[quote author=mkrnhr]
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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 :)
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This has been an interesting thread and the bold above caught my attention as I remembered that according to writings, which i was looking for; as part of Mohammad's upbringing, or those of others of the faith, it was apparently common to send son's to live with Bedouins in the desert as part of the process before resuming city life (like a rite of passage?). There were description of his stay in the desert with a family, but have not located it. Anyway, while trying to do so, came across this, and am not quite sure who this person is; to confirm accuracy of research. It is a Christian site to understanding Islam and conversing with Muslims - there is some strange apologist type language for the other theological religions (main site), yet this link indicates discrepancies about the Qur'an made by Mohammad, which are interesting, however, they of course do not afford the same study to their own source books of the Christan and Jewish foundations, which is obvious.
Nonetheless, this might be interesting for some and their may be much error in what he says, too; not a scholar on all things Qur'an by any means; but as said, the focus is mostly on Mohammad himself.
There are in four parts as listed below with later descriptions if linking to the original article.
Are There Mistakes in the Qur’an?
by Abd al-Masih
_http://grace-and-truth.org/AM-AreThereMistakesInTheQuran.htm
There are basically four different sources for the mistakes in the Qur’an. Let us consider these four sources as listed below:
1. Mistakes Muhammad was not responsible for but can be attributed to the environment he lived in.
2. Mistakes of Muhammad that came from his limited Bedouin perspective.
3. Mistakes of Muhammad that he knowingly committed and developed.
4. Mistakes in the Qur’an intentionally committed by translation.
[sample]
c) Enmity between the Jews and Christians was another source of confusion in Muhammad's search to know God. The Christians fought the Jews because the Jews said, “Christ is not the Messiah,” and “Christ is not the Son of God.” The Jews fought the Christians because the Christians said, “You don’t know who God really is” and “You do not know the Spirit of God, you are only in the old covenant and do not know the new covenant of God.” They quarreled in front of Muhammad. It is written in the Qur’an, “The Jews say, the Christians are nothings and the Christians say, the Jews are nothings” (Sura 2:113). Out of this enmity, all of what one said against the other was incorporated into the Qur’an. Muhammad said: “God will punish you at the day of judgement for the differences you have among you.” He really wanted to know the truth and what he found were differences between Jews and Christians, as well as differences between right-wing Christians and left-wing Christians. He was very puzzled. Therefore, he accepted what he heard. He thought about these things and incorporated them into his own beliefs. In essence, he formed his own dough with ingredients from other religions and baked his own bread.
