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Muhammad and illiteracy: Difference between revisions
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'''Muhammad's literacy''' is a commonly mentioned topic in regards to the historicity, revelation, and compiling of the Quran. Many Muslim scholars have argued that Muhammad's illiteracy is evidence that the Quran is a divine miracle. However, skeptics disagree that this is enough to constitute a miracle and challenge the claim altogether. Among modern academic scholars there is virtual unanimity that the Quran does not in fact describe Muhammad or his people as illiterate, and that this was a reinterpretation arising some time after his death. Indeed, there is now known to be abundant evidence of significant literacy among the pre-Islamic Arabs. | '''Muhammad's literacy''' is a commonly mentioned topic in regards to the historicity, revelation, and compiling of the Quran. Many Muslim scholars have argued that Muhammad's illiteracy is evidence that the Quran is a divine miracle. However, skeptics disagree that this is enough to constitute a miracle and challenge the claim altogether. Among modern academic scholars there is virtual unanimity that the Quran does not in fact describe Muhammad or his people as illiterate, and that this was a reinterpretation arising some time after his death. Indeed, there is now known to be abundant evidence of significant literacy among the pre-Islamic Arabs. | ||
==Transfer of Information== | ==Transfer of Information== | ||
{{Main|Parallels Between the Qur'an and Late Antique Judeo-Christian Literature}} | |||
Humans have many means by which information transfer is possible. Verbal communication, historically, was the main mode of information sharing. Many civilizations, their histories, mythologies, and stories have been kept alive as they are passed down orally from one generation to the next. | Humans have many means by which information transfer is possible. Verbal communication, historically, was the main mode of information sharing. Many civilizations, their histories, mythologies, and stories have been kept alive as they are passed down orally from one generation to the next. | ||
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And among them are those who abuse the Prophet and say, "He is '''an ear''' (أذن, ''udhun'')."}} | And among them are those who abuse the Prophet and say, "He is '''an ear''' (أذن, ''udhun'')."}} | ||
Julien Decharneux, an academic scholar who specialises in Syriac traditions and the Quran, proposes that the Quranic author(s) came into contact with East Syriac Christian preachers or missionaries rather than direct accessing Christian texts. In his book ''Creation and Contemplation: The Cosmology of the Qur'ān and Its Late Antique Background'', he notes that the Christian lore in the Quran is "always periphrastic, never detailed, and often approximative". Decharneux further explains that the repetoire of texts that would have contributed to the thought of a "standard Christian preacher" at the turn of the 7th century would vary depending on church affiliation, "but it involves among other things the Bible, apocryphal texts, exegetical commentaries, and ascetic literature. These types of texts were not ''occasionally'' read. The sources attest that they were ''omnipresent'' in the Christian scholastic and monastic life from where a 'standard preacher' would have come". Indeed, he adds, "both Syriac ''and'' Greek exegetes were extremely popular".<ref>Julien Decharneux (2023) "Creation and Contemplation: The Cosmology of the Qur'ān and Its Late Antique Background", Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter, pp. 10-11</ref> | |||
Decharneux further writes regarding missionary activity in the vicinity of Arabia: | |||
{{Quote|Julien Decharneux (2023) "Creation and Contemplation", p. 252|The Church of the East was particarly active from this point of view with far-reaching missionary activites in the south-eastern part of the Asian world. At the time of the emergence of the Qurʾān, both the Syro-Orthodox Church and the Church of the East were already exerting their influence on the south of the Arabian Peninsula, as the records show. Most importantly, the Church of the East was established on both sides of the Persian Gulf. From the end of the 4th century at least, Christian communities had settled in the region called Beth Qatraye, covering a large zone of the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula. Recent archaeology shows that several monasteries existed along the coast and in the islands of the Persian Gulf. We know that these communities were connected with the regions of Sinai and the Byzantine world particularly. Some of the writings emanating from these circles were also translated in Sogdian, Ethiopic, and Arabic from the 7th century onwards.}} | |||
