The Quran

158

Preface

قُل يا أَيُّهَا النّاسُ إِنّي رَسولُ اللَّهِ إِلَيكُم جَميعًا الَّذي لَهُ مُلكُ السَّماواتِ وَالأَرضِ ۖ لا إِلٰهَ إِلّا هُوَ يُحيي وَيُميتُ ۖ فَآمِنوا بِاللَّهِ وَرَسولِهِ النَّبِيِّ الأُمِّيِّ الَّذي يُؤمِنُ بِاللَّهِ وَكَلِماتِهِ وَاتَّبِعوهُ لَعَلَّكُم تَهتَدونَ

Yusuf Ali

day: “O men! I am sent¹ unto you all, as the Messenger of God, to Whom belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth: there is no god but He: it is He That giveth both life and death. So believe in God and His Messenger, the Unlettered Prophet,² who believeth in God and His words: follow him that (so) ye may be guided.”

Our attention having been directed to various prophets, who were sent with missions to their several peoples, and in each of whose careers there is some prefigurement of the life of the last and greatest of them, we are now asked to listen to the proclamation of Muḥammad’s universal mission. We contemplate no longer, after this, partial truths. It is not now a question of saving Israel from the bondage of Egypt, nor teaching Midian the ethics of business, nor reclaiming the people of Lut from sexual sin or Thamūd from the sin of oppression in power, or ‘Ād from arrogance and ancestor-worship. Now are set forth plainly the issues of Life and Death, the Message of God, the One Universal God to all mankind.
“Unlettered,” as applied to the Prophet here and inverse 157 above, has three special significations. (1) He was not versed in human learning; yet he was full of the highest wisdom, and had a most wonderful knowledge of the previous Scriptures. This was a proof of his inspiration. It was a miracle of the highest kind, a “Sign”, which everyone could test then, and everyone can test now. (2) All organised human knowledge tends to be crystallised, to acquire a partial bias or flavour of some “school” of thought. The highest Teacher had to be free from any such taint, just as a clean slate is necessary if a perfectly clear and bold message has to be written on it. (3) In 3:20 and 62:2, the epithet is applied to the Pagan Arabs, because, before the advent of Islam, they were unlearned. That the last and greatest of the Prophets should arise among them, and they and their language be made the vehicle of the new, full and universal light, has also a meaning, which is explained in C. 12-16.