--Milton Viorst, from In the Shadow of the Prophet

From Chapter 1
1. [This chapter introduces Viorst's major themes and gives an overview of Islamic orthodoxy, which I have here reproduced.] Inevitably, one begins the study of Islam with the Quran, the central text of the faith. [. . .] In omitting answers to many of the questions of daily life, however, it required a complementary source of authority. Because most Muslims also consider themselves people devoted to custom, they specifically sought that complementary source in the conduct of Muhammad and his immediate followers, those known as the rashidun, the "rightly-guided" caliphs.

2. The customs they adopted as law are called the sunna, which can be translated as "the way." [also as 'traditions' . . .] Those who recognize the preeminence of its rules are referred to as Sunnis. No deviation from the precedents of the Prophet is authorized to Sunnis; innovation -- bid'a in Arabic - is regarded as heresy. The overwhelming majority of the Muslims in the Middle East are Sunnis. [. . .] Islam's largest schismatic sect are the Shi'ites[. . . .]

3. Sunnism's doctrines, the mainstream of Islamic belief, trace back to the establishment of the shari'a, Islamic law, in the tenth century. [It is based on the deeds and habits of Muhammad.] Only in the twentieth century did Islam have to deal seriously with dissent -- from (to use contemporary political vernacular) "modernism" on the left and "fundamentalism" on the right. Within this context, "orthodoxy" is an accurate designation for the Islamic mainstream.

4. Orthodoxy, while acknowledging [contemporary material] underdevelopment, has never worried much about Muslim society. Deeply conservative, it is committed to safeguarding Islamic practice -- social and economic as well as ritual -- without change. Orthodoxy does not compare Islamic society with the outside world. It sees the Islamic community as separate and unique. The interest of its leaders, known as the ulama, lies in preserving the status quo, which they defend against attacks from both flanks. [. . . But all 'types' of Islam oppose the secularism associated with the West.]

5. The ulama (singular alim) are the chief purveyors of Islamic orthodoxy. They are Islam's highest-ranking officials. Their title, which translates as "the learned," comes from the Arab word ilm, meaning "knowledge."

6. The ulama are not clergy; they are jurists. Sunni Islam, which has no Vatican-like central authority, also has no formal ecclesiastic bodies. That is not surprising. In a faith in which conduct is more important than spirituality, it makes sense that the highest authorities are jurists rather than priests. [. . .]

7. Today's ulama have not strayed from the Islamic vision that their predecessors defined in crafting the shari'a, a thousand years ago. [. . .] The Islamic establishment rejects any legal revisions to accommodate either new learning or new needs, much less human reason.
   From Chapter 3

8. [The initial part of this chapter concerns the life of Muhammad (born c. 570 A.D.).] Muhammad was about forty when he told [his first wife] Khadija that he was receiving revelations from God. He soon began disseminating these revelations around the town, urging Meccans to abandon Arabia's array of gods in favor of the one, omnipotent God. Khadija, extremely supportive, became his first convert, but few Meccans followed her lead. [. . .]

9. Muhammad never provided much detail about his encounters with God but, according to Muslim tradition, while meditating alone in a cave or on a hilltop, he had visions in which he heard a voice. The speech was in Arabic. He was certain the words were God's. Some Quranic passages suggest that God himself was speaking, others that it was the Angel Gabriel, serving as an intermediary.

10. Muhammad insisted that, after each encounter, he committed to memory the words that he had heard. What he later transmitted in Mecca, and subsequently in Medina, he declared, was not his personal interpretation, not a paraphrase, and surely not his own opinions. The words were God's precisely.

11. Quran in Arabic means "recitation," in this case the recitation of God. Jews and Christians, while considering their scriptures holy, acknowledge many of them to be of human authorship. Islam holds the entire Quran to be a verbatim record of God's speech. To be a Muslim requires acceptance of God's authorship. Believers hold that the Quran, being God's words, is a perfect book. [Therefore there is no history of theological interpretation of the Quran, other than combing it for legal pronouncements.]

12. [Viorst explains some of the doubts cast on this claim of Quranic divine immutability.] Scholars point out that much of the Quran's content required no guidance from God. Muhammad's Arabia was already familiar with the idea of monotheism, if only from the Christian and Jewish tribes that inhabited the region. Many of the Quran's lessons replicate [. . .] the scriptures of the Christians and Jews, the "people of the book." [Viorst suggests that although Muhammad knew no foreign languages, as a merchant he easily could have come in contact with such beliefs.]

13. Muslims explain scriptural similarities by saying that God repeated to Muhammad what He had earlier told the Christians and Jews. Arabia was an oral society, and the Quran originated in talk. Muhammad, some say, had the revelations inscribed after concluding that a monotheistic faith, by its nature, needed a "book." The Quran treats Christians and Jews as earthly authorities, with the power to verify God's message.

14. "If thou [Muhammad] are in doubt concerning that which We reveal to thee," the Quran says, "then question those [Christians and Jews] who read the scripture before thee" (10:95). It also says that "the Torah and the Gospels" foreshadow Muhammad's later appearance as prophet, though scholars have found no passages to confirm this assertion (7:157). [. . .]

15. Islamic orthodoxy maintains that Muhammad was illiterate. The claim is based on a Quranic verse (7:157) that describes him as ummi, a word normally translated as "unlettered." The word illustrates the linguistic difficulties that the Quran presents.

16. Scholars are unsure whether the sense of ummi is properly "illiterate" or "untaught," or whether it has a meaning that is unrelated to letters at all. One fanciful translator has even chosen to render it as "immaculate." Some scholars believe that, in the context of Muhammad's middle-class upbringing and mercantile vocation, "unsophisticated" may be the most plausible rendering.

17. Orthodox Muslims see none of these definitions as pejorative. If Muhammad were unable to write, they reason, he is obviously innocent of the charges of the infidels that he, not God, is the author of the Quran. His illiteracy would be evidence that he was singled out to spread the word of God. Ummi provides proof that he was God's choice.

18. In fact, in the end, whether Muhammad could read and write scarcely matters. What counts is his credibility as the carrier of God's message. Muslims take Muhammad at his word. The divine origin of the Quran is the seed of Islamic belief. To believers, the Prophet's assertion of this truth cannot be denied.