IN THE SHADE OF THE MESSAGE AND PROPHETHOOD - IN THE CAVE HIRA:

3] ONCE, GABRIEL BRINGS ALLAH'S REVELATION:
Ibn Hajar said: 'That (the pause of Allâh's revelation for a few days)
was to relieve the Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him) of the fear
he experienced and to make him long for the Revelation. When theshades
of puzzle receded, the flags of truth were raised, the Messenger of
Allâh (Peace be upon him) knew for sure that he had become the
Messenger of the Great Lord. He was also certain that what had come to
him was no more than the ambassador of inspiration. His waiting and
longing for the coming of the revelation constituted a good reason for
hissteadfastness and self-possession on the arrival of Allâh's
inspiration, Al-Bukhari reported on the authority of Jabirbin
'Abdullah that he had heard the Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him)
speak about the period of pause as follows:
"While I was walking, I heard a voice from the sky. I looked up, and
surely enough, it was the same angel who had visited me in the cave of
Hira'. He was sittingon a chair between the earth andthe sky. I was
very afraid of him and knelt on the ground. I went home saying: 'Cover
me …, Cover me …'. Allâh revealed to me the verses:
*.
*. 'O you [Muhammad (Peace be upon him)] enveloped (in garments)!
Arise and warn! And your Lord (Allâh) magnify! And your garments
purify! And keep away from Ar-Rujz (the idols)!'" [74:1-5]
After that the revelation started coming strongly, frequently and regularly.
SOME DETAILS PERTINENTTO THE SUCCESSIVE STAGES OF REVELATION:
Before we go into the details of the period of communicating
theMessage and Prophethood, we would like to get acquainted with the
stages of the Revelation which constituted the main source of the
Message and the subject-matter of the Call. Ibn Al-Qayyim, mentioning
the stagesof the Revelation, said:
*. The First: The period of true vision. It was the starting point of
the Revelation to the Men of Allâh (Peace be upon him).
The Second: What the angel invisibly cast in the Prophet's mind and
heart. The Messengerof Allâh (Peace be upon him) said: "The Noble
Spirit revealed to me 'No soul will perish until it exhausts its due
course, so fear Allâh and gently request Him. Never get so impatient
to the verge of disobedience of Allâh. What Allâh has can never be
acquired but through obedience to Him.'"
The Third: The angel used to visit the Messenger of Allâh (Peace be
upon him) in the form of a human being and would speak to him
directly. This would enable him to fully understand what the angel
said. The angel was sometimes seen in this form by the Prophet's
Companions.
The Fourth: The angel came to him like the toll of a bell and this was
the most difficult form because the angel used to seizehim tightly and
sweat would stream from his forehead even on the coldest day. If the
Prophet (Peace be upon him) was on his camel, the camel would not
withstand the weight, so it would immediatelykneel down on the ground.
Once the Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him) had such a revelation
when he was sitting and his thigh was on Zaid's, Zaid felt the
pressure had almost injured his thigh.
The Fifth: The Prophet (Peace be upon him) saw the angel in his
actual form. The angel would reveal to him what Allâh had ordered him
to reveal. This,as mentioned in (Qur'ân), in Sûrah An-Najm (Chapter 53
- The Star), happened twice.
The Sixth: What Allâh Himself revealed to him in heaven i.e. when he
ascended to heaven and received Allâh's behest of Salât (prayer).
The Seventh: Allâh's Words to His Messenger (Peace be upon him) at
first hand without the mediation of an angel. It was a privilege
granted to Moses (Peace be upon him) and clearlyattested in the
Qur'ân, as it is attested to our Prophet (Peace be upon him) in the
Sûrah Al-Isrâ' (Chapter 17 - The Journey by Night) of the Noble
Qur'ân.
Some religious scholars added a controversial eighth stage in which
they state that Allâh spoke to the Prophet (Peace be upon him)
directly without a curtain inbetween. This issue remains however
unconfirmed.

