The Problem of Authenticity. Kalam, the Arabic word for "theology," literally means "speech" or "word." It was used in Arabic translations of works by Greek philosophers as a synonym of the Greek word logos, which means "word," "reason," or "argument." In the works of Muslim theologians who were influenced by Greek philosophy, theologoi, the Greek word for "theologians," was translated as "masters of the divine Kalam" or "practitioners of Kalam in divinity." In this way, Kalam came to signify formal or systematic theology. The interchangeability of the terms logos and kalam reflects one of the major problems of systematic theology in Islam—the reliance of this discipline on methods and terminologies that came from outside the Islamic tradition. For the opponents of Kalam, this problem was proof that systematic theology was an inauthentic discipline, alien in its origins...