inlibration

English

Etymology

Coined by Harry A Wolfson (1887–1974) on the model of incarnation, from in- + inflected stem of Latin liber (“book”) +‎ -ation.

Noun

inlibration (uncountable)

1. (Islam) The fact of God's being invested in a book (the Qur'an), as opposed to in flesh as held by Christianity. [from 20th c.]
   • 1976, Harry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam, page 146:

     Consequently, […] the question arises in our mind whether […] there was not also in Islam a controversy over the inlibration, that is, the embookment, of the pre-existing Koran in the revealed Koran and also over the problem of whether the revealed Koran had two natures, a divine and a man-made, or only one nature, a man-made nature.

   • 1992, Annemarie Schimmel, Islam: An Introduction, page 75:

     The Prophet had to be a vessel unstained by external knowledge for the Word's inlibration, just as Mary had to be virgin in order to be a pure vessel for the Word's incarnation.

   • 2015, Steve Aylett, Heart of the Original, Unbound, page 30:

     Inlibration works in contrast—for Muslims the Qur'an is god, a fixed point as god's creation goes on around it.