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Muhammad and illiteracy: Difference between revisions
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==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.}} | |||
==The myth of pre-Islamic Arab illiteracy== | ==The myth of pre-Islamic Arab illiteracy== | ||