the Qur’ân but "suggestions", "prompting" or "inspiration" to "compose" the Qur’ân; (d) that according to the passage 53:1 - 8 the Prophet claimed to have seen Allah; (e) that as he subsequently became aware of the existence of angels he reasserted in sûrah 81 (al-Takwîr) that he had seen the angel messenger on the clear horizon and, (f) that still more subsequently, at Madina, he introduced Jibrîl as the conveyer of wahy. It is to be pointed out that with the exception of the assumptions (a) and (c), the other assumptions are merely repetitions of those of the previous orientalists, specially of Muir and Margoliouth. All the assumptions are, however, wrong and untenable.

As regards the theory of "revision" Bell not only enlarges on what N?ldeke and Rodwell suppose to be changes in rhymes and subject matters but adds a new assumption that the Prophet used to write the supposed revision on the opposite side of the material on which the original revelation was written! He also harps on the subject of naskh (abrogation).

Bell’s assumptions and theories were further enlarged by his pupil W. Montgomery Watt. He made his debut in the field of Qur’ânic study by his thesis on Freewill and Predestination in Early Islam which was published in London in 1948. This was the second detailed discussion on the subject by an orientalist after Ignaz Goldziher’s treatment of it in 1910. (1) Watt’s major discussions on the Qur’ân, however, are contained in his Muhammad at Mecca, published in 1953. In it he incorporated all the theories of his predecessor orientalists about the Qur’ân and also built upon the theories of Bell. (2) To support Bell’s assumption that the Prophet initially claimed to have seen Allah, Watt quotes and grossly misinterprets ‘Urwah’s report about the coming of wahy and also misinterprets sûrat al-Najm, devoting a special section on the so-called "Satanic verses". To support the view that the Qur’ân emanated from the Prophet himself, Watt advances a theory of "intellectual locution", and misinterprets the term ummiyy to prove that the Prophet knew reading and writing. Watt also strongly advocates the theory of Judaeo-Christian borrowings and enlarges it by adding to it a new dimension of what he calls the environmental influence on the Prophet. Shortly after the publication of his Muhammad at