ٱلَّذِى عَلَّمَ بِٱلْقَلَمِ
Root: ع ل م. To know. ʿIlm, ʿālim, maʿlūm, ʿalāma (a mark — that by which a thing is made known) all come from this root. In treating the word ʿālamīn in al-Fātiḥa we touched on this root's sense of "that by which something is known".
The verb is in Form II (tafʿīl): ʿallama. This form conveys transitivity and acting upon — "he brought it about that he knew, he caused him to acquire knowledge." That is, knowledge is presented here not as something the human being produced on his own but as something done to him.
This is the verse's most basic claim, and it will be stated openly in the fifth verse. For the moment let us note the weight the pattern carries: the subject of the verb is God, its object the human being. The human being stands here in the passive, not the active position.
Root: ق ل م. The root's original sense is to cut, to whittle, to take off the ends. Its derivatives:
- قلامة (qulāma) — a piece cut off and thrown away from something, a paring.
- تقليم (taqlīm) — the cutting of nails. It is still used today.
- قلم (qalam) — a reed whose tip has been cut to make it ready for writing.
So the pen is not "the thing that writes"; it is "the thing that has been whittled". It takes its name not from its function but from its making. A piece of reed becomes a pen when its tip is cut at a slanting angle. The word carries in itself how the instrument came to be.
This detail may look unimportant, but it says something: the pen is not found in nature, it is made. Writing is not something the human being possesses of himself; it is a technology he has produced. And the verse says that the one who taught this technology too is God.
- al-Qalam 68/1: "Nūn. By the pen and what they write." — the Qurʾān swears by an instrument. In the widespread lists of the order of revelation this sūra comes immediately after al-ʿAlaq. That is, both of the first two texts of revelation speak of the pen. This is too narrow an interval to be counted a coincidence.
- Āl ʿImrān 3/44: "When they cast their pens as to who should take charge of Mary…" — here the pen is the rod used in casting lots. The root's sense of "a cut rod" appears here in its bare state.
- Luqmān 31/27: "If the trees on earth were pens and the sea, with seven seas added after it, were ink, the words of God would not run out." — here the pen is used as a measure of inexhaustibility.
| Reading | Sense | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| What is taught is writing | "He taught the human being the pen (writing)" | The subject of the teaching is writing itself |
| The means of teaching is the pen | "He taught the human being by means of the pen" | Knowledge reaches the human being by way of writing |
Both are mentioned in the classical sources. The second reading looks the better suited to the context, because the next verse will leave the subject of the teaching general: "He taught him what he did not know." That is, verse 4 states the means, verse 5 the scope. This is a preference, and it is not binding.
The historical picture. At the beginning of the seventh century there was writing in Mecca. The Arabic alphabet was in use; commercial records were kept and agreements were written down — the page of the boycott, which is transmitted to have hung in the Kaʿba, is cited as one example of this. But literacy was not widespread. Knowledge was transmitted predominantly by word of mouth: poetry was memorised, genealogies were drilled in, tribal history was recounted. Memory was the library.
The Qurʾān says openly that the Prophet came from within this order: "You were not reciting any book before this, nor writing it with your right hand" (al-ʿAnkabūt 29/48). And it names him al-nabī al-ummī, the unlettered prophet (al-Aʿrāf 7/157-158).
Now see the oddity. Someone who does not know how to read is told "read"; and as the ground for it, the fact that writing was taught to the human being is adduced.
1. It takes the ground of the command out of personal capacity. It does not say "you can read"; it says "He is the one who teaches." The capacity is sought not in the one addressed but in the one who teaches.
2. It gives notice at the outset that what is coming will be lasting. In an oral culture a saying lives as long as those who have memorised it live. Writing changes this: knowledge becomes independent of the lifespan of the one who knows. That the first revelation speaks of the pen shows that the text coming down was conceived not as an oral tradition but as a text that would be put on record. And so it was.
3. It takes knowledge out of the monopoly of a single person. Memorisation produces dependence on the one who memorises; writing loosens that dependence. A written text can be copied, compared, checked.
A connection with the social sciences. How the passage from oral to written culture changes the manner of thinking became a separate field of study in the twentieth century (the work of Jack Goody and Walter Ong on this subject is widely known). The common finding of these studies is this: writing is not merely a means of record; it makes accumulating, looking back, comparing and criticising possible. In oral transmission a saying changes a little with each repetition and the change is not noticed, because there is no fixed text to compare it with. Writing establishes that fixity.
I do not tie this to the verse as a miracle. I say only this: in the first sentences of a text that takes knowledge as its subject, the mention of the technology by which knowledge is transmitted is an apt choice.
4. It is consistent with the Qurʾān's own practice. The Qurʾān devotes its longest verse (al-Baqara 2/282) to the recording of debts in writing. The command there is plain: "Write it down." That is, the pen is necessary not only for revelation but for everyday justice. The writing down of a debt is a precaution taken against the fallibility of memory — and it is a precaution that protects the weaker party, because in an oral dispute the one who loses is generally the one with the smaller voice.
The verse speaks of an instrument and counts the instrument a favour. This is a frame worth dwelling on.
The means of transmitting knowledge have changed from that day to this: the reed pen, the printing press, the telegraph, the archive, the screen, the network. Each time the same thing happened — the portability and storability of knowledge increased, and each time this increase enlarged both the possibility and the risk. Writing makes both the true and the false lasting. The record carries both justice and slander.
What the verse says is not to sanctify these instruments but to recall their source. The existence of the instrument can be recounted as a success story ("the human being invented writing") or as a trust ("it was taught to the human being"). The difference between the two comes out in what is done with the instrument: one who counts it his own achievement gives no account; one who counts it a trust does.