Was the Prophet Illiterate or Literate?

[جوري]

Is Muhammad's style the same in all collections of hadiths?

yes they are..

the Quran however is written in its entirety like a poem..whether the verses were revealed in mecca or medina, 14 days apart or 22 years apart, it matched perfectly in style, context, meaning, rhyme.. if you think that is a small feat especially in a language like Arabic, then what can I say you are entitled to your convictions
as br. woodrow would say imagine the constitution to the Tune of the william Tell overture and still have it make sense.

cheers

 

[Fishman]

[COLOR="Red"]LINK REMOVED[/COLOR] ...or, even worse, that Hadith don't matter. :w:

 

[Whatsthepoint]

it's 30 lectures, only about 17 or 18 hours. why not learn something about the Qur'an, Prophet, Salla Allahu Alaihe Wa Salaam or Religion before making all of your judgements? you'll be better equipped to make your points. and actually, i know a Hafz who was totally blown away by the first couple of cds[i have it on cd, mp3 as well]; he said he learned more about the Qur'an in 3 hours than he learned in his entire life! so instead of spamming for a while, don't be afraid to listen...

18 hours is a lot, especially if one has to listen a religious source talking about the religion they adhere to..

 

[sur]

yes they are..

the Quran however is written in its entirety like a poem..whether the verses were revealed in mecca or medina, 14 days apart or 22 years apart, it matched perfectly in style, context, meaning, rhyme.. if you think that is a small feat especially in a language like Arabic, then what can I say you are entitled to your convictions
as br. woodrow would say imagine the constitution to the Tune of the william Tell overture and still have it make sense.

cheers

Poetry always have little or more fiction & exaggerration.
Quran though rhyming at times is NOT poetry. Calling it poetry is like making same allegations that enemies of Prophet made.


[36:69] We have not instructed the (Prophet) in Poetry, nor is it meet for him: this is no less than a Message and a Quran making things clear:

[37:36] And say: "What! shall we give up our gods for the sake of a Poet possessed?"

[52:30] Or do they say:- "A Poet! we await for him some calamity (hatched) by Time!"

[069:041] It is not the word of a poet: little it is ye believe!

 

[Whatsthepoint]

yes they are..
interesting..:smile:
the Quran however is written in its entirety like a poem..whether the verses were revealed in mecca or medina, 14 days apart or 22 years apart, it matched perfectly in style, context, meaning, rhyme.. if you think that is a small feat especially in a language like Arabic, then what can I say you are entitled to your convictions
as br. woodrow would say imagine the constitution to the Tune of the william Tell overture and still have it make sense.

cheers

Yes, I am entitled to my convictions.
Let's say I believe your claims are true.. It's perfectly possible to sustain the same style, rhyme, meaning etc in surahs produced years apart, considering the fact that Muhammad memorized every surah that had been produced before and perhaps had already been planning surahs to come.
An even if such an achievement were highly unlikely... it would be more likely than any God-related explanation.

 

[جوري]

I don't understand your explanation?
further it doesn't reconcile with the history behind the suras, take suret al-kahf for instance if you read the history behind it, you'd realize your explanation is nonsensical.

as for the likely or unlikely, you'll have to resolve that on your own time.. I was once there before.
I have gone through every logical explanation.
There is none!

peace

 

[Whatsthepoint]

I don't understand your explanation?
further it doesn't reconcile with the history behind the suras, take suret al-kahf for instance if you read the history behind it, you'd realize your explanation is nonsensical.
I have read the wiki article about it and failed to realize how it make my explanation nonsensical. It does make one part of it unlikely to be true for this particular surah.

as for the likely or unlikely, you'll have to resolve that on your own time.. I was once there before.
I have gone through every logical explanation.
There is none!
I disagree.

peace

Is there a surah, resulting in a question or a rebutal, that was produced/revealed at the spot?

 

[جوري]

you say

considering the fact that Muhammad memorized every surah that had been produced before and perhaps had already been planning surahs to come.

I say, in suret al kahf as a brief and one of many examples, he was expected to come up with a 'story' never told or known in all of Arabia or mentioned else where in previous scripturs, and he said (SAW) ok, but didn't say 'insha'Allah' if so Allah wills, which is another moral to the story, needless to say, no (wa7i) came unto him, for two weeks, as is in verse
18:23

THE CAVE

them. Hence, do not argue about them otherwise than by way of an obvious argument,32 and do not ask any of those [story-tellers] to enlighten thee about them."

(23) AND NEVER say about anything, "Behold, I shall do this tomorrow," (24) without (adding], "if God so wills."" And if thou shouldst forget [thyself at the time, and become aware of it later], call thy Sustainer to mind and say: "I pray that my Sustainer guide me, even closer than this, to a consciousness of what is right!"

afterwards the verses of zhu el-qarnyen and the dwellers of the cave were revealed unto him.

now that should cover the subject of memorized them before hand.. you'd think he'd have relieved himself from the taunting of the Jews and christians of Mecca..

I ask, do you not think we have all explored these options?
when the sura was revealed to produce a sura like ay of the Quran be it like the shortest (suret al-kawthar) not one poet at the was able to, it is inimitable..
someone came up with 'al feel ma alfeel maa adrak ma alfeel, zolomoho taweel wa zhylo qaseer' to match with the style of rhyme, but the subject was nonesense, it literally translates to ' the elephant what do you know of the elephant, his trunk is long, his tail is short'
yes that was the one of the many attempts tried by people of the time..

'when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'
you work this out in your mind, and until you can come up with a convincing explanation, again it will remain what it is. The last and only remaining miracle to modern day!

you listen to a sura, and find me like it, in any previous scripture, you find me like it by the numerous teachings and sayings of the same man whom it was revealed to, you find me like it, in the community and the place where it was revealed, and after you are done with all of the above, you bring me a plausible motive for him to have done all of this, and then we'll consider different truths...

[media]http://youtube.com/watch?v=VlgC5CKh26U[/media]

peace

 

[- Qatada -]

:salamext:


If the Prophet (peace be upon him) never got revelation from Allah, it's amazing how he could know so much events which would occur in the future.


http://www.islamicboard.com/discover-islam/42701-prophecies.html



That show's that he got some knowledge off a divine source - One who knows the past, present and future.


If you argue that the likes of nostradamous did similar, then indeed he had many false 'prophecies' which did not occur. Many of his 'prophecies' were also not clear cut, whereas the Prophecies of Muhammad (peace be upon him) were so clear, all of them which are authentic did take place (hundreds if not thousands have taken place throughout our history) and there are many more which have to take place yet. You can refer to the link which i have given above for the details.

 

[YusufNoor]

Is there a surah, resulting in a question or a rebutal, that was produced/revealed at the spot?

Peace be upon those who follow the guidance,

using the word "revealed," absolutely but for Ayats. once the community was set up in Medinah, the Mu'mins used to go to the Prophet, Salla Allahu Alaihe Wa Salaam, with their problems and hope for revelation to instruct them.

there's an issue of divorce [that i haven't had time to find yet, but...] and older woman comes to the Prophet, Salla Allahu Alaihe Wa Salaam, to tell him that her husband has divorced her and she demands that the divorce be put aside, iirc. the Prophet, Salla Allahu Alaihe Wa Salaam tels her to have Sabr and that's it. she's NOT happy with the answer and listening to the story you can almost feel the tension in the air when suddenly, BOOM, revelation comes down and another Ayah dealing with divorce is revealed!

the SAME woman is in 2 other different stories that i have heard. one is that Umar ibn al Kittaab, RadiAllahu Anhu, stops the entire army while talking with this woman, folks start to get riled and want to move on but he [Umar] is NOT having it. after he tells them who she was and that if Allah Subhannahu Wa Ta' Aala listen to her fom above the seventh heaven then who is he to not listen to her. [that is from Menk]

another is from the Seerah set that Qatada posted in which Umar ibn al Kittaab RadiAllahu Anhu, is the Kalifa and he's walking down the street with another of the believers and this woman approaches Umar and starts telling him how he needs to fear Allah Subhannahu Wa Ta' Aala. his companion wants to dismiss her and Umar stops him. when she is finished admonishing him [Umar ibn al Kittaab RadiAllahu Anhu], he tells his companion who she was and that Allah Subhannahu Wa Ta' Aala listen to her fom above the seventh heaven. he then tells him that if she chose to continue, he{Umar] would have left ONLY for Salah, but immediately returned to alllow her to continue!

however, rarely were whole Surahs revealed, excepting Yusuf and some of the smaller Mekkian Surahs. and Umar ibn al Kittaab RadiAllahu Anhu has an amazing relationship with revelation as more than once revelation came down as Umar had previously spoke!

you should listen to 3 or 4 parts of the Menk to get an idea of the history behind the Qur'an. if you KNOW the history, then regardless of what miracles are in the Qur'an, then you realize the Qur'an is itself the Miracle!

 

[Whatsthepoint]

PA:

It seems you may have misunderstood me...when I said he memorized every surah that had been produced before I wanted to show how I think he kept in touch with the style, rhyme etc. I don't think he thought of the entire Quran and decided to reveal it in parts.
I do think he produced the surahs though, I don't know why it ahd taken him 15 days to produce this one, perhaps he was feeling under the weather, he could have been afraid of something and therefore uncapable of poducing it, he might have wanted to make a true masterpiece and took 2 weeks to do it, perhaps the delay itself was a statement of some sort...the possibilities are endless.

I've hard about the challenge many times. I do not speak fluent arabic, that is to say I do not speak arabic at all, so you can't expect me to be convinced by this. First, I don't think there's a way to determine whether a certain text is better than a surah and I think there's some bias on your (muslim) part when comapring the beauty of the Quran and the beauty of everything else.

you listen to a sura, and find me like it, in any previous scripture, you find me like it by the numerous teachings and sayings of the same man whom it was revealed to, you find me like it, in the community and the place where it was revealed, and after you are done with all of the above, you bring me a plausible motive for him to have done all of this, and then we'll consider different truths...

There are many motives for prophets to be prophets, some are rational, some irrational...

 

[- Qatada -]

Elaborating on what i said earlier, nostradamous was not clear in what he stated.


Let's read one of his 'prophecies' (from a pro nostradamous site):

In the year 1999, in the seventh month,
from the sky will come the great King of Terror,
bringing back to life the great King of the Mongols.
Before and after, Mars to reign by good fortune.

Commentary: Although the date of the event appears to be two years too early, it is important to remember thatNostradamus often wrote in anagrams. The real clue is that the date 1999 is nothing more than a numeric anagram. If we reverse the order of the “1”s and “9”s, we arrive at the date 9-11-1 (the date of the 9-11 attacks).

http://www.nostradamus101.com/prophecies/part3/



​

It's already clear from that, that this 'prophecy' isn't even clear cut, yet alone not even clear in meaning. Why talk figuratively and not explain it as it is if you are so truthful? Why not clearly say that an aeroplane will crash into two towers? Does that really look like a prophecy, is it even fulfilled? No. Since it doesn't even make sense.





Let's compare this to a Prophecy of Muhammad (peace be upon him):

The Prophet predicted the forms of government after him


"The Prophethood will last among you for as long as Allah (God) wills, then Allah would take it away. Then it will be (followed by) a Khilafah [caliphate] Rashida (rightly guided) according to the ways of the Prophethood. It will remain for as long as Allah wills, then Allah would take it away. Afterwards there will be a hereditary leadership which will remain for as long as Allah wills, then He will lift it if He wishes. Afterwards, there will be biting oppression, and it will last for as long as Allah wishes, then He will lift it if He wishes. Then there will be a Khilafah Rashida according to the ways of the Prophethood," then he kept silent.

[recorded in Musnad Imam Ahmad (/273)]


We're under the underlined stage, and all the events before it have occured in our islamic history. Inshaa'Allaah (God willing) the rest of the prophecy will soon come into effect.


According to the hadith, the prophet (peace be upon him) will be followed by rightly guided caliphs (Abu Baker, Omar, Uthman and Ali) and after those caliphs will come hereditary leadership (the other Caliphs) and after that will come tyrannical rule (today) and after that will come a rightly guided caliphs yet again inshaa'Allaah. [God willing.]


​

Looking at the narration above, even someone with basic language skills can understand what is being conveyed. They don't need to interpret it in a stranger manner to fit it into their own motives. Rather, it is clear cut, it is the truth [as we see the state of the muslims today under oppressive rule without a true Khalifah/caliph.]

So who truly is the Prophet? One who conveys a message clearly without error, or one who tries to give a statement a figurative meaning, something which is not clear at all - so that people may believe in his falsehood?


Indeed the true Messenger of Allah is the one who is truthful, the one who is known even by his close relatives and even enemies to lie not even once in his lifetime! So how could he lie about the Lord of the Worlds?

 

[جوري]

PA:

It seems you may have misunderstood me...when I said he memorized every surah that had been produced before I wanted to show how I think he kept in touch with the style, rhyme etc. I don't think he thought of the entire Quran and decided to reveal it in parts.

I don't think you've.. I have already demonstrated whether you choose to accept it or not, that no one else was able to immitate the style of the Quran in full, as in also meaning and not just rhyme.. he himself couldn't have, evidenced by his own style which differs greately from that of the Quran.

I do think he produced the surahs though,

Who has? you can't make vacuous comments as such without backing them up... we can all think any number of things that are utterly nonsensical if we can't back them up!

