Monk Bahira

The statement of this Christian is clearly false, because the Prophet (PBUH) only met the monk Bahira once when he was a child when his uncle Abu Talib traveled with him to the Levant. This is well-known and famous from the books of biography and history. It is strange that the questioner says: I did not find in the books of biography details of the Prophet’s (PBUH) life from the age of eight until the age of twenty-five, because no book of biography is free of this matter. For example, refer to the biography of Ibn Hisham.

What this Christian said is not an innovation, as his ancestors from the People of the Book and the polytheists had said it before him. It is appropriate for us here to mention what Al-Zarqani said in Manahil Al-Irfan 2/308, where he said in the context of the doubts raised about the miraculous nature of the Qur’an: The first doubt and its refutation: They say that Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, met the monk Bahira and took from him and learned from him, and that knowledge in the Qur’an is nothing but the fruit of this taking and that learning. We refute this firstly by saying that it is a claim devoid of evidence and devoid of specification and designation, and such claims are not accepted as long as they are not supported by evidence. Otherwise, let them tell us what Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, heard from the monk Bahira, when that was, and where it was

Second: History does not know more than that he traveled to the Levant for trade twice, once in his childhood and once in his youth, and he did not travel other than these two times, and he did not go beyond the market of Busra in them, and he did not hear from Buhayra or from anyone else anything about religion, and his matter was not a secret there, but he was with him a witness the first time, which was his uncle Abu Talib, and a witness the second time, which was Maysarah, the slave of Khadija, with whom the Messenger went out to trade at that time, and all that happened was that the monk Buhayra saw a cloud shading him from the sun, so he mentioned to his uncle that this slave would have a role, then he warned him about him from the Jews, and his uncle returned with him out of fear for him and he did not complete his journey. Likewise, this incident was narrated through paths in some of whose chains of transmission are weak, and the narration of Al-Tirmidhi does not contain the name of Buhayra, and there is nothing in any of the narrations that he heard from Buhayra or received from him a single lesson or a single word, neither in beliefs nor in worship nor in transactions nor in morals, so how can they lie?

Third: Those same historical narratives suggest that this monk would stand as a teacher and guide to Muhammad because he gave him or his uncle good news about his prophethood. It is not reasonable for a man to believe in this good news that he conveys and then appoint himself as a teacher to its owner who will take from God and receive from Gabriel and be the teacher of teachers and the guide of guides and guides. Otherwise, this monk would be contradicting himself.

Fourth: If the monk Bahira was the source of this miraculous Islamic flood, he would be the most deserving of prophethood, messengership, and delegation for this great matter

Fifth: It is impossible in the course of custom for a human being on the face of the earth to complete his education and culture, then mature to an extraordinary maturity in what he learned and was cultured to the point that he becomes the teacher of the entire world simply because he met, by chance and coincidence, a monk twice, while the student was busy both times with trade instead of teaching and was illiterate and did not know how to read or write, and he was young and a follower of his uncle the first time, and he was carrying a heavy trust on his neck that he must fulfill completely the second time, which is the trust of work and sincerity in Khadija’s money and trade.

Sixth: The nature of the religion to which the monk Bahira belongs refuses to be a source for the Qur’an and its guidance, especially after that religion was afflicted with what afflicted it of change and distortion. Evidence of that is sufficient for you in what we have established from the previous comparisons between the teachings of the Qur’an and the teachings of others, and what we have decided about the loyalty in the teachings of the Qur’an and not others, and what we have indicated that the Qur’an depicted the knowledge of the People of the Book in its time as ignorance and then set out to correct it, and depicted their beliefs as misguidance and then worked to correct them, and depicted their actions as shameful and reprehensible and then urged abandoning them. So return to what we have mentioned, then remember that the one who lacks something cannot give it, and that error cannot be a source of correctness, and that darkness cannot be a ray of light 🚶🏻‍♂️

Seventh: The atheists who make this doubt say that the Qur’an is the only historical work that most faithfully represents the spirit of its time. If they are honest in this statement, then we refer this doubt to the Qur’an itself, and we call upon them to read it even once with reason and fairness, so that they may know from it how religions, their scholars and their writers were in its time, and to know that it was not suitable for a sound professorship, but rather it was in dire need of a sound professorship. If they do that, then they will find rest and will relieve the people from this misguidance and deviation, from this confusion and turmoil. May God guide us and them, for guidance is his guidance, and he for whom God has not given light, has no light.

Eighth: If this accusation had any basis in truth, his people would have been happy with it and would have risen up and sat down for it, because they were the people who knew the Messenger of God best and were the most eager to disgrace him, deny him, and frustrate his call by any means. However, they were more honorable to themselves than these atheists. When they wanted to accuse him of learning the Qur’an from someone other than him, they did not think of saying that he learned the Qur’an from the monk Bahira, as these people said, because reason does not believe that and frivolity does not allow for it. Rather, they resorted to a man who had some humor and frivolity in attributing the title of master to him, until when reason rejected attributing the title of master to him because of its impossibility, souls accepted it because of its humor and humor. They said that only a human being taught him

And by human they meant a Roman blacksmith who was busy between his hammer and anvil, lost all day in the dross of iron, its fire, and its smoke. However, two things came together in him, which they considered to be the basis for promoting their accusation: one of them was that he resided in Mecca, a residence that facilitated Muhammad’s constant and close contact with him and receiving from him, and the other was a stranger to them and not one of them, so that they would imagine that… Their people believed that this man had knowledge that neither they nor their fathers had, and that would be closer to believing in his mastery of Muhammad. They forgot that the light of truth was still shining and pointing to him, because this Roman blacksmith was a foreigner who did not know Arabic. It is not reasonable that he was the source of this Qur’an, which is the most eloquent of Arabic texts. Rather, it is the miracle of miracles and the pride of the Arabs and the Arabic language: “The tongue of the one they refer to is foreign, while this is a clear Arabic tongue.” [An-Nahl: 103] End quote.