Reed-pen. The first verse of Q. 68 says: ‘By the pen and what they write’ and Q. 96:4 states that God taught man ‘by the pen’. According to some traditions (such as those collected in al-畊abar朝’s Tafs朝r), the qalam was the first thing created by God. Ab笛 Ya平q笛b al-Sijistn朝 (d. after 971) linked the terms qalam and 平arsh with 平aql in an attempt to equate Qur’anic concepts with Neoplatonic cosmology.
