Pearl of Wisdom

When the Christians of Najran came to the Prophet (SAWA), their chiefs were al-Ahtam, al-'Aqib and al-Sayyid ...they asked, 'To what do you call us?' He said, 'To bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah, and that Jesus was a created servant who ate, drank [water] and relieved himself... The Prophet (SAWA) said, 'Then invoke Allah's curse upon me. If I am telling the truth, the curse will descend upon yourselves and if not, then it will descend upon me.' They said, 'You have spoken fairly.' Then they made an appointment for the challenge. When they returned to their homes, their chiefs told them...'If he comes to invoke curse upon us with his people, we will accept the challenge, because he would not be a prophet, but if he challenges us with his close family, we must not accept, for he would not ris k his own family unless he was truthful. When the morning arrived, they came to the Prophet (SAWA), and he was accompanied by the Commander of the Faithful, Fatima, al-Hasan, and al-Husayn...They got scared and said to the Prophet (SAWA), 'We will give you what you want, so spare us this mutual invocation of curse.' The Prophet (SAWA) made a truce with them that they pay the tax (jizya) and they went back.'

Imam Ja'far ibn Muhammad al-Sadiq [as]
Nur al-Thaqalayn, v. 1, p. 347, no. 157

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Question : #198 Category: Islamic History
Subject: Prophet Muhammad was uneducated?
Question: Assalamualaikum'

Why did Angel Jibreel forced Muhammad(SAW) to read, when he knew that he was uneducated? What was the moral/lesson behind this?

Jazakallah'
Answer: A common misnomer that is widespread about the final Messenger of God is that he was illiterate. With some research, the notion of the illiteracy of the Prophet can be refuted.

The Prophet may not have normally exercised reading and writing in public, but there were exceptions even to this. F
urthermore, the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt peace be upon them were asked about the meaning of the Ummi in the phrase Ummi Prophet from the Holy Quran, and they replied, By Allah, he could read and write in seventy languages.

As for the word Ummi in the title the Ummi Prophet, it is the association to Umm al-Qura, another name the City of Makkah is known for. The Ummi Prophet means the Prophet who is a citizen of Umm al-Qura.

Further, the Prophet (pbuh) was a well know trader/commerce merchant which would require to the minimum some form of reading and writing skills. And the Hadiths mentions The Prophet (pbuh) as the City of Knowledge..., this would further proof that he could not have been an illetrate.

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