For further relevant verses and sources, see the introductory sections in the article [[Parallels Between the Qur'an and Late Antique Judeo-Christian Literature]]. | |||
==The myth of pre-Islamic Arab illiteracy== | ==The myth of pre-Islamic Arab illiteracy== | ||
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In his commentary on the Quran, Gabriel Said Reynolds (a modern academic scholar) points to verse 3:20 as evidence that the word refers to those who do not know the word of God (similarly verses 3:75 and 62:2).<ref>Reynolds, Gabriel Said, "The Quran and Bible:Text and Commentary", New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2018 p.54 (commentary on Q. 2:78-9)</ref> Thus, Muhammad is described as an ummi prophet in verses 7:157-158 because he came from a people to whom God had not yet sent down revelation, not because he was illiterate. As Reynolds further points out (crediting Holger Zelletin), verses 29:47-48, which are commonly cited to interpret the other verses on this topic, deny that Muhammad wrote the Quran himself, yet this does not imply that he could not read: | In his commentary on the Quran, Gabriel Said Reynolds (a modern academic scholar) points to verse 3:20 as evidence that the word refers to those who do not know the word of God (similarly verses 3:75 and 62:2).<ref>Reynolds, Gabriel Said, "The Quran and Bible:Text and Commentary", New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2018 p.54 (commentary on Q. 2:78-9)</ref> Thus, Muhammad is described as an ummi prophet in verses 7:157-158 because he came from a people to whom God had not yet sent down revelation, not because he was illiterate. As Reynolds further points out (crediting Holger Zelletin), verses 29:47-48, which are commonly cited to interpret the other verses on this topic, deny that Muhammad wrote the Quran himself, yet this does not imply that he could not read: | ||
{{Quote|{{Quran-range|29|47|48}}|And thus We have sent down to you the Qur'an. And those to whom We [previously] gave the Scripture believe in it. And among these [people of Makkah] are those who believe in it. And none reject Our verses except the disbelievers. And you did not recite before it any scripture, nor did you inscribe one with your right hand. Otherwise the falsifiers would have had [cause for] doubt.}} | {{Quote|{{Quran-range|29|47|48}}|And thus We have sent down to you the Qur'an. And those to whom We [previously] gave the Scripture believe in it. And among these [people of Makkah] are those who believe in it. And none reject Our verses except the disbelievers. And you did not recite before it any scripture, nor did you inscribe one with your right hand. Otherwise the falsifiers would have had [cause for] doubt.}}Archer (2024) notes the interpretation of ''ummiy'' as meaning fully illiterate over 'unscripted' has an apologetic aspect to it. | ||
{{Quote|Archer, George. The Prophet's Whistle: Late Antique Orality, Literacy, and the Quran (p. 29). University of Iowa Press. Kindle Edition.|What about the literacy, orality, and illiteracy of Muhammad himself? Aside from some Quranic passages (to be discussed in due course) and Islamic memories from centuries later, the major issue regarding Muhammad’s own literacy is in orbit around the meaning of the Quranic term ummī.<sup>21</sup> In the seventh century, ummī and kindred terms appear to have meant something like “[one of?] the nations,” related to umma (“community” or “nation of people”). Idiomatically, ummī refers to a gentile, a non-Jew, as does the Latin gens (“people,” “race”), the Greek ethnikos (“of a [particular] nation”) and the Hebrew goyim (“the [foreign] nations”). Through this ancestry and then in the context of the Quran, ummī carries the implication of a person or people (ummiyyūn) who have not received a revelation from God; someone who is neither a Jew nor a Christian. </br></br> | |||
