NOTICE: This article is a reproduction from Submitters Perspective No 15, April 1986.
As a successful merchant, Muhammad could not possibly have been illiterate.
Because they were unaware of the Qur’an’s miraculous mathematical composition, Muslim religious “scholars” (‘Ulama) fabricated the illiterate story in order to explain the miracle of Qur’an and its repeated challenge to produce anything like it.
Muslim “scholars” who fabricated the illiterate story deliberately distorted the meaning of the Arabic word “UMMY أمي”. This word, throughout Qur’an, means only one thing: GENTILE or one who did not uphold the Torah or the Gospel. (Please look up Qur’an 2:78, 3:20, 3:75, & 62:2.)
Because Muhammad wrote Qur’an with his own hand, no one dared to change the unique manner in which it was written.
No one dared to change the famous word “BEKKA” of 3:96 into “MEKKA”, the hometown they all knew as “Mekka”. No one dared to alter the sequence of Suras and Verses. No one dared to change the unique Qur’anic language and spellings of such words as Salat, Zakat, Hayat, etc.
*** Sister Jamilah Calloway of Raleigh, North Carolina, says: “Muhammad was a successful merchant. He had to know the numbers. However, during his lifetime, there were no numbers as we know them today; the Alphabet Letters were used as numbers. Therefore, Muhammad had to know the whole alphabet, from One to One-Thousand. MUHAMMAD HAD TO BE LITERATE.”
*** Philip Travers of Masjid Tucson says: “You can’t count money, if you don’t know how to count.”
*** Marwan Ibn Al-Hakam destroyed the original Qur’an which was written by the Prophet in order to conceal the blasphemy of injecting the false verses 128 and 129 of Sura 9. [Please see ‘ULUM AL QUR’AN by Ahmad Von Denffer, published by the Islamic Foundation, Page 56.) Please see MUSLIM PERSPECTIVE of March 1985.
*** Some Muslim “scholars” misrepresent Verse 48 of Sura 29 as referring to the Prophet’s illiteracy. However, this Verse refers specifically to the Prophet’s inexperience with previous scriptures, a fact that is repeated throughout Qur’an, and has nothing to do with illiteracy.
*** Those Muslims “scholars” seem to forget that the first word revealed in Qur’an was READ, the whole first revelation dealt with READING & WRITING, and that the second revelation was entitled THE PEN. Please see 96:1, 3, & 4 and 68:1.