Writing

You know, because the use of writing was so very new to people at the time of the Messenger,

even the best of those who could write would write their letters in a very crude way.

But we know that they didn't have paper or pens like we do today,

so it's not surprising that their letters are mostly no better written than you could manage with a stick in the sand.

For instance, when the Messenger wrote letters to the leaders of other peoples,

like the Emperor of Rome,

you would think that they would have been written by one of the best writers from among the muslims.

But even those letters look as though they were written by people who were only just learning to write.

The spoken word was still much more important.

When the Reading was first written down, it didn't even have the dots as part of the letters,

so those who didn't already know what the words said, couldn't tell for sure if a letter was a Ta or a THa, or a Fa or a Qaf.

The dots were added hundreds of years later,

along with all those little marks around the letters

to help those who didn't speak Arabic to know how to say them.

And the reason that they were added is because the muslims were so determined to make sure that the Reading was never changed.

These words were spoken by the Messenger,

but he was reading the Words of God.

These words were so special that as people began to use writing for all sorts of every day things,

they tried to write the Wonderful Reading in the most beautiful ways that they could because the words were so holy.

They would decorate the pages, or write letters in gold,

or write just a few words on a page in giant books.

And the way that the muslims wrote down these words may have changed as they were passed down through history,

but they made sure that when muslims learn to read those words nowadays,

they speak them in the same way that they were spoken by those who were there to hear them spoken by the Messenger