Semiotics Analysis of “Ummi Prophet” based on “Umberto Eco” model

In recent years we have been witnessed to the popularity of the approach of semiotics in Quranic studies for precise semantic uncovering of the textual layers. The connotation of the word "illiterate prophet" has been discussed by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars since the past and everyone have sought to prove his own view. The current essay has evaluated this word using semiotics as a methodic science. This evaluation was based on the model of Umberto Eco in text understanding from the perspective of basic field, associated and opposite of semantic fields, textual pragmatics, textual context and intertextual interpretative fields. Having insisted on the innovativeness of this word`s method of analysis and without being influenced by the previous studies, it was concluded that the referent of this word contrary to common understandings, referred to the "non- Jewish prophet", i.e. a prophet who is not from Bani Isreal. The meaning "man from Mecca" is acceptable as a possible reference but "illiterate" is not acceptable as a meaning for this word.