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Muhammad and illiteracy: Difference between revisions
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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.) |
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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. | ||
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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|2|78}}| | {{Quote|{{Quran|2|78}}| | ||
And among them are '''unlettered ones''' (أُمِّيُّونَ, ''ummeeoona'') who do not know the Scripture except in wishful thinking, but they are only assuming.}} | And among them are '''unlettered ones''' (أُمِّيُّونَ, ''ummeeoona'') who do not know the Scripture except in wishful thinking, but they are only assuming.}} | ||
====Chapter 3 Verse 20==== | ====Chapter 3 Verse 20==== | ||
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Tafsir Al-Jalalayn on 3:20 says: | Tafsir Al-Jalalayn on 3:20 says: | ||
{{Quote|Tafsir Al-Jalalayn on 3:20| | {{Quote|Tafsir Al-Jalalayn on 3:20| | ||
So if they the disbelievers dispute with you O Muhammad (s) concerning religion say to them ‘I have surrendered my countenance to God that is to say I have submitted to Him I and whoever follows me’ wajh ‘countenance’ is chosen here because of its noble character for the other parts of the body will just as soon surrender once the countenance has; and say to those who have been given the Scripture the Jews and the Christians | So if they the disbelievers dispute with you O Muhammad (s) concerning religion say to them ‘I have surrendered my countenance to God that is to say I have submitted to Him I and whoever follows me’ wajh ‘countenance’ is chosen here because of its noble character for the other parts of the body will just as soon surrender once the countenance has; and say to those who have been given the Scripture the Jews and the Christians and to the uninstructed '''the Arab idolaters''' ‘Have you submitted?’ that is to say ‘Submit!’ And so if they have submitted they have been guided from error but if they turn their backs to Islam your duty is only to deliver the Message; and God sees His servants and so requites them for their deeds — this statement was revealed before the command to fight them had been revealed.}} | ||
Here, | Here, in Tafsir Al-Jalalayn "and to the uninstructed" is just a translation of his quote from the Arabic verse itself, which he then simply comments are the mushrikeen Arabs. Academic scholars generally interpret that the word ''ummiy'' here means unscriptured people, i.e. those not given a scripture. | ||
====Chapter 3 Verse 75==== | ====Chapter 3 Verse 75==== | ||
{{Quote|{{Quran|3|75}}| | {{Quote|{{Quran|3|75}}| | ||
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62:3 "And [to] others of them who have not yet joined them. And He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise."}} | 62:3 "And [to] others of them who have not yet joined them. And He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise."}} | ||
For these verses, Tafsir al-Jalalayn gives the traditional interpretation that the word means illiterate and refers to the illiterate Arabs: | |||
{{Quote|Tafsir Al-Jalalayn on 62:2| | {{Quote|Tafsir Al-Jalalayn on 62:2| | ||
It is He Who sent to the unlettered folk among the Arabs '''ummī means ‘one who cannot write or read a book’''' a messenger from among them namely Muhammad (s) to recite to them His signs the Qur’ān and to purify them to cleanse them from idolatry and to teach them the Book the Qur’ān and wisdom in the rulings that it contains though indeed wa-in in has been softened from the hardened form with its subject having been omitted that is to say understand it as wa-innahum before that before his coming they had been in manifest error.}} | It is He Who sent to the unlettered folk among the Arabs '''ummī means ‘one who cannot write or read a book’''' a messenger from among them namely Muhammad (s) to recite to them His signs the Qur’ān and to purify them to cleanse them from idolatry and to teach them the Book the Qur’ān and wisdom in the rulings that it contains though indeed wa-in in has been softened from the hardened form with its subject having been omitted that is to say understand it as wa-innahum before that before his coming they had been in manifest error.}} | ||