Dear Moderator,

Please publish the attached response. Thanks.

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Re: What helped Muhammad in establishing Islam.

I thank Mr. Ghulam Murshid for his following comments and questions:

“…I cannot explain one thing - Muhammad was not a highly educated man. Despite
that, how he could blabber the Quranic language, which, I hear, is highly
poetical prose. I do not know Arabic and am not in a position to judge the
quality of the Quranic language, but I hear that the
language of the Quran is unique.

There are "uneducated" people who can compose poems or songs almost
spontaneously i.e. can extemporize. Muhammad, on contrary, was an extraordinary
person, perhaps a genius. Therefore, even when he blabbered, his language would
be of so high standard. Can this be one explanation.”

My response: Not only Muhammad, almost all people of the Arabian Peninsula in
his time were uneducated. History of the time that we have does not tell us if
Mecca had any school or college in the 7th century, although references have
been made to seminaries being operated by the Jews of Medina at the time to
educate their children in the disciplines of their religion.

Because there were no educational institutions in Mecca, not only Muhammad, even
his close relatives and allies such as Abbas, Abu Sofian, Abu Bakr, Omar and
Othman etc. are not known to have been at all educated in the real sense of the
word. Despite being uneducated, they did speak in Arabic and understood what
others spoke to them in their native language.

The Quran called Muhammad “illiterate” for two reasons. One: he was illiterate
or ummi because he and others did not “know the Book,” (2:78, 3:20) and also for
not knowing its contents. Two: Like other people of his time, Muhammad also had
remained “unlearned” (7:157,158 etc), a fact that he emphasized upon to convince
his antagonists that whatever he was telling them did not come to him from a
book, as he was unable to read, hence the veracity of the revelations.

The Quran’s language is oratorical (Abul Ala Mududi, Tafhimul Quran, p.8). The
Quran’s Arabic is the same the people of Muhammad’s time spoke. There is nothing
extraordinary in it. Because Arabic is a mellifluous language, to which Islam
owes a great deal of its success, Muslims have transformed it into a unique
language to impress Muslim and non-Muslim gullible persons. Read or recited with
rhythm, and in a melodious voice, it leaves an un-erasable mark even on the mind
of its casual listeners. This does not mean that the Quran’s Arabic is something
extraordinary. Ask a Qari (one who recites the Quran with rhythm) to read an
Arabic newspaper with the same melody with which he recites the Quran, you will
find the same effect as the Quran leaves on its listeners.

True, Muhammad was an extraordinary person in his lifetime, otherwise how could
he have forced a vast number of mankind into the slavery of Islam? Because no
one would be able to do today what he did some 1,400 years ago, his achievements
would continue to haunt those who despise oppression, killing, plunder and the
enslavement of others’ women in the interest, and for the cause of the religion
he founded.

As Muhammad spoke in Arabic, naturally, he had to blabber in it while recovering
from the fits of epilepsy. What he had blabbered has become the part of the
Quran.

To understand whether or not the Quran’s language is of “high standard,” you
would need to carry out some investigation. My brief indulgence, however, has
proved that the Quran’s language is not perfect and that there are many
linguistic and grammatical errors in it, as pointed out by Ali Dashti in his
book, Twenty-three Years (pp. 48 to 50).

I hope above satisfies your curiosity.

Regards,
Mohammad Asghar
March 25, 2004