IN THE SHADE OF THE MESSAGE AND PROPHETHOOD - IN THE CAVE HIRA:

2] She set out with the Prophet (Peace be upon him) to her cousin
Waraqa bin Nawfal bin Asad bin 'Abd Al-'Uzza, who had embraced
Christianity in the pre-Islamic period, and used to write the Bible in
Hebrew. He was a blind old man. Khadijah said: "My cousin! Listen to
your nephew!" Waraqa said: "O my nephew! What did you see?"
TheMessenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him) told him what had happened
to him. Waraqa replied: "This is ' Namus' i.e. (the angel who is
entrusted with Divine Secrets) that Allâh sent to Moses. I wish I were
younger. I wish I could live up to the time when your people would
turn you out." Muhammad (Peace be upon him) asked: "Will they drive me
out?" Waraqa answered in the affirmative and said: "Anyonewho came
with something similar to what you have broughtwas treated with
hostility; and if I should be alive till that day, thenI would support
you strongly." A few days later Waraqa died and the revelation also
subsided.
At-Tabari and Ibn Hisham reported that the Messenger of Allâh (Peace
be upon him) left thecave of Hira' after being surprised by the
Revelation, but later on, returned to the cave andcontinued his
solitude. Afterwards, he came back to Makkah. At-Tabari reported on
this incident, saying:
After mentioning the coming of the Revelation, the Messenger of Allâh
(Peace be upon him) said: "Ihave never abhorred anyone more than a
poet or a mad man. I can not stand looking at either of them. I will
never tell anyone of Quraish of my Revelation. I willclimb a mountain
and throw myself down and die. That will relieve me. I went to do that
but halfway up the mountain, I hearda voice from the sky saying 'O
Muhammad! You are the Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him) and I am
Gabriel.' I looked upwards and saw Gabriel in the form of a man
putting his legs on the horizon. He said: 'O Muhammad You are the
Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him) and I am Gabriel.' I stopped
and looked at him. His sight distracted my attention from what I had
intended to do. Istood in my place transfixed. I tried to shift my
eyes away from him. He was in every direction I looked at. I stopped
in my place without any movement until Khadijah sent someone to look
for me. He went down to Makkahand came back while I was standing in
the same place. Gabriel then left, and I went back home. I found
Khadijah at home, so I sat very close to her. She asked: 'Father of
Al-Qasim! Wherehave you been? I sent someone to look for you. He went
to Makkah and returned to me.' I told her of what I had seen. She
replied: 'It is a propitious sign, O my husband. Pull yourself
together, I swear by Allâh that you are a Messenger for this nation.'
Then she stood up and went to Waraqa and informed him. Waraqa said: 'I
swear by Allâh that he has received the same Namus , i.e. angel that
was sent to Moses. He is the Prophet of this nation. Tell him to be
patient.' She came back to him and told him of Waraqa's words. When
the Messenger of Allâh (Peace be upon him) finished his solitary stay
and went down to Makkah, he went to Waraqa, whotold him: 'You are the
Prophet of this nation. I swear by Allâh that you have received the
same angel that was sent to Moses.'"
INTERRUPION OF REVELATION:
Ibn Sa'd reported on the authority of Ibn 'Abbas that the Revelation
paused for a few days.After careful study, this seems to be the most
possible. To say that it lasted for three anda half years, as some
scholars allege, is not correct, but here there is no room to go into
moredetails.
Meanwhile, the Prophet (Peace be upon him), was caught in a sort of
depression coupled with astonishment and perplexity. Al-Bukhari
reported:
The Divine inspiration paused fora while and the Prophet (Peace be
upon him) became so sad, as we have heard, that he intended several
times to throw himself from the tops of high mountains,and every time
he went up the top of a mountain in order to throw himself down,
Gabriel would appear before him and say: "O Muhammad! You are indeed
Allâh's Messenger in truth," whereupon his heart would become quiet
and he would calm down and return home. Whenever the period of the
coming of the Revelation used to become long, he would do as before,
but Gabriel would appear again before him and sayto him what he had
said before.

