Surah 29. Al-Ankabut, Ayah 48

Lit., "with thy right hand" - the term yamin being used here metonymically, denoting no more than one's "own hand". - It is historically established that Muhammad, the "unlettered prophet" (cf. 7:157 and {158}), could neither read nor write, and could not, therefore, have derived his extensive knowledge of the contents of earlier revelations from the Bible or other scriptures: which - as the Qur'an points out - ought to convince any unprejudiced person that this knowledge must have come to him through divine revelation.

The participial noun mubtil is derived from the verb abtala, "he made a false [or "vain"] claim", or "tried to disprove the truth [of something]", or "to reduce [something] to nothing", or "to prove [it] to be of no account", or "null and void", or "unfounded", "false", "spurious", etc., irrespective of whether the object is true or false, authentic or spurious, valid or unfounded (Lisan al-'Arab and Taj al-'Arus).

The holy Prophet was not a learned man. Before the Qur-an was revealed to him, he never claimed to proclaim a Message from Allah. He was not in the habit of preaching eloquent truths as from a Book, before he received his Revelation, nor was he able to write or transcribe with his own hand. If he had had these worldly gifts, there would have been some plausibility in the charge of the talkers of vanities that he spoke not from inspiration but from other people's books, or that he composed the beautiful verses of the Qur-an himself and committed them to memory in order to recite them to people. The circumstances in which the Qur-an came bear their own testimony to its truth as from Allah.