constructions instead. Had Adam, peace be upon him, taught all these languages, he would have taught them in mutually corresponding forms.

Moreover, every people without a revealed scripture lacks names for the days of the week in its language. Its language contains only words for the day, month, and year, because these are known through sense perception and reason. Peoples therefore assigned names to them, since verbal expression follows conception. The week, however, became known only through transmitted reports. It was only through the accounts of the prophets that people learned that Allah created the heavens, the earth, and everything between them in six days, then rose over the Throne. It was prescribed for those prophets to gather on one day each week to worship Allah and thereby preserve the memory of the first week, during which Allah began creating this world. Thus, the languages of the Arabs, the Hebrews, and those who learned from them contain names for the days of the week, unlike the languages of the Turks and others like them. Their languages contain no names for the days of the week because they did not know of this and therefore had no words to express it.

It is thus clear that Allah inspired humankind to express in words what they intend and conceive, and that the first to learn this was their father Adam. They learned just as he learned, even though their languages differed. Allah revealed to Moses in Hebrew and to Muhammad in Arabic, and all of it is Allah’s speech. Through it, Allah made clear what He intended concerning His creation and His commands, although the two languages are distinct. Indeed, Hebrew is among the languages closest to Arabic—closer to it than the languages of some non-Arab peoples are to one another.

In short, our purpose is not to establish that this did not occur. Rather, it is enough for us to say: