Reading
&
Writing

You know, people don't always think that certain words mean certain things.

People in some places can use completely different words to other people in different places,

even when they are talking about the same things.

They speak different languages.

But even in the same language, words twist and turn, and shift in meaning.

And this can be very useful in a world that is more than black and white,

but in a world that is just listening and speaking and remembering, that slippery nature of words can be a problem.

Two people can meet and think they have agreed about something,

then later, one of them can say that's not what I agreed to.

Now if only they had something which could show each one what they had actually said at the time,

something that could capture those words they had agreed on and fix them in some way,

a kind of picture of the words that would freeze what was said at one time in a way that could be shown back to them later.

Like if their words were written down.

Memory is not always reliable.

So when the early muslims fell in love with the incredible beauty of the words of God read by the Messenger, they were eager to learn them,

but no matter how good their memories, it was easy for people to make mistakes.

So from very early on, the Messenger encouraged people to learn to read and write.

And those who had been captured in battle were set free if they knew how to read and write and were prepared to teach the muslims.

When they wrote things down they had something to check their memories against.

Even then, they wrote without pen or paper,

just a sharpened stick to trace ink on an animal skin,

or perhaps a burnt piece of firewood scraped on a dried animal bone.

Their version of the Reading was not a beautiful printed book, as it is today,

but words that were heard from the lips of the Messenger,

and learned, and repeated over and over in the Sala.

Then, when the Messenger died, no more words could be added to his Reading.

But the early muslims had found the words he had spoken so magical and beautiful and important that they travelled far and wide to tell other people about them,

to spread the Message and teach people to use its words in the Sala.

So to help make sure that people didn't make mistakes,

and to fix those words that had been spoken by the Messenger in a way that could be read in far away places and in later times,

those who had been close to the Messenger gathered together those words and wrote them down.

And those words have been carried around the world and passed down through history,

and we can see those exact same words in those beautiful books that muslims use in their homes and mosques today.

How do we make letters into words?

How letters were made beautiful