The word kalām means ‘speech’; it is used for the pure, uncorrupted speech of the Bedouin Arabs, as a synonym of ʿarabiyya. Kalām, however, also means any length of words uttered in a grammatically correct form; it is “a complete [series] of sounds, beneficial [for the hearer]” (al-kalāmu llaḏī lā yakūnu ʾillā ʾaṣwātan tāmmatan mufīdatan). Therefore, ‘the Qurʾān is kalām Allāh ‘God's speech’, because it is complete, and self-sufficient (muktafī bi-nafsihi; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān k-l-m; for the theological implications of speech as an attribute of God, see Peters 1976). In …