The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 2) — Page 609
PT. 9 AL-A'RĀF CH. 7 given the Prophet, a slave named Wherry's assumption. It is an Maisara who knew reading and established fact of history that writing and who always accompanied whenever any verse was revealed, the him on his trade journeys, knocks the Holy Prophet used to send for pen bottom out of Wherry's objection. and paper and dictate to one of his scribes what had been revealed to him. The mere sending for pen and paper cannot, therefore, prove that the Holy Prophet himself knew how to read and write. ب س The tradition which says that the Holy Prophet had once asked Mu'awiyah to write correctly the letters and 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 and Even, however, if this tradition be proved to ب cw. 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, (read) used in the verse referred to above not only means the reading of a written thing, but also repeating and rehearsing what hears from another person. Again, the words one occurring in a tradition can be spoken of even of a blind man who can recite the Quran properly and well. Moreover, the Ḥadīth establishes the fact that when, at the time of the first revelation, the angel Gabriel said to the Prophet (read), no writing was actually placed before him to read. He was simply asked to repeat orally what the angel was reciting to him. The word & 3 not only means to read a writing but to repeat orally or recite or rehearse what another man has uttered. be reliable, it does not show that the (i. e. he recites well) Holy Prophet was literate, because he had become so used to dictating the Quran that it was not impossible for him to have become familiar with the general form of letters and to give instruction regarding an improperly written word. It is also possible that someone, while rehearsing some portion of the Quran to the Prophet, might have stopped at a certain place, not being able to decipher the writing, and the Holy Prophet having asked the cause of stopping, the reader might have replied that the delay was due to the letters and not having been written properly or legibly. This might have led the Holy Prophet to instruct Mu'awiyah to see that the letters were written correctly. ب س The fact that the Holy Prophet sent for pen and paper in the last moments of his life also lends no support to 1049 a Wherry's inference that the idea that the Holy Prophet could not read or write originated with misunderstanding of his repeated claim that he was the "Illiterate Prophet", is as strange as it is ill- based. It is really very surprising to say that those with whom he had