بحيرى
Baḥīrā
Person
A Christian monk whom the young Muhammad is said to have met on a trading journey to Syria.
What it means
Ibn Ishaq relates that when Muhammad was about twelve and travelling with his uncle Abu Talib’s caravan, a monk named Bahira at Busra saw signs of future prophethood in him and warned his uncle to guard him. The report is in al-Tirmidhi, whose version has details that scholars question.
Often misunderstood as
That Bahira taught Muhammad what became the Quran.
What the sources say
Critics have said the Quran’s teaching came from him. The Quran records a form of the accusation and answers it: “the tongue of him to whom they point is foreign, and this is clear Arabic” (16:103). The meeting was a single short stop in a caravan when Muhammad was a boy, and the Quran came to him decades later.