The question then stands as such: Does the Quranic ummī mean only someone from a group that has never received a book from God, or does it simply mean a people without any literature at all? Most Muslims from the eighteenth century onward have favored the second option: to say the Prophet or his people are ummī means they have no direct access to any complex literatures, scriptural or anything else. Ummī means unlettered and without any education in reading and writing. <i>Hidden in this interpretation of the word is a bit of apologetics for Islam, too.</i> If Muhammad was entirely illiterate regarding all writing, then he could not be “learning” the materials needed to “write” the Quran from elsewhere. Ergo, the Quran as a miraculous text is underscored because it seems impossible that Muhammad could have composed it without considerable access to many written texts. Muhammad’s illiteracy is evidence that the Quran is from God.}} | |||
====Chapter 2 Verse 78==== | ====Chapter 2 Verse 78==== | ||
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{{Quote|{{Quran|9|61}}| | {{Quote|{{Quran|9|61}}| | ||
And among them are those who abuse the Prophet and say, "He is '''an ear''' (أذن, ''udhun'')." | And among them are those who abuse the Prophet and say, "He is '''an ear''' (أذن, ''udhun'')." | ||
}}{{Quote|{{Quran|7|155-159}}| | }}{{Quote|{{Quran|44|14}}|Yet they turn away from him and say: "'''Tutored (by others)''' (مُعَلَّمٌۭ), a man possessed!"}}{{Quote|{{Quran|7|155-159}}| | ||
7:155 "And Moses chose from his people seventy men for Our appointment. And when the earthquake seized them, he said, "My Lord, if You had willed, You could have destroyed them before and me [as well]. Would You destroy us for what the foolish among us have done? This is not but Your trial by which You send astray whom You will and guide whom You will. You are our Protector, so forgive us and have mercy upon us; and You are the best of forgivers." | 7:155 "And Moses chose from his people seventy men for Our appointment. And when the earthquake seized them, he said, "My Lord, if You had willed, You could have destroyed them before and me [as well]. Would You destroy us for what the foolish among us have done? This is not but Your trial by which You send astray whom You will and guide whom You will. You are our Protector, so forgive us and have mercy upon us; and You are the best of forgivers." | ||
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He used to take with him the journey food for the stay and then come back to (his wife) Khadija to take his food likewise again till suddenly the Truth descended upon him while he was in the cave of Hira. The angel came to him and asked him to read. The Prophet (ﷺ) replied, "'''I do not know how to read.''' (مَا أَنَا بِقَارِئٍ)" The Prophet (ﷺ) added, "The angel caught me (forcefully) and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it any more. He then released me and again asked me to read and I replied, 'I do not know how to read.' Thereupon he caught me again and pressed me a second time till I could not bear it any more. He then released me and again asked me to read but again I replied, 'I do not know how to read (or what shall I read)?' Thereupon he caught me for the third time and pressed me, and then released me and said, 'Read in the name of your Lord, who has created (all that exists), created man from a clot. Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous." (96.1, 96.2, 96.3) | He used to take with him the journey food for the stay and then come back to (his wife) Khadija to take his food likewise again till suddenly the Truth descended upon him while he was in the cave of Hira. The angel came to him and asked him to read. The Prophet (ﷺ) replied, "'''I do not know how to read.''' (مَا أَنَا بِقَارِئٍ)" The Prophet (ﷺ) added, "The angel caught me (forcefully) and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it any more. He then released me and again asked me to read and I replied, 'I do not know how to read.' Thereupon he caught me again and pressed me a second time till I could not bear it any more. He then released me and again asked me to read but again I replied, 'I do not know how to read (or what shall I read)?' Thereupon he caught me for the third time and pressed me, and then released me and said, 'Read in the name of your Lord, who has created (all that exists), created man from a clot. Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous." (96.1, 96.2, 96.3) | ||
}} | }} | ||
=== Modern Academic Quotations === | |||
The Sub-Reddit [https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/ r/AcademicQuran] moderator(s) have complied a list of quotes and citations from modern academics on the data as to whether Muhammad literate or not which can be read here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1fz3vr8/the_data_on_muhammads_literacy/ ''The data on Muhammad's literacy''] | |||
==See also== | ==See also== | ||