Muhammad's literacy is argued from the Quran's first command to read, the accusation in 25:4 to 5, the meaning of ummy as gentile, and Ibn Ishaq's record of his letter to Musaylima. A second article traces the number 57 in the Quran, from the letter qaf to the word majid and the occurrences of the word Quran. Registration details for the 1996 Houston conference follow.
A short commentary of Muslim scholars’ claim of illiteracy
for Muhammad
vs. evidence from the Quran to the contrary and 8th century historian
Ibn Ishaq’s record of the prophet’s written communications
It has been part of the Muslim’s belief,
based on traditions, that Prophet Muhammad was illiterate. God says in
verse 29:51 that the Quran itself is the only miracle of the prophet.
By alleging illiteracy for him, traditional Muslims were trying to make
the claim even “more miraculous,” for a book of such literary
quality was sent down through an illiterate man. This is despite the many
assertions in the Quran to the contrary. The first Quranic revelation
that came down to Muhammad is, “Read! In the name of your Lord who
creates....” (96:1) It is clear that this is also a commandment.
To all of us, including the prophet, God stresses the importance of literacy
in the very first revelation. Furthermore, the second revelation is “The
Pen” which indicates again the importance of written communication.
This makes the importance of literacy even more compelling. If indeed
Muhammad was an illiterate man when the Quran was first revealed to him,
how could he not make himself learn to read and write during the twenty
some years of his mission? Perhaps a more poignant question should be,
“How dare he not
to obey his Lord’s clear commandment
to read and write?” Being a messenger of God, of course he would
not dare disobeying his Lord.
A still more transparent picture emerges from the interesting incident
described in Quran 25:4-5. In this verse, Muhammad’s opponents who
rejected the divine source of the Quran accused him of fabricating narrations.
“Tales from the past that he wrote down; they were dictated to him
day and night,” or so they alleged. This is a clear Quranic evidence
that Prophet Muhammad was a literate man. Not only was Muhammad accused
of writing down what he heard, one cannot dictate to an illiterate person.
Some have argued that this is not a solid proof, since the statement came
from shady characters, in this case from Muhammad’s enemies. But
this argument is in itself weak. We may have a good reason to suspect
the material content of the allegation (namely that Muhammad fabricated
the Quran). However, there is no good reason to doubt the peripheral issue
mentioned, i.e. Muhammad’s writing
and his friends’ dictation to him, since
they had no reason to lie on this issue. On the other hand, it sheds light
of confirmation on the importance of reading and writing in God’s
eyes, and the prophet’s adherence to it.
It was also a well known historical fact that Muhammad was a successful
merchant before his call as a messenger prophet. As a matter of necessity,
he obviously knew how to count. During his time, the numeral system as
we know it today was not in use. The numerals that we use today, known
as the Arabic numeral system, were invented after Islam. Historically,
letters were used to represent numbers before the numeral system was invented.
This is true in all Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, and other
languages as well. For example, the Roman numerals came from the Roman
alphabets. Therefore, since Muhammad knew how to count numbers as a merchant,
he should also know how to read and write a transaction. This is a reasonable
enough argument.
Page 2
Muhammad’s Illiteracy
The Muslim scholars derived the illiteracy concept for Muhammad
from verses 7:157-158 of the Quran. They say that the word ummy
means illiterate. It is true that in today’s standard Arabic,
“illiterate” is one of the meaning of this word. But
this is not a compelling evidence, since “gentile” is
also another meaning of it. In fact, if we study the Quran carefully
where this word is found, its usage has always been in the context
of “the people of the scripture” vs. “the gentiles”
(see for example 3:20, 3:75, 62:2, 2:78). It is even possible to
surmise that the “illiterate” meaning is secondary.
It came to be used after the Quran was revealed, since it is reasonable
to deduct “illiterate” as the opposite of “those
who can read.” This in turn may well be coming from “those
who read the book,” or “those who received the book,”
or “the people of the book” (ahl al-Kitab), which is
precisely the opposite of “the gentiles.”
