Karen Armstrong: Muhammad was woken from sleep and felt himself absolutely enveloped by a terrifying divine presence. He says it's an angel that seemed to squeeze him ah in a devastating embrace and it felt as though all the breath was being squeezed out of his body. And a voice said to him, "recite."

And Muhammad said, "No, I am not a reciter." The voice again said, "Recite. Recite." And then squeezed, as he said almost beyond his endurance, Muhammad felt the first inspired words of a new scripture in Arabic pouring from his lips.

Hamza Yusuf: This was something that really shook him to the very core of his being. And he goes down from that mountain and he is shaking. And I think it's, it's shock. Here is somebody who's gone looking for this transcendent reality and this transcendent reality is now replying.

Reuven Firestone: And after a while Muhammad began to realize that the messages he had been receiving fit a pattern that he knew about from Jewish and Christian tradition as well. And that is that there are such things as prophets. There are people who receive messages from the divine and that he began to realize that indeed he was one of them as well. >Mohamed Zakariya: When we think of prophecy, we come from a tradition in America where we think of Charlton Heston, you know, the great big beard and the winds always blowing. And he's, wearing raggedy clothes and they're, and they're ranting people. You know, they're ranting and raving.

In the Islamic view a prophet isn't this kind of person at all. But it's the person who has been selected very reluctantly from his people. God selected him and they couldn't get out of the clutches in a sense, they had to do it.

M. Cherif Bassiouni: You have to think in terms of a tribal Bedouin society. What is the worst thing that could happen to somebody? It is not death. It is shame. And so I am sure that in his own mind, the idea of being shamed was probably very important. I mean think of the double loss of face, you know he's going to lose face, he's going to be shamed in front of his people. He's going to be shamed in front of Allah who gave him that message.

Although Muhammad was initially reluctant to tell others about his experience, a new revelation commanded him to make his message public.

Hamza Yusuf: So he calls all of his family members together and he says, "What would you say if I told you that there was this army waiting to attack us on the other side of that hill?" They said, "We would believe you" and he said, "What would you say if I told you I'm a messenger from God?" They think it's absurd.

"You, you called us together for this?" And he says, "Will no one support me in this?" And the only person is a child, Ali, who is his cousin, [who] gets up and says, "I will support you."

M. Cherif Bassiouni: Think about it, there is a man, a middle-aged man, who doesn't know how to read or write, who has no wealth, who is an orphan, yes he is from a very important tribe, but he works for a woman, and he now says, "I'm the Prophet. God has spoken to me." This is not going to fly.

Close Window