The Qur'an, the central religious text of Islam, contains references to over fifty people also found in the Bible, typically in the same or similar narratives. Western secular scholars have tended to analyze such similarities as evidence for the influence of pre-existing traditions on the composition of the Qur'an. Lacking sufficient historical evidence, such scholars have relied mainly on a structuralist view point, now considered weak by mainstream scholarship within the western traditions. From a traditionalist Muslim perspective such a discussion can make no sense, as Muslims believe that the Qur'an was sent from Allah (God) through the angel Jibrael (Gabriel) to Muhammad in a series of revelations, and this perfect divinely-inspired text was then progressively dictated (word for word,