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Muhammad and illiteracy: Difference between revisions
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→Modern Academic Quotations: Added academic quote on illiterate interpretation having apologetic aspect
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(→Relevant Quotations: Have linked to a brilliant post on modern academics views against Muhammad being illiterate on the subreddit r/academicquran here, arguing against the traditional view.) |
(→Modern Academic Quotations: Added academic quote on illiterate interpretation having apologetic aspect) |
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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==== | ||