“He learned it all from Bahira, or from Waraqa”

The objection

“He learned it all from Bahira, or from Waraqa.”

It draws on the Muslim tradition itself. As a child, Muhammad ﷺ goes with his uncle Abu Talib towards Syria; at Busra, a monk, Bahira, notices him and recognises in him a prophet (Ibn Hisham, I, 180-183; Tirmidhi 3620). At the beginning of the mission, Khadija takes him to her cousin Waraqa ibn Nawfal, a Christian who copied passages of the Gospel in Hebrew (Bukhari 3; research file v1, part 2).

A monk in childhood, a learned Christian at the beginning of the mission: that, says the objection, is where the biblical stories of the Qur’an come from. A Christian version of the story, moreover, makes Bahira the teacher of the Prophet ﷺ (research file v1, part 2).

The answer

The Qur’an reported the accusation, and answered it

The idea of a hidden teacher is not new. The Meccan adversaries of the Prophet ﷺ, who had watched him live among them, were already putting it forward, and the Qur’an reports it:

His contemporaries were looking for a teacher who would dictate to him ﷺ “morning and evening” (25:5): a man close at hand, in Mecca. Neither a monk glimpsed on a journey in childhood, nearly thirty years before the mission began at forty (Ibn Hisham, I, 233), nor a man who died soon after the first revelation, fits that portrait.

Bahira: a child recognised, not a pupil taught

Bahira is known only through the account of the tradition. That account says three things:

• the age: the child is nine, or twelve, or it is the year 13 of the Elephant, depending on the version (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 52; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 248; al-Salihi, II, 140);
• the setting: a journey of his uncle Abu Talib towards Syria, and a meeting at Busra (Ibn Hisham, I, 180-183);
• the meaning: the monk recognises on the child the seal of prophethood, and advises that he ﷺ be protected from the Jews (Ibn Hisham, I, 180-183; Tirmidhi 3620; research file v1, part 2).

The monk recognises; he does not teach. The objection keeps the meeting and reverses its meaning.

And the tradition hands this account down with reserve. Ibn Ishaq gives it “as they claim”, without a chain (Ibn Hisham, I, 180; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 246). The version of al-Tirmidhi, “good, singular” (hasan gharib), comes by one path only, and adds that Abu Bakr sent Bilal with the child. Ibn Kathir points out that Abu Musa, who reports it, tells of what he did not see, and that this addition is strange: Abu Bakr was then only nine or ten years old, and Bilal younger still (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 247-248). The sources do not even agree on the monk’s religion: a Christian for Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Kathir, a rabbi of Tayma according to the Siyar of al-Zuhri (Ibn Hisham, I, 181; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 249; al-Salihi, II, 145).

The objection is thus caught in a dilemma. Either the account is true, and it shows a child recognised in the course of a journey. Or it is not, and there is no Bahira left to teach anything at all.

A report of Ibn Manda speaks of a second journey, at about twenty, and of a monk of the same name. Its chain is weak, and Ibn Hajar says only that, if it is authentic, it may concern another journey (al-Salihi, II, 144).

Waraqa: he recognised a revelation already received

In al-Bukhari, the order of events is answer enough. The revelation comes first, at Hira, during the retreat of the Prophet ﷺ: the angel commands him “Read”, and the first verses of sura 96 come down. It is afterwards, when he returns, his heart trembling, that Khadija takes him to Waraqa (Bukhari 3).

Waraqa teaches nothing. He recognises “the Namus that God sent down upon Moses”, foretells that his people will drive him ﷺ out, and adds: “If only I could be alive when your people drive you out!” (Bukhari 3). He was not: according to the same account, Waraqa died soon afterwards (Bukhari 3).

Yet the revelation went on for thirteen years in Mecca, according to the view Ibn Kathir holds to be the soundest, then ten in Medina (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, II, 290; Bukhari 3903). It answers events that Waraqa never saw: the victory of Badr (3:123), the slander against Aisha (24:11), the truce of Hudaybiya and the promised entry into Mecca (48:27). A teacher who died at the beginning of the mission does not dictate twenty years of answers.

A man who read no book

The Qur’an calls him ﷺ “the unlettered Prophet” (7:157). And what it relates of the ancient stories is no copy: it removes from them what dishonours the prophets, corrects details, and tells of two prophets of Arabia, Hud and Salih, of whom no known earlier text speaks (research file v1, part 3). A Christian teacher could have taught neither these corrections nor these stories.

What the objection gets right

Both meetings are reported by the Muslim tradition. It does not hide them: it makes them testimonies, that of a monk who recognises a child, that of a learned Christian who recognises a revelation.

The Qur’an tells stories that Jews and Christians knew. It says so itself, since it presents itself as confirming the Scriptures and prevailing over them (5:48; research file v1, part 3). But a shared subject does not point to a teacher. The two men cast as his teachers are, in the only sources that make them known, witnesses who recognised him ﷺ.

Further reading

• The journey to Syria and its versions: Bahira and his youth.
• Hira, Khadija and Waraqa: The revelation and the first believers.
• Waraqa among those who awaited a prophet: The witnesses of the expectation.
• What the Qur’an tells with no known model: What the Qur’an reveals with no biblical counterpart.
• The neighbouring objection: “He composed the Qur’an himself”.
• All the objections: Objections answered.

Sources for this page

• Qur’an: Tanzil text (Uthmani); translation of the meaning by this site.
• The first revelation and Waraqa: Bukhari 3.
• Thirteen years in Mecca: Bukhari 3903.
• The monk of Busra: Tirmidhi 3620.
• Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-nabawiyya, ed. al-Saqqa, al-Abyari and Shalabi, al-Babi al-Halabi, Cairo, 2nd ed., 1955, I, 180-183, 233.
• Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, Uyun al-athar, Dar al-Qalam, Beirut, 1993, I, 52.
• Ibn Kathir, al-Sira al-nabawiyya, ed. Mustafa Abd al-Wahid, Dar al-Ma’rifa, Beirut, 1976, I, 246-249; II, 290.
• Al-Salihi al-Shami, Subul al-huda wa-l-rashad, ed. Adil Abd al-Mawjud and Ali Mu’awwad, Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, Beirut, 1993, II, 140, 144-145.
• Research file “Annonces du Prophète ﷺ”, v1.0, 14 October 2026, parts 2 and 3.