> Muhammad was not even literate, and unless he was inspired by divinity, his ideas were extremely powerful.
He used to take retreats in the caves near Mecca to meditate and reflect. It was during one of these sessions that he later claimed that he was overwhelmed with the inescapable presence of archangel Gabriel who commanded him to "Read!". This directive of Gabriel to Mohammad is held to be the first verse of the divine revelation in Islam.
Read!
In the Name of your Lord Who created
Created Man(kind) from a clot of blood
Read!
And your Lord is Ar-Rahman
Who Taught by the 'Pen'
Taugh Man(kind) that which he knew not.
[Q.96 'Al-Alaq']
As mentioned in a comment to a dup post, Paul is neglecting the reflect phase. For some this occurs prior to writing. Others, take time when writing to pause and reflect.
p.s.
> Muhammad was not even literate
We do know that he dictated and others wrote messages [correspondences] that were sent. So no records of him writing, but this was not an uneducated man. He was a merchant, traveled, and conversed with other men at markets, oasis rest stops along the trade route. (And he was not a frivolous man.)
The reason Muhammad is said to have been "illiterate" is because Qur'an refers to him (yes, it is the most meta book I've ever read) as "the un-lettered Prophet". "Ummi".
Personally, I think this is a misreading, since these are technical terms (like 'Pen' in above cited verses), and 'letter' refers to the 'mystic letters* given to Moses'.
i.e. Mohammad the Gentile Prophet. The prophet for the un-Lettered, the Gentile.
Oh, definitely. In fact, Qur'an shares the same root as recite/read and one translation for it is The Recitation (also connoting a lecture). But it is addressing a plurality of audiences.
For the messenger recipient of this message, recite is more sensible, since the knowledge that he lacks is imparted directly by an angel, so he doesn't need to lex and parse, and can just relay and recite. Possibly, though this is certainly not the case with him, the messenger doesn't even need to get semantic with a message - just go and deliver it. Like IP. (Though ours likely has various ears doing deep readings..;)
For us, we have to lex and parse (read & eval), and then we can recite (print). Just like a REPL.
So what's interesting here with these opening verses of the Sura Clot of Blood is that in my 'reading' of this book it is an invitation and instruction on how to read this book.
We are urged to read/recite ['the Book'], in/with the name of our Lord. We have a 'Lord', named 'Ar-Rahman, the Infinitely Good, sometimes rendered Most Gracious*. IT's accomplishments we are told include Creating and Teaching. Creating human. How? From a clot of blood. Then teaches it. How? With a Pen.
And after this, this creature called Man has new knowledge, new information, that it didn't have before (or possibly could never hope to independently obtain).
So, continuing my 'reading', I decided to treat this book as a Hypertext. Without nasty markup, however. So the avenue left is that semantics are links, stuff like that. So here, a reasonable place to start doing full text search to look for clusters with 'Ar-Rahman' and 'Teaching'. Because remember, we're supposed to read in/with our Lord's name.
Sure enough, there is a whole Sura called 'Ar-Rahman'. And right off the bat, looks like we took the correct semantic link:
In the name of Allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim
ar-Rahman
Taught/teaches the Qur'an
Created Man
Taught him eloquence/expression [for reciting]
The movement of the Sun & the Moon
is *Computed*. [new information - it's a simulation]
And the Stars and the Trees [cosmic & life form scale]
prostrate themselves [no freewill for them/deterministic]
And the Heaven IT raised [spatial or mind/conscious expansion]
and *imposed* 'the Balance' [? tbd]
That you not transgress [it regulates]
within the Balance [it's all around us..]
-- how to eval --
And establish weight in justice [evaluate (REPL) with careful weighting (decision trees)]
and do not make deficient/discount
the Balance. [which is the TAO]
-- continue REPL to load full 'read-with' library --
After which you can read the rest with 'the understanding' that you got from 'Ar-Rahman', per instructions of reading in/with this name.
The rest of the Sura is oddly Buddhist in flavor. A list of reminders of various favors of God, punctuated by a repeated chorus pointedly asking, almost in an accusative 'i-told-you-so' voice 'Which of the favors of your lord, you twain deny?' Now keep in mind some of these favors are in Paradise (good stuff) and the others are in Hell (very nasty stuff). But apparently, they are all 'favors'! And a 'twain' is involved. That would be the sentient 'mind' that needs 'duals' to 'read' reality. +/-. top/down. left/right. good/bad. etc.
So. We are in a simulation. It is governed by TAO. Not everything enjoys choice. We do. Duality makes us see a unity as good and bad, while in actuality it is all good. Optimistic readings, only please. Happy readings.
* God (in general in quite a few religions) has nice names and scary names, corresponding to Grace and Majesty. This is a very nice name. Good and Generous, unlike any.
He used to take retreats in the caves near Mecca to meditate and reflect. It was during one of these sessions that he later claimed that he was overwhelmed with the inescapable presence of archangel Gabriel who commanded him to "Read!". This directive of Gabriel to Mohammad is held to be the first verse of the divine revelation in Islam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad%27s_first_revelation#...As mentioned in a comment to a dup post, Paul is neglecting the reflect phase. For some this occurs prior to writing. Others, take time when writing to pause and reflect.
p.s.
> Muhammad was not even literate
We do know that he dictated and others wrote messages [correspondences] that were sent. So no records of him writing, but this was not an uneducated man. He was a merchant, traveled, and conversed with other men at markets, oasis rest stops along the trade route. (And he was not a frivolous man.)
The reason Muhammad is said to have been "illiterate" is because Qur'an refers to him (yes, it is the most meta book I've ever read) as "the un-lettered Prophet". "Ummi".
Personally, I think this is a misreading, since these are technical terms (like 'Pen' in above cited verses), and 'letter' refers to the 'mystic letters* given to Moses'.
i.e. Mohammad the Gentile Prophet. The prophet for the un-Lettered, the Gentile.
*consult your local Rabbi :)
https://aish.com/the-mystical-power-of-hebrew-letters/