“Recite in the name of your Lord,Who created, created man from a clot of congealed blood. Recite: and your Lord is Most Generous, Who taught by the pen, taught man what he did not know.”
(The Qur’ān – 96:1-5)
These verses were the very first to be revealed to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Man originally was absolutely illiterate. Whatever of knowledge he obtained, he obtained it as a gift from Allah. Whatever doors of knowledge at any stage did Allah will to open for man, they went on opening up before him. This same thing has been expressed in 2:255: “And the people cannot comprehend anything of His knowledge save what He Himself may please to reveal.” Whatever man looks upon as his own scientific discovery was, in fact, unknown to him before. Allah gave him its knowledge whenever He willed.
It is a great favour of Allah that starting man’s creation from a most insignificant state, He made him possessor of knowledge which is the noblest attribute of creation, and He made him not only possessor of knowledge but also taught him the art of writing by the use of pen, which became the means of propagation, progress, dissemination and preservation of knowledge on a large scale. Had He not given man the knowledge of the art of pen and writing (by inspiration), his intellectual faculty would have stagnated, and it would have had no opportunity to develop, expand and become a means of transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next and make future progress.