Al Islam

b. 2:52, 93; 4:154; 7:153; 20:89. (close)

c. 20:90. (close)

1053. God can be proved to be a Living God only if He speaks to His servants. It does not stand to reason that God should have ceased to speak now when He spoke to His chosen servants in the past. No attribute of God can be supposed to have ceased to function. The gift of Divine revelation is attainable even now as it was attained in the past. Revelation necessarily does not contain a new Law. It is also meant to give freshness of spiritual life and bring man near unto his Lord and Master. (close)

1054. The Arabic phrase in the text means, they repented; they wrung their hands by reason of repentance. The Arabs say of a man who repents, Suqita fi Yadihi (Lane). (close)

a. 20:87. (close)

b. 20:95. (close)

1055. Moses seized Aaron by the head, not because the latter had countenanced or supported calf-worship, as he is represented to have done in the Bible (Exod. 32:‌2-4), but because he did not successfully prevent the people from worshipping the calf. Display of anger on the part of Moses was due, not to any religious or legal offence committed by Aaron, but to his failure to manage affairs properly in his absence. The anger was justified because a great sacrilege had been committed and the whole work of Moses’s life was put in jeopardy. (close)

1056. Aaron appealed to Moses’s feelings of tenderness and brotherly affection. (close)

a. 2:52, 93; 4:154; 7:149; 20:89. (close)

1057. The account of the Bible accusing Aaron of complicity in calf- worship is certainly misleading (Enc. Bib. vol. 1, col. 2). (close)

b. 5:40; 16:120. (close)

c. 5:45; 6:92. (close)

1057A. The earthquake was a natural phenomenon. Moses feared that it was a Divine punishment for the sins of his people. (close)

d. 13:28. (close)

a. 2:202. (close)

b. 2:285; 5:41. (close)

c. 40:8. (close)

d. 29:49; 42:53; 62:3. (close)

1058. Ummi means, belonging to or pertaining to the mother, i.e. as innocent as a child at the breast of its mother; one not having a revealed Scripture, particularly an Arab; one who does not know how to read or write; one belonging to Mecca which was known as Ummul-Qura, i.e. the mother of towns. If the word Ummi be taken in the sense of "unlettered," the verse would signify that although the Holy Prophet had received no education whatever and was quite unread, yet God vouchsafed to him such knowledge as would impart light and guidance even to those who are considered to be most advanced in learning and enlightenment. Some Christian writers have pretended to doubt the fact that the Holy Prophet could not read or write. Says Reverend Wherry in his 'Commentary of the Qur’an'—. "Is it likely that he should have been trained in the same household with ‘Ali, who knew both how to read and write and not have received similar instruction? Could he have conducted an important mercantile business for years without some knowledge of letters? That he could read and write in later years is certain. Tradition tells us, that he said to Mu‘awiyah, one of his secretaries: 'Draw the ba straight, divide the sin properly', etc. and that in his last moments he called for writing material. His use of amanuenses does not militate against his knowledge of the art of writing, for such use of amanuenses was common in that age, even among the most learned." It is a poor argument that because the Prophet "had been trained in the same house with ‘Ali who knew both how to read and write," therefore he should also have learnt reading and writing. It only betrays ignorance of elementary facts of the Holy Prophet’s life on the part of the reverend gentleman. ‘Ali and the Holy Prophet could not have been trained and brought up together, there being difference of many years between their ages. The Prophet was as much as twenty nine years older than ‘Ali. Let alone the Prophet and ‘Ali being educated and trained together which the great disparity in their ages evidently obviated, it was ‘Ali who got his training in the house and under the fostering care and training of the Holy Prophet himself (Hisham). Abu Talib, in whose house the Holy Prophet was brought up, was a man of very meagre means. He did not appreciate the value of learning and knowledge, nor was their possession regarded as an asset and acquisition in his time. The Holy Prophet, therefore, remained illiterate in his house. But ‘Ali was brought up in the house of the Holy Prophet himself, whose marriage with Khadijah, a wealthy lady of great repute, had placed ample means at his disposal. He also fully realized how priceless a thing good education was. So under his benign care and ennobling influence ‘Ali, judged by the standards of that time, naturally grew up to be a young man of good education.

