تنزيل
Tanzīl
Any message that God has sent down to humanity through the prophets; the verbal noun of nazzala, to send down
What it means
Tanzīl is the verbal noun of nazzala, to send down in stages. Ismail al Faruqi uses it for any message that Allah has sent to humanity through the prophets. The Quran applies the idea to the Quran itself, calling it a tanzīl from the Lord of the worlds (26:192), and says also that Allah sent down the Torah and the Gospel before it (3:3). The word fixes the direction of revelation: the message comes from Allah and descends to the prophet, who receives and conveys it. Because the sending is in stages, the Quran came to Muhammad (peace be upon him) over about twenty-three years, according to the tradition.
Often misunderstood as
That it is the same as “revelation” in the sense of inspiration or insight, when it names a message sent down from Allah.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 46, listed as TANZĪL. The definition is restated here.