IN THE SHADE OF THE MESSAGE AND PROPHETHOOD - IN THE CAVE HIRA:

1] When Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was nearly forty, he had
been wont to pass long hours in retirement meditating and speculating
over all aspects of creation around him. This meditative temperament
helped to widen the mental gap between him andhis compatriots. He used
to provide himself with Sawiq (barley porridge) and water and then
directly head for the hills and ravines in the neighbourhood of
Makkah. One of these in particular was his favourite resort — a cave
named Hira', in the Mount An-Nour. It was only two miles from Makkah,a
small cave 4 yards long and 1.75 yard wide. He would always go there
and invite wayfarers to share him his modest provision. He used to
devote most of his time, and Ramadan in particular, to worship and
meditation on the universe around him. His heart was restless about
the moral evils and idolatry that wererampant among his people; he was
as yet helpless because no definite course, or specific approach had
been available for him to follow and rectify the ill practices around
him. This solitude attended with this sort of contemplative approach
must be understood in its Divine perspective. It was a preliminary
stage to the period of grave responsibilities that he was to shoulder
very soon.
Privacy and detachment from theimpurities of life were two
indispensable prerequisites for the Prophet's soul to come into close
communion with the Unseen Power that lies behind allaspects of
existence in this infinite universe. It was a rich period of privacy
which lasted for three years and ushered in a new era, of indissoluble
contact with that Power.
GAGRIEL BRINGS DOWN THE REVELATION:
When he was forty, the age of complete perfection at which Prophets
were always ordered todisclose their Message, signs of his Prophethood
started to appear and twinkle on the horizons of life; they were the
true visions he used to experience for six months. The period of
Prophethood was 23 years; so the period of these six months of true
visions constituted an integral part of the forty-six parts of
Prophethood. In Ramadan, in his third year of solitude in the cave of
Hira', Allâh's Will desired His mercy to flow on earth and Muhammad
(Peace be upon him) was honoured with Prophethood, and the light of
Revelation burst upon him with some verses of the Noble Qur'ân.
As for the exact date, careful investigation into circumstantial
evidence and relevant clues pointdirectly to Monday, 21st. Ramadan at
night, i.e. Au, 10, 610A.D. with Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)
exactly 40 years, 6 months and 12 days of age, i.e. 39 Gregorian
years, 3 months and 22 days.
'Aishah, the veracious, gave the following narration of that most
significant event that brought the Divine light which would dispel the
darkness of disbelief and ignorance. It led life down a new course and
brought about the most serious amendment to the line of the history of
mankind:
Forerunners of the Revelation assumed the form of true visionsthat
would strikingly come true all the time. After that, solitude became
dear to him and he would go to the cave, Hira', to engage in Tahannuth
(devotion) there for a certain number of nights before returning to
his family, and then he would return for provisions for a similar
stay. At length, unexpectedly, the Truth(the angel) came to him and
said,"Recite." "I cannot recite," he [Muhammad (Peace be upon him)]
said. The Prophet (Peace beupon him) described: "Then he took me and
squeezed me vehemently and then let me go and repeated the order
'Recite.' 'Icannot recite' said I, and once again he squeezed me and
let metill I was exhausted. Then he said: 'Recite.' I said 'I cannot
recite.' He squeezed me for a third time and then let me go and said:
*.
*. "Read! In the Name of your Lord, Who has created (all that exists),
has created man from a clot (a piece of thick coagulatedblood). Read!
and your Lord is the Most Generous.'" [96:1-3]
The Prophet (Peace be upon him)repeated these verses. He was trembling
with fear. At this stage,he came back to his wife Khadijah, and said,
"Cover me, ... cover me." They covered him until he restored security.
He apprised Khadijah of the incidentof the cave and added that he was
horrified. His wife tried to soothe him and reassured him saying,
"Allâh will never disgrace you. You unite uterine relations; you bear
the burden of the weak; you help the poor and the needy, you entertain
the guests and endure hardships in the path of truthfulness."
She set out with the Prophet (Peace be upon him) to her cousin Waraqa
bin Nawfal bin Asad bin 'Abd Al-'Uzza, who had embraced Christianity
in the pre-Islamic period, and

