Abstract

Scholars have analyzed and judged about prophetic revelation with different approaches. There are, at least, three discourses about revelation and prophethood, especially Holy Prophet’s prophethood and Quranic revelation: 1) Islamic discourse which regards revelation as a completely divine phenomenon with no role for man or human elements; 2) Christian discourse which regards revelation a divine-human phenomenon; and 3) secular discourse which regards revelation a completely human phenomenon and evaluates it only through social and psychological paradigms. William Montgomery Watt is a Christian theologian, who have written works and conducted research on Islam and Holy Prophet’s way of life for more than 60 years. Being familiar with these three discourses, he provides a new system to analyze revelation and prophethood as well as Holy prophet’s prophethood and the form and content of Quranic revelation. Contrary to his predecessors, Watt does not reject Holy prophet’s prophethood; rather, he believes that Quran includes divine revelation. The present paper, first, designs a system of Watt’s statements about revelation, then analyzes and criticizes them. On the whole, the discourse in which Watt analyzes the principles of revelation and prophethood and, accordingly, Holy Prophet’s prophethood, is regarded the resultant of three Christian, Islamic and secular discourses.