learned the qur’an from another human?

others, from amongst those who argue that muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) got the qur’an from some other source allege that he was taught by another person.

some of them specifically allege that he was taught by waraqa ibn nawfal who, as we mentioned earlier, was one of the four men who le ft the pagan faith of makkah in search for the true religion of abraham and returned as a christian.

here we must state that the true religion of all of the prophets including that of abraham and jesus was islam.

by “islam”, we mean submission to god’s will. it is the same way, as we mentioned in the introduction that all of the prophets called to: pure monotheism.

by “christian” (in the case of those like waraqa ibn nawfal and salman the persian) we mean that he was a person who was following to the best of his ability the true islamic teachings of jesus which was in line with the teachings of all the other prophets and expecting the last prophet. this is what is meant by the religion of abraham that they were in search of.

this is the religion that waraqa ibn nawfal was looking for and apparently found because when muhammad was seeking an explanation of what he had seen after his first revelation waraqa told him

"this is the same one who keeps the secrets (angel gabriel) whom allah had sent to moses. i wish i were young and could live up to the time when your people would turn you out." allah's messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) asked, "will they driveme out?" waraqa replied in the affirmative and said, "anyone who came with something similar to what you have brought was treated with hostility; and if i should remain alive till the day when you will be turned out then i would support you strongly." but after a few days waraqa died. [sahih al-bukhari]

while it is clear in the passage above that waraqa died just a few days after muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) first received revelation from the angel gabriel, it was also clear that waraqa ibn nawfal believed in his prophethood.

so the claim that waraqa taught the qur’an to muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) simply holds no water.

others try to allege that salman the persian taught the qur’an to muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

salman, who was from persia, was a zoroastrian who converted to christianity and ventured to syria to learn more about his religion. there, he learned from one of the christian bishops about the coming of the last prophet and the signs accompanying his advent. he then traveled to hijaz where he was seized, sold into slavery, and taken to madinah, where he eventually met muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

when he found in muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) the fulfillment of all the signs of which he had been informed, he became a muslim.

in ibn ishaq's sirat rasul allah, we find the following account of salman's journey in search of the true religion and the coming prophet:

"`asim ibn `umar ibn qatada said that he was told that salman the persian told the prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that his master in 'ammuriya told him to go to a certain place in syria where there was a man who lived between two thickets. every year as he used to go from one to the other, the sick used to stand in his way and everyone he prayed for was healed. he said, 'ask him about this religion which you seek, for he can tell you of it.' so i went on until i came to the place i had been told of,  and i found that people had gathered there with their sick until he came out to them that night passing from one thicket to the other. the people came to him with their sick and everyone he prayed for was healed. they prevented me from getting to him so that i could not approach him until he entered the thicket he was making for, but i took hold of his shoulder. he asked me who i was as he turned to me and i said, 'god have mercy on you, tell me about the hanifiyyah, (the religion of abraham).' he replied, 'you are asking about something men do not inquire of today; the time has come near when  prophet will be sent with this religion from the people of the haram (i.e. the hijaz) . go to him, for he will bring you to it.' then he went into the thicket.

so, as we can see, had muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) been a impostor as the people who make this claim against him imply, then salman would not have accepted his prophethood, much less participated in the writing of the qur’an with him.

secondly, salman did not meet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) until after the migration to madinah and hence after more than two -thirds of the qur’an (which includes the stories of the prophets mentioned in the bible) had already been revealed in makkah.

thirdly, salman was a persian and his original tongue was not arabic. the qur’an’s literary style is so brilliant and awe-inspiring that even linguists who were born speaking the arabic language have not been successful at replicating it (despite repeated challenges from the qur’an itself to be discussed later) much less a persian who’s mother tongue was not arabic.

even if someone wanted to claim that it was someone other than the people mentioned above, then we repeat the challenge of the qur’an

…say: "bring your proof if you are truthful." [qur’an 2:111]

as for anyone other than that, then we ask would there not be some evidence that someone was teaching muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)? would not someone have stepped forward to say that he was muhammad’s (peace and blessings be upon him) “teacher”? yet, we find no such evidence of this.