الكتاب
al-Kitāb
“The Book”, used in the Quran for the Quran itself; the word also names earlier scriptures and the record of what God has decreed.
What it means
Al-Kitāb means “the Book”, from a root meaning to write. The Quran opens its second surah, “This is the Book, in which there is no doubt, a guidance for the God-fearing” (2:2), and in this use the word names the Quran itself. Faruqi lists it as another name for al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, the Noble Quran. The word is also used in other ways. The Quran calls the earlier scriptures given to Moses and Jesus kitāb, and it calls their followers ahl al-kitāb, the People of the Book. It also speaks of a record in which God’s decree and each person’s deeds are written.
Often misunderstood as
Reading it only as “book” as in any printed volume hides that the Quran uses the word as a name of the revelation itself.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 45, listed as AL KITĀB. The definition is restated here.