ABSTRACT
The Arabic word kalām signifies word or speech. The word mutakallim designates him who speaks, the orator (in grammar, the first person). It is not possible here to trace the evolution whereby the word kalām came to mean simply theology, and the word mutakallimūn (those engaged in the science of the kalām, 'ilm al-kalām) came to mean the 'theologians'. This would involve a more detailed analysis of the genesis of the problem, touched on below, of the Quran as kalām Allāh, the 'Word of God'. Furthermore, the science of the kalām, as the scholastic theology of Islam, came to mean more particularly a theology professing atomism, an atomism which, while it is reminiscent of the atomism of Democritus and Epicurus, is entirely different in context.
