The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 2) — Page 610
CH. 7 R. 20. AL-A'RĀF PT. 9 قُلْ يَا يُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنِّي رَسُولُ اللهِ إِلَيْكُمْ Say, “O mankind! truly I. 159 جَمِيعَا الَّذِى لَهُ مُلْكُ السَّمَوتِ Allah to Whom belongs the am a Messenger to you all from kingdom of the heavens and the وَالْأَرْضِ ۚ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا هُوَ يُخي وَيُمِيتُ earth. There is no God but He "21:108; 25:2; 34:29. lived day and night for years could not find out that he was illiterate but were misled into this belief only by his own repeated claim that he was & (illiterate). Only a man of Wherry's hostile attitude could come to such a conclusion. The question is whether it was the Prophet's own contempor- aries who suffered from misunderstanding or those who came afterwards. If it were the former, then the question would naturally arise how those, who saw him daily with their own eyes reading and writing, could possibly fall victims to the glaring misunderstanding that he was illiterate. If it were the latter class, even this then the whole theory of misunderstanding advanced by Wherry looks frivolous, because the argument put forward by him is that because the Holy Prophet was considered to be illiterate, therefore, the matchless style of the Quran was regarded as a miracle. This inference is both foolish and flimsy, inasmuch as Muslims and other contemporaries of the Prophet, who were fully aware that he knew quite well how to read and write, could never believe in such a miracle. of his 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 his ignorance of Arab and Islamic history. The fact is that there were no ulema 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. We know of only one learned man among the Meccans in the Prophet's time, viz. Waraqah bin Naufal, and he was his own secretary. It is a pity that in their zeal for misrepresenting Islam, some Christian writers do not even hesitate to invent historical facts. The words, and remove from them their burden and shackles, occurring in the latter part of the verse, contain a hint that by accepting the Promised Prophet Christians will get rid of the curse of the original sin of Adam and Eve and of the punishment thereof which, according to them, has dogged their footsteps through no Wherry's last argument in support fault of theirs. 1050