And if these skills can be dispensed with altogether, so that a person attains complete knowledge and teaches to perfection without them, that is better and more perfect for him. Such was the state of our Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, of whom Allah said:

“Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered Prophet, whom they find mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel that are with them.”

His being unlettered did not mean that he lacked knowledge or the ability to recite from memory, for in these matters he was the foremost of all masters. Rather, it meant that he neither wrote nor read written texts, as Allah said of him:

“You did not recite any scripture before it, nor did you write one with your right hand.”

People have differed over whether he wrote with his own hand on the day of al-Hudaybiyyah as a miracle granted to him, or whether he did not write. His inability to write, despite attaining the fullest purposes of writing while being barred from that means, was among his greatest virtues and most magnificent miracles. For Allah taught him without the intermediary of a book, as a miracle granted to him and because of the distortion and alteration that had entered books. He himself, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, taught his community the Book and wisdom without needing to write with his own hand.

As for the other eminent Companions, such as the four caliphs and others, most of their leading figures could write because they needed to do so, since none of them was given the revelation that he was given. Thus, his distinctive unlettered state was a perfection in his case, because he could dispense with writing through something better and more perfect. For others, however, it was a deficiency, because they lacked virtues that could only be fully attained through writing.