I don't know why it ahd taken him 15 days to produce this one, perhaps he was feeling under the weather, he could have been afraid of something and therefore uncapable of poducing it, he might have wanted to make a true masterpiece and took 2 weeks to do it, perhaps the delay itself was a statement of some sort...the possibilities are endless.

No the possibilities are endless, short of writing that they are.. it wasn't enough that he had to come up with something matching in rhythm, style, context meaning etc. it had to be something true of history itself, how would he know of zho el qarnyen and ahel al kahf? you think the possibilities are endless, bring me one plausible possibility then!

I've hard about the challenge many times. I do not speak fluent arabic, that is to say I do not speak arabic at all, so you can't expect me to be convinced by this. First, I don't think there's a way to determine whether a certain text is better than a surah and I think there's some bias on your (muslim) part when comapring the beauty of the Quran and the beauty of everything else.

I think anyone merely listening can distinguish if something is poetic, declamatory, notfying, assuring, threatening.. so tells is medical research, people often pick up on the tone and body language than they do of actual words spoken. Other than that bias or not, please do understand, I have no vested interest whatsoever, in getting you to be convinced of one thing or another.. I merely write this to tell you, it isn't enough for you to come up with 'the reasons are endless' bring a reason forth and follow it through!

There are many motives for prophets to be prophets, some are rational, some irrational...

that doesn't tell me anything.. God is in the details!

peace

 

[Whatsthepoint]

:salamext:


If the Prophet (peace be upon him) never got revelation from Allah, it's amazing how he could know so much events which would occur in the future.


http://www.islamicboard.com/discover-islam/42701-prophecies.html



That show's that he got some knowledge off a divine source - One who knows the past, present and future.


If you argue that the likes of nostradamous did similar, then indeed he had many false 'prophecies' which did not occur. Many of his 'prophecies' were also not clear cut, whereas the Prophecies of Muhammad (peace be upon him) were so clear, all of them which are authentic did take place (hundreds if not thousands have taken place throughout our history) and there are many more which have to take place yet. You can refer to the link which i have given above for the details.

Those aren't really impressive, they're mostly "Islam will dominate and conquer the world", and part from that Muhammad was a military genius, so it can't have been that hard for him to predict the approximate spread of it.
The others are very vague and nothing but common sense predictions.
Of course, some are interesting, but as you said, there are interesting ones in other books, sources as well.
I don't know whether there aren't any unfulfilled prophecies in the Quran, there are many people claiming the opposite. many Christians will claim that there aren't any unfulfilled ones in the Bible and I'm quite sure, if Nostradamism were a religion, there'd be no falsehoods in his writings..

"Indeed those from before you from the People of the Book (christians and jews) divided into seventy-two groups. And, indeed, this group (Muslims) will divide into seventy-three. Seventy-two groups will be in the Hellfire and one of them will be in Paradise. And it is the Jamaa'ah (group).

And as it seems, this one is wrong, Christians have divided into thousands of groups...

 

[- Qatada -]

"Indeed those from before you from the People of the Book (christians and jews) divided into seventy-two groups.

And, indeed, this group (Muslims) will divide into seventy-three. Seventy-two groups will be in the Hellfire and one of them will be in Paradise. And it is the Jamaa'ah (group).

And as it seems, this one is wrong, Christians have divided into thousands of groups...

I think you never read it properly, read it again - the part in bold.

Divided, and 'before you' means past tense.




About your other explanations, no - all you've done is reject them when they've become clear. Why don't you comment on the one which i mentioned in the above post?


Did Muhammad (peace be upon him) have so much knowledge by himself that the Muslims would go through these stages, and coincidently these stages happened by chance in perfect order?

Or did the world choose to obey what he wanted to 'make up'? Or maybe the Lord of the Worlds informed Him because He chooses whoever He wills to inform mankind of what He wants to convey?



He chose Muhammad (peace be upon him), the truthful one - since when is God incapable of doing anything?

 

[Whatsthepoint]

I don't think you've.. I have already demonstrated whether you choose to accept it or not, that no one else was able to immitate the style of the Quran in full, as in also meaning and not just rhyme.. he himself couldn't have, evidenced by his own style which differs greately from that of the Quran.
Why do you assume an author has to speak in rhymes outside his work?
Have any recent attempts been made by non-muslims native arabic speakers?
And still, Quran being the greatest work of literature in Arabic of all times is still a more valid explanation that God-did-it.

