The Criterion
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[25:1]
HALLOWED is He who from on high, step by step, has bestowed upon His servant the standard by which to discern the true from the false, so that to all the world it might be a warning:

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* v.1 : Almost all the commentators give this meaning to the term al-furqān. In the above context it denotes the Qur’ān as well as the phenomenon of divine revelation as such. (For an amplified interpretation of this term by Muhammad ‘Abduh, see note 38 on 2:53.) The verbal form nazzala implies gradualness both in time (“successively”) and in method (“step by step”).