Wherry’s second objection that if the Holy Prophet had been illiterate and did not know how to read and write, he could not have proved such a successful businessman as he actually was, is born of the mistaken concept of a good and successful Arab businessman of the Holy Prophet’s time. Wherry would not have made this objection if he had known that in Asia, even in the present twentieth century, there are highly successful businessmen who have not received even elementary education. In Mecca, in the Holy Prophet’s time, education was not much in favour. There were very few persons who could read and write, but many carried on most successful and flourishing business. Education was not at that time regarded in Arabia as the sine qua non of a good businessman. Moreover, the fact that Khadijah had given the Prophet a slave named Maisarah who knew reading and writing and who always accompanied him on his trade journeys, knocks the bottom out of Wherry’s objection.

The tradition which says that the Holy Prophet had once asked Mu‘awiyah to write correctly the letters ba and sin does not seem to be quite reliable. In the Abbasid period many traditions derogatory to the Umayyads were forged. This tradition seeks to show off Mu‘awiyah, a prominent member of the distinguished House of Umayyah, as a man of very poor education who could not even write properly such simple letters as ba and sin. Even, however, if this tradition is proved to be reliable, it does not show that the Holy Prophet was literate because he had become so used to dictating the Qur’an that it was not impossible for him to have become familiar with the general form of letters and to have given instruction regarding an improperly written word.

The fact that the Holy Prophet sent for pen and paper in the last moments of his life also lends no support to Wherry’s assumption. It is an established fact of history that whenever any verse was revealed, the Holy Prophet used to send for pen and paper and dictate to one of his scribes what had been revealed to him. The mere fact of sending for pen and paper does not, therefore, prove that the Holy Prophet himself knew how to read and write. Nor do the words referred to by Wherry in support of his contention, viz. "read in the name of thy Lord," prove anything. The Arabic word Iqra’ (read) used in 96:2 not only means the reading of a written thing but also repeating and rehearsing what one hears from another person. Moreover, the Hadith establishes the fact that when at the time of the first revelation the angel, Gabriel uttered the word Iqra’ no writing was actually placed before the Prophet to read. He was simply asked to repeat orally what the angel was reciting to him. Further, the claim of some Christian writers that the idea that the Holy Prophet could not read or write originated with a misunderstanding of his repeated claim that he was the "unlettered Prophet," is as strange as it is ill-based. It is surprising that those with whom he had lived day and night for years and who daily saw him reading and writing could not find out whether or not he was illiterate and were misled into this belief simply by his own repeated claim that he was illiterate. The contention that his (the Holy Prophet’s) use of amanuenses does not militate against his knowledge of the art of writing, for such use of amanuenses was common in that age, even among the most learned, betrays Wherry’s ignorance of Arab and Islamic history. The fact is that there were no ‘Ulama’ or learned men among the Arabs in the time of the Holy Prophet in the sense in which this word is understood now, nor were they used to keeping amanuenses and scribes. There is no instance on record of an amanuensis having been kept by an Arab. There obtains complete unanimity of opinion among scholars that the Holy Prophet could neither read nor write before revelation began to come to him. The Qur’an is quite explicit on the point that the Prophet was not literate at least till he claimed to be a Divine Messenger (29:49). However, he had learnt to decipher a few words towards the later part of his life. (close)

e. 48:30. (close)

1059. For some of the prophecies of the Bible about the Holy Prophet see Matt. 23:‌39: John, 14:‌16, 26; 16:‌7-14; Deut. 18:‌18 and 33:‌2; Isa. 21:‌13-17 and 62:‌2, Song of Solomon, 1:‌5, 6; Habakkuk 3-7. (close)

a. See 3:105. (close)