For its being written in the Preserved Tablet and in purified pages in the hands of the angels does not preclude Gabriel having brought it down from Allah, whether Allah wrote it before sending Gabriel with it or afterward. If He sent it down in written form to Bayt al-ʿIzzah (the House of Honour), all at once on the Night of Decree, then He had written all of it before sending it down.

Allah, Most High, knows what has been, what will be, and what will not be—and how it would be if it were to occur. He, glorified is He, determined the destinies of all creatures and recorded His servants’ deeds before they performed them, as is explicitly established in the Book, the Sunnah, and the reports from the early generations. Then He commands the angels to record those deeds after they perform them. He thus compares the record made before the deeds occurred with the record made afterward, and there is no discrepancy between them. This is what Ibn ʿAbbās and others among the early generations said, and it is true. If He has recorded what He creates as distinct from Himself before creating it, how can it be considered implausible that He should write His speech, with which He sends His angels, before sending them with it?

The claim that Gabriel took the Quran from the Book and did not hear it from Allah is false for several reasons.

Among them is the following: Allah, glorified and exalted is He, wrote the Torah for Moses with His own hand. Thus, the Children of Israel took Allah’s speech from the Book in which He, glorified and exalted is He, had written it. If, then, Muhammad received it from Gabriel, and Gabriel from the Book,