Surah 93:6–11
Did He not find you an orphan and give [you] refuge? And He found you lost and guided [you]. And He found you poor and made [you] self-sufficient. So as for the orphan, do not oppress [him]. And as for the petitioner, do not repel [him]. And as for the favor of your Lord, report [it].
The middle of the Surah lists three rhetorical questions reminding Muhammad of his low, vulnerable social status prior to his ministry: being an orphan, being poor, and importantly: "And He found you lost (ḍāllan) and guided you."
The Philological Squeeze: The Arabic word ḍāll is exceptionally heavy. Throughout the rest of the Quran, ḍalāl denotes being fundamentally astray, practicing falsehood, missing the path of truth, or committing spiritual error (e.g., Surah 1:7, "not of those who have earned Your anger or of those who are astray (al-ḍāllīn)").
The Apologetic Reconstruction: Because the direct implication is that Muhammad spent his youth practicing the local polytheism of his family, classical Islamic theologians went through immense gymnastics to distort the plain meaning of ḍāllan. Commentators like Al-Qurtubi and Al-Razi desperately re-interpreted the word to mean "lost in the valleys of Mecca as a child," or "confused about the specific details of laws," arguing that a prophet must possess absolute, flawless immunity from sin ('Ismah) from the moment of birth.
The Historical Critique: To a secular historian, the text means exactly what it says. Prior to his experiences in the cave of Hira at age 40, Muhammad was thoroughly embedded within the traditional, polytheistic pagan matrix of the Quraysh tribe. He was named by his pagan parents after tribal customs, engaged in local sacrificial rituals, and managed trade caravans under Meccan polytheistic laws. The text explicitly records his pre-prophetic state as being spiritually "astray"—a historic reality that late Islamic orthodoxy had to aggressively sanitize to preserve the theological myth of perfect, lifelong prophetic purity.