Mohammed's becoming prophet and some of his early actions have been succinctly narrated by historian Will Durant in his treatise AGE OF FAITH. What follows are the extracts from that narration.

The explosion of the Arabian peninsula into the conquest and conversion of half the Mediterranean world is the most extraordinary phenomenon in medieval history.

One night in the year 610, as he was alone in the cave, the pivotal experience of all Mohammedan history came to him. According to a tradition reported by his chief biographer, Muhammad ibn Ishaq, Mohammed related the event as follows:

'Whilst I was asleep, with a coverlet of silk brocade whereon was some writing, the angel Gabriel appeared to me and said, "Read!" I said, "I do not read." He pressed me with the coverlets so tightly that I thought 'twas death. Then he let me go, and said, "Read!"... So I read aloud, and he departed from me at last. And I awoke from my sleep, and it was as though these words were written on my heart. I went forth until, when I was midway on the mountain, I heard a voice from heaven saying, "0 Mohammed! Thou art the messenger of Allah, and I am Gabriel." I raised my head toward heaven to see, and lo, Gabriel in the form of a man, with feet set evenly on the rim of the sky, saying, "0 Mohammed! Thou art the messenger of Allah, and I am Gabriel."

Asked how he could remember these divine discourses, he explained that the archangel made him repeat every word. Others who were near the Prophet at the time neither saw nor heard the angel.

Possibly his convulsions were epileptic seizures; they were sometimes accompanied by a sound reported by him as like the ringing of a bell, a frequent occurrence in epileptic fits.

Last update : 30-03-2010 10:36

Keywords : A Prophet in Hell, Mahendra Mathur

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