It is interesting that in his book “Sirat Rasul Allah,”
the 8th century historian Ibn Ishaq also recorded a written communication
between Prophet Muhammad and one of his contemporaries. Ibn Ishaq
wrote one of the earliest chronicles of Islam (he was born in Medina
some 85 years after the Hijra), and his book predates hadith collections
by at least a century. Of course, as with any historical records
(of which the hadith collection is one), we must apply a certain
degree of judgment. Our primary criterion is of course information
from God’s revelation, i.e. the Quran. Therefore, some things
that Ibn Ishaq (or anyone else for that matter) wrote, which clearly
disagree with the Quran, we can easily reject. On the other hand,
other records that support the Quran can be accepted as part of
history. What follows, therefore, is a historical record from early
Islam.
During the prophet Muhammad’s
time, there were some people who also claimed to be God’s
prophet and messenger. One of them was Musaylima b. Habib. The following
is a quote from Guillaume’s translation of Ibn Ishaq’s
book:
MUSAYLIMA’S LETTER AND THE APOSTLE’S
ANSWER THERETO
Musaylima had written to the apostle (Prophet Muhammad):
From Musaylima the apostle of God to Muhammad
the apostle of God. Peace upon you. I have been made partner with
you in authority. To us belongs half the land and to Quraysh half,
but Quraysh are a hostile people...
Then he (Prophet Muhammad) wrote to Musaylima:
From Muhammad the apostle of God to Musaylima
the liar. Peace be upon him who follows the guidance. The earth
is God’s. He lets whom He will of His creatures (to) inherit
it and the result is to the pious...
This was at the end of the year 10 (after Hijra).
There were other instances in the history of early Islam where
Prophet Muhammad sent many letters to Kings and other heads of state,
inviting them to embrace God's religion. The only plausible conclusion
is that he realized the importance of written communication, as
God has taught in the earliest revelation. Ibn Ishaq’s chronicle
on this issue provides a historical evidence to support the fact
that Muhammad was indeed a literate prophet.
[From Friday khutba at Masjid Tucson, October 27,
1995]
Dr. G. Adisoma
Reference: Guillaume, A., The Life of Muhammad, a
translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, Oxford,
1967, p. 649.
God willing,
let’s get together
11th Annual International Conference
United Submitters
August 9-11, 1996
Houston, Texas
The conference registration fee is $57 per person. The fee is $29
for children 5-12 years old. Children under 5 are free. The registration
fee covers two lunches and two dinners, and miscellaneous conference
expenses. It does NOT include the hotel room charges.
We made special arrangements with a first class hotel and reserved
rooms for our group. The special rate is $72 per room per night
(for example, a single adult pays $72 total for 2 nights assuming
double occupancy). The room rate includes full breakfast. Participants
pay the room charges to the hotel directly on departure.
Please make your plans right away to attend the conference. If
you travel by air, you need to fly into Houston Intercontinental
airport. The hotel has free shuttle service from the airport.
Registrations for the conference must be received by July 21. Please
send the registration fees to:
ICS/MASJID TUCSON
PO BOX 43476
TUCSON, AZ 85733-3476
Registration highlights and notes:
Adults: $57
Children (ages 5-12): $29
Children under 5: Free
Room charges paid to the hotel directly at check-out.
You do not have to make reservations for the hotel. We make
the reservations for you. Please do not delay your registration.
You can stay at the hotel before and after the conference dates
at the special rate for ICS.
Notify us right away if you would like give a talk at the conference.
Indicate your topic. The time allotted for talks is 15-20 minutes.
Attendance to the conference by registration and invitation only.
We appreciate your prompt response. God willing, we will see you
in Houston.
Page 3
The Glorious Quran And The Number
57
Patient research in the last few years has
demonstrated how the Quran as a written divine document evinces
a mathematical structure or pattern based on the number 19.
As is well known, the Quran has 114 (19x6) chapters (suras) and
29 of them have certain initials (muqatta'at) in their
starting verses. These initials are letters of the Arabic alphabet.