No the possibilities are endless, short of writing that they are.. it wasn't enough that he had to come up with something matching in rhythm, style, context meaning etc. it had to be something true of history itself, how would he know of zho el qarnyen and ahel al kahf? you think the possibilities are endless, bring me one plausible possibility then!
The two-horned one does not impress me, sorry.

I think anyone merely listening can distinguish if something is poetic, declamatory, notfying, assuring, threatening.. so tells is medical research, people often pick up on the tone and body language than they do of actual words spoken. Other than that bias or not, please do understand, I have no vested interest whatsoever, in getting you to be convinced of one thing or another.. I merely write this to tell you, it isn't enough for you to come up with 'the reasons are endless' bring a reason forth and follow it through!
I don't like the Arabic language, to me it sounds rather ugly, so I don't feel reassured nor threatened..
I try to!

peace

peace

 

[جوري]

Originally Posted by PurestAmbrosia
I don't think you've.. I have already demonstrated whether you choose to accept it or not, that no one else was able to immitate the style of the Quran in full, as in also meaning and not just rhyme.. he himself couldn't have, evidenced by his own style which differs greately from that of the Quran.

Originally Posted by whatisthepoint Why do you assume an author has to speak in rhymes outside his work?

what does that mean?

Have any recent attempts been made by non-muslims native arabic speakers?
And still, Quran being the greatest work of literature in Arabic of all times is still a more valid explanation that God-did-it.

I believe many have attempted throughout the centuries, and it is still open to those interested in that challenge! I find no worldly explanation for the Quran, and you may certainly be free to not believe that it is!

No the possibilities are endless, short of writing that they are.. it wasn't enough that he had to come up with something matching in rhythm, style, context meaning etc. it had to be something true of history itself, how would he know of zho el qarnyen and ahel al kahf? you think the possibilities are endless, bring me one plausible possibility then!

The two-horned one does not impress me, sorry.

I don't think it was revealed to impress you.. I mean you no offense by that of course..

I think anyone merely listening can distinguish if something is poetic, declamatory, notfying, assuring, threatening.. so tells is medical research, people often pick up on the tone and body language than they do of actual words spoken. Other than that bias or not, please do understand, I have no vested interest whatsoever, in getting you to be convinced of one thing or another.. I merely write this to tell you, it isn't enough for you to come up with 'the reasons are endless' bring a reason forth and follow it through!

I don't like the Arabic language, to me it sounds rather ugly, so I don't feel reassured nor threatened..
I try to!

Many people don't like Arabic, it sounds harsh, another remarkable thing for me personality the disparity between how it sounds in the Quran and how it sounds in real life... as for the the assurance or the threatening was a mere analogy of how the style of the spoken word has more an impact than the actual word spoken..
peace

 

[Whatsthepoint]

I think you never read it properly, read it again - the part in bold.
Divided, and 'before you' means past tense.
I don't think there had been 72 christian sects before the time of Muhammad, let alone 71 jewish sects..

About your other explanations, no - all you've done is reject them when they've become clear. Why don't you comment on the one which i mentioned in the above post?

Did Muhammad (peace be upon him) have so much knowledge by himself that the Muslims would go through these stages, and coincidently these stages happened by chance in perfect order?
It lists four stages, only three of which have come true, however not necessarily in the right order. There was oppression of muslims before the end of the Caliphate, namely in the Iberian penninsula and during the crusades.

And as I said before, such prophcy does not impress me all that much.
The most impressive one IMHO is the one about bedouins and high buildings..

 

[- Qatada -]

I don't think there had been 72 christian sects before the time of Muhammad, let alone 71 jewish sects..

I think they had been, try looking into their history. Heck, i was surprised to find out some Jewish sects believe in reincarnation. So yeah, i do believe it occurred.

And as I said before, such prophcy does not impress me all that much.

I don't really mind if it doesn't impress you, what matters to me is the lesson we extract from it about our own ummah of muslims.

The most impressive one IMHO is the one about bedouins and high buildings..

That's kool.




So yeah, we learn from this that Muhammad (peace be upon him) couldn't have made all these Prophecies up. Since there too clear and real to have been guessed.

 

[Whatsthepoint]

what does that mean?
Muhammad might have used a poetic stlye, spoke in rhymes etc in the Quran and used normal language in real life (hadiths).
Many people don't like Arabic, it sounds harsh, another remarkable thing for me personality the disparity between how it sounds in the Quran and how it sounds in real life... as for the the assurance or the threatening was a mere analogy of how the style of the spoken word has more an impact than the actual word spoken..
peace

Yeah, however it depends on the indivual how they will percieve them.