How do you explain the hadith in which the Mohamad requests something to write with (Bukhari vol. IV, no.393) when he is supposed to be illiterate?
Ummi means "unlettered," which is different, although the majority of the Ulema agree that it also means illiterate in the secondary sense. However, this illiterateness precludes neither the possibility of a miracle (mu`jiza) of the Prophet
at that particular event; nor the possibility that he may have learned to read and write certain words in time, among them his own name and the Basmala! Here is the hadith:
"When the Prophet
decided to accomplish the Minor Pilgrimage in the month of Dhu al-Qi'da, the Meccans refused to grant him permission to enter Makka until he stipulated to them that he would not stay for more than three days. After they wrote the treaty, they wrote: 'This is what Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, has stipulated.' They said: 'We do not acknowledge that you are so. If we knew that you were the Messenger of Allah, we would not prohibit anything to you. However, you are Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah.' He said: 'I am the Messenger of Allah and Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah.' Then he said to 'Ali ibn Abi Talib - Allah be well-pleased with him: 'Erase {the Messenger of Allah}.' 'Ali said: No, by Allah! I will never ever erase you! (lâ wallâhi lâ amhűka abadâ!)." Whereupon the Messenger of Allah took the treaty - he did not excel at writing (laysa yuhsinu yaktubu) - and wrote: 'This is what Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah has stipulated: He shall not bring any weapon into Makka except sheathed swords; he shall not leave it with any of its dwellers even if they wish to follow him; and he shall not prevent any of his Companions from residing in it if he so wishes.'
Narrated from al-Bara' ibn 'Azib by al-Bukhari, Ahmad, and al-Darimi. Muslim narrates it in shorter form. The words "the Messenger of Allah took the treaty and wrote" have been interpreted by the scholars to mean: "had someone write." Al-Dhahabi considered that he only wrote his name in the above hadith, and mentions that some scholars said that he wrote the entire text as a mu'jiza on his part. Some, like the great Maliki Imam Abu al-Walid al-Baji, considered that the Prophet
wrote it himself and defended his view in his book Tahqiq al-Madhhab.
The claim (by Dr. Syed Abdul Latif in his article "Was the Prophet Unlettered?" in The Muslim World published by the late Dato Syed Ibrahim Omar Alsagoff) whereby Anas would take out his note-books and say: "These are the traditions which I had heard from the Prophet and *submitted for his perusal*" is a mistranslation of Anas's related words qara'nâ 'alayh, qara'tu 'alayh, 'aradnâ 'alayh, all of which mean the act of *reading outloud* for those present to hear. See the narrations adduced by al-Khatib in Taqyid al-'Ilm ("The Fettering of Knowledge") (p. 95 lines 9, 17, and 24; p. 96 l. 6) and in al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi's chapter entitled "Writing is the means to fetter knowledge and preserve it from oblivion" in his Nawadir al-Usul (p. 39-41).
As for the difference of opinion among the Companions concerning the Prophet's
prohibition or permission of writing other than the Qur'an, the best word is perhaps al-Dhahabi's statement in the chapter of 'Abd Allah ibn 'Amr ibn al-'As in the Siyar (4:258): "He wrote a lot of material with the Prophet's
permission and his special dispensation for 'Abd Allah while he generally disliked for the Companions to write other than the Qur'an from him. Later, consensus formed, following the difference of views among the Companions, pertaining to the permissibility and desirability of fettering knowledge with writing."
When did Prophet (saw) learn to read and write
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Re: When did Prophet (saw) learn to read and write
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