The Quran

157

Preface

الَّذينَ يَتَّبِعونَ الرَّسولَ النَّبِيَّ الأُمِّيَّ الَّذي يَجِدونَهُ مَكتوبًا عِندَهُم فِي التَّوراةِ وَالإِنجيلِ يَأمُرُهُم بِالمَعروفِ وَيَنهاهُم عَنِ المُنكَرِ وَيُحِلُّ لَهُمُ الطَّيِّباتِ وَيُحَرِّمُ عَلَيهِمُ الخَبائِثَ وَيَضَعُ عَنهُم إِصرَهُم وَالأَغلالَ الَّتي كانَت عَلَيهِم ۚ فَالَّذينَ آمَنوا بِهِ وَعَزَّروهُ وَنَصَروهُ وَاتَّبَعُوا النّورَ الَّذي أُنزِلَ مَعَهُ ۙ أُولٰئِكَ هُمُ المُفلِحونَ

Ahmed Ali

Who follow the messenger, the gentile Prophet,¹ described in the Torah and the Gospel, who bids things noble and forbids things vile, makes lawful what is clean, and prohibits what is foul, who relieves them of their burdens, and the yoke that lies upon them. Those who believe and honour and help him, and follow the light sent with him, are those who will attain their goal.”

Ummi (root UMM), derived like ummah from Umm – mother, source, basis, foundation. Basically al-ummi means a person in a natural state as a birth. In the Qur’an it has been used for non-Jews, gentiles, heathens and non-ahl-e-kitab, that is, people who do not possess a Scripture, the Arabs themselves being called ummi in this sense in 3:75. In pre-Quranic days only the Jews and Christians were called ‘people of the Book’, the Arabs being called ummi which, however, did not mean that they were illiterate.
Its use for illiterate (and a distinct attribute of the Prophet) stats at a later date, through a misunderstanding of verse 48 of Surah 29, The Spider, read in isolation and out of context of ‘the people of the Book’ in section (ruku‘) 5 of the Surah:
You did not read any Scripture this,
nor wrote one with your right hand…
The Qur’an is clearly dealing here with the conferment of the Scipture on the Prophet, thus making him and his followers a people of the Book, as until the revelation of the Qur’an the Prophet was a non-ahl-e-kitab, an ummi, and therefore neither read a Scripture nor wrote, that is, copy of a book or Scripture. This, it seems, was misinterpreted to mean that he was illiterate. But the Qur’an, addressing the Prophet, says:
Read, for your Lord is most beneficent
Who taught by the pen,
Taught man what he did not know. (96:3-5)