Two verses, Qur’an: 7.157 and 29.48 are used
to adduce the theory of Muhammad’s illiteracy. 7.157 refers to him as ‘ummi’: a word conventionally translated
as ‘unlettered’, but which could also mean ‘lacking a scripture’, in the sense
of being neither Jewish nor Christian. Adding to the uncertainty is the fact
that the Qur’an frequently refers to itself as a kitab, a book, while 25.4-6 it is strongly implied that Muhammad
could indeed read. Even more suggestively, Ibn Hisham has reports of which
imply that Muhammad could not merely read, but write. (p. 53)
Muslim scholar of the tenth century, Ibn
Mujahid, established what subsequently became the orthodoxy: that there were
seven, equally valid, qira’at—‘readings’—of
the Qur’an. The modern, widely held notion that there is one single text was
established only in 1924, with the publication in Cairo of an edition of the
Qur’an that went on to become the global standard. (Tom Holland, In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for
Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World [London: Abacus, 2013], 335)