Among these 29 chapters with initials, two and only two, namely,
chapters 42 and 50, contain the Arabic letter qaf (Q) as
an initial. Dr. Rashad Khalifa was the first to point out and publish
the fact that in each of these two chapters, the letter qaf
occurs exactly 57 (19x3) times, in spite of the additional fact
that chapter 42 is about twice as long as chapter 50. Muslim tradition
has it that the letter qaf, used as an initial in the two
chapters, stands for the word “Quran.” Readers will
easily conclude that the count of the letter qaf in both
qaf-initialed chapters results in 114 (19x6) qafs, a number
corresponding to the total number of chapters in the Quran.
That the number 57 is intimately connected with the Quran is clearly
revealed in the first verse of chapter 50, one of the qaf initialed
chapters:
In the Quran, the word “majid” (translated
above as “glorious”) is once used as a quality (sifat)
of Allah (11:73) and twice (50:1 and 85:21) as an attribute of the
Quran. Now, when the so-called abjad (gematrical) or ancient
numerical system of the Arabs is applied to the Arabic word “
مجيد” (majid), the total adds up
to 57:
= 40; = 3; = 10; and = 4.
Total = 57
That the letter qaf is an initial (actually the only initial) in
the first verse of chapter 50, that this first verse describes the
Quran as majid (which has a value of exactly 57 in the ancient abjad
numerical system), and that letter qaf occurs
exactly 57 times in this chapter cannot be
sheer accident. Indeed, there are other instances in the Quran which
demonstrate that the number 57 is intimately connected with it.
In the Quran, the Arabic word “قرٔان
” (Quran) with an abjad (gematrical) value of 351 is found
exactly 58 times. As spelled, this word is grammatically different
from the related word “قرٔانا”
(qur’anan) which has an extra letter alif as a prop for the
so-called tanwin (a grammatical device to express indefiniteness).
The word qur’anan has 352 for its abjad value, and is found
10 times in the Quran. Now, the word “Quran” with the
abjad value of 351 and spelt as “قرٔان”
with or without the definite article occurs in the following verses:
The above total number of entries (58) might lead one to conclude
that the pattern of 57 (or, for that matter, that of
19) had been broken at least in the occurrence
of the word “Quran” in its Arabic form with the abjad
(gematrical) value of 351. But a logical analysis of each of the
above 58 entries will reveal that in exactly 57 of the entries,
the word refers to the Quran as Muslims understand it to be, that
is, as a revealed book or Divine Scripture sent down to mankind
through Prophet Muhammad. Furthermore, in one entry, namely 10:15
(No. 7 in the above list), the word does not, unlike the other 57
entries, refer to the Quran as we know it but refers to something
else—a non-existent Quran. The pertinent verse is as follows:
And when our clear revelations are recited to them, those who do
not expect to meet us say: “Bring a Quran other than this,
or change it!”... (10:15).
Clearly, the word “Quran” in the above verse refers
to another Quran which, in effect, was non-existent. The Arabic
term qur’anin ghair used in the above verse clearly means
“another quran” or “a quran different from this
Quran.” That other quran does not exist, and should not be
counted with the other 57 entries. But even if it is added to the
57 entries, since it does not exist, the final result will still
be 57!
In modern mathematical logic and one of its forerunners, Boolean
Algebra, as well as modern arithmetic, what is non-existent is normally
called a Null Class (NC). And when the Null Class is added to any
given class or a given number, the result is always the given class
or original number. For example, 57+NC = 57. Also, there is nothing
in common between an existing number and the Null Class. For example,
57xNC = NC. Thus, the Arabic word “Quran” when referring
to the Quran as Divine Revelation or Sacred Scripture, occurs exactly
57 times in the text of the Quran.
The Most Gracious. The teacher of the Quran. (55:1-2).
A study of the word “ عَلَّمَ
” ('allama, taught, teacher) will show that it is found 22 times
in the Quran in the above tense, that is, in the perfect active verb form
(known as the fa’ala form among Arab grammarians). However, in 3
of the 22 occurrences, the word refers to human beings teaching others
or training animals. The other 19 instances refer to God teaching man
directly or through the instrumentality of angels. The 19 instances of
God as teacher are: