bngenoh said:
But, it is interesting because of the command to read. Muslims became bearers of knowledge from ancient Greece and the near east and through their conquest they had a lot of effects on the world as it one of those being laying the seeds of the Renaissance (Moors),
Yes, but the devil in the details. When Mohamed encountered the strange guy in the Hera cave, the guy told him "read!", and Mohamed replied "I'm not a reader". When i was a kid i was puzzled by this answer. A logical answer would be "i read what you idiot? don't you see we are in a cave in the middle of the night?" :)
Well, the conversation repeated a few times: the guy "read!" Mohamed "I'm not a reader", until the guy started to read the first verses "read in he name of your lord who created man from a clot, read in the name of your lord the bountiful who taught the man with the the pen that what the man doesn't know". Note that this god did not create man from nothingness but from a clot of blood, and taught him not from divine inspiration through the heart but through physical means. Anyway. Muslims believe that Mohamed did that answer because he did not know to read, but there was nothing to read! They say that he was analphabet (Ummi).
I think that this an-alphabetism has been invented later to imply that he did not invent the Koran himself. However, he was a successful merchant from a noble and rich town family (he had contempt for those Bedouins of the desert) and he traveled a lot between the multicultural Mecca to the multicultural fertil crescent. During his travels he is even said to have lived with monks. One possibility for this word "ummi" is that is has been used later by the "Omayyad" dynasty who took over the Muslim word after having assassinated Uthman, the fourth Calif (from whom the official Koran has been compiled, burning all other versions from Mohamed disciples and family). One other possibility is that "Ummi" means "from mother" (mother = "umm" in Arabic) as he maybe was a goddess follower (the cave where he was meditating is named "Hera") since we know from the Koran itself that there was also some Greek mythological influence alongside Judaism and christianism, for instance where the famous verses where the cranes (the birds) are mentioned.
Some have suggested that "I'm not a reader" which transcribes in Arabic into "qari'" meant that he was not from the karaites, who were the rabbis who were able to read from the Torah. And maybe the "Ummi" thing is just to say that he didn't know the Torah because he wasn't allowed to read from it (to imply that what he says about Abraham, Moises and Joseph comes from god, not from his own knowledge).
When he returned from the cave he was in deep shock and trembling. It is his brother-in-law, the mysterious Waraqa-ibn-Newfel, a Jewish scribe and poet who convinced him that the guy he saw in the cave was an angel from god, and from that it all started according to the legend.
Having interpreted the "read!" comment by the next generation Muslims as a command to seek knowledge is indeed fortunate. Most of these Muslims were under threat from the religious zealots who saw badly their flirting with astrology and philosophy. They were most of the time under the protection of the Prince of the time. Most of these scientists were from Persia and i suspect that they used the fluid interpretation of some unclear Koranic references as a protection to work independently, as do the Sufis mystics. Maybe strategic enclosure :)
