First word Angel Gabriel said to Muhammad ﷺ
It was the first word recited to Muhammad ﷺ and he didn't say, "I can't read and write" - He said, "Ma ana bi QARI”, in Arabic: “I’m not a reciter.”
Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, responded to Gabriel:
مَا أَنَا بِقَارِئٍ —(Maa ana bi qari’)
This doesn’t mean, “I can’t read or write.” He did not say, “I am illiterate.”
He said, “I am not a reciter.”
A qari’ is a reciter, someone known for reciting from memory. The Arabic phrase, “maa ana bi . . ” is not about personal skills.
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Let’s start over — Muhammad, is fasting, in a cave, on a mountain. Gabriel enters and says, “IQRA” (Recite!)
Muhammad ﷺ said, “Maa ana bi qari” (I am not a reciter.)
In pre-Islamic Arabia, ‘Al QURRA’ (plural of QARI) were known as “The Reciters” of poetry, news, lineage, and oral literature.
Muhammad ﷺ was not one of them. He said it real clear.
If the meaning were simply “I cannot read,” Arabic has a better way to say it: “La a’rif al-qira’ah — or, La aqra’.”
This is not what he said.
The angel Gabriel, didn’t bring a book. He brought sound.
The command was to hear, memorize, and recite later.
This how revelations began from time immemorial —for all the prophets, like Abraham, Isaac, David, Solomon, John the Baptist, and Jesus.
This preserves honesty, context, and oral nature of the recitation of revelation — and it keeps the moment grounded in how language actually worked at the time.