MUHAMMAD'S BIRTH AND FORTY YEARS PRIOR TO PROPHETHOOD

2] you must understand that you have been able to get a blessed
child." And I replied: "By the grace of Allâh, I hope so."
The tradition is explicit on the point that Haleemah's return journey
and her subsequent life, as long as the Prophet (Peace be upon
him)stayed with her, was encircled with a halo of good fortune. The
donkey that she rode when she came to Makkah was lean and almost
foundered; it recovered speed much to the amazement of Haleemah's
fellow travellers. By the time they reached the encampments in the
country of the clan of Sa'd, they found the scales of fortune turned
in their favour. The barren land sprouted forth luxuriant grass and
beasts came back to them satisfied and full of milk. Muhammad (Peace
be upon him) stayed with Haleemah for two years until he was weaned as
Haleemah said:
We then took him back to his mother requesting her earnestly to have
him stay with us and benefit by the good fortune and blessings he had
brought us. We persisted in our request which we substantiated by our
anxiety over the child catching a certain infection peculiar to
Makkah. At last, we were granted our wish and the Prophet (Peace be
upon him) stayed with us until he was four or five years of age.
When, as related by Anas in SahihMuslim , Gabriel came down and ripped
his chest open and took out the heart. He then extracted ablood-clot
out of it and said: "That was the part of Satan in thee." And then he
washed it with the water of Zamzam in a gold basin. After that the
heart was joined together and restored to its place. The boys and
playmates came running to his mother, i.e. his nurse, and said:
"Verily, Muhammad (Peace be upon him) has been murdered." They all
rushed towards him and found him all right only his face was white.
BACK TO HIS COMPASSIONATE MOTHER:
After this event, Haleemah was worried about the boy and returned him
to his mother with whom he stayed until he was six.
In respect of the memory of her late husband, Amina decided to visit
his grave in Yathrib (Madinah). She set out to cover a journey of 500
kilometers with her orphan boy, woman servant Umm Ayman and her
father-in-law 'Abdul-Muttalib. She spent a month there and then took
her way back to Makkah. On the way,she had a severe illness and died
in Abwa on the road between Makkah and Madinah.
BACK TO HIS COMPASSIONATE GRANDFATHER:
'Abdul-Muttalib brought the boy to Makkah. He had warm passions
towards the boy, his orphan grandson, whose recent disaster (his
mother's death) added more to the pains of the past. 'Abdul-Muttalib
was more passionate with his grandson than with his own children. He
never left the boy a prey to loneliness, but always preferred him to
his own kids. Ibn Hisham reported: A mattress was put in the shade of
Al-Ka'bah for 'Abdul-Muttalib. His children used to sit around that
mattress in honour to their father, but Muhammad (Peace be upon him)
used to sit on it. His uncles would take him back, but if
'Abdul-Muttalib was present, he would say: "Leave mygrandson. I swear
by Allâh that this boy will hold a significant position." He used to
seat the boy on his mattress, pat his back and was always pleased with
what the boy did.
When Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was eight years, two months and ten
days old, his grandfather 'Abdul-Muttalib passed away in Makkah. The
charge of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) was now passed on to his
uncle Abu Talib, who was the brother of the Prophet's father.
Abu Talib tookthe charge of his nephew in the best way. He put him
with his children and preferred him to them. He singled the boy out
with great respect and high esteem. Abu Talib remained for forty years
cherishing his nephew and extending all possible protection and
support to him. His relations with the others were determinedin the
light of the treatment they showed to the Prophet (Peace beupon him).
Ibn 'Asakir reported on the authority of Jalhamah bin 'Arfuta who
said: "I came to Makkah when it was a rainless year, so Quraish said
'O Abu Talib, the valley has become leafless and the children hungry,
let us go and pray for rain-fall.' Abu Talib went to Al-Ka'bah with a
young boy who was as beautiful as the sun, and a black cloud was over
his head. Abu Talib and the boy stood by the wall of Al-Ka'bah and
prayed for rain. Immediately clouds from all directions gathered and
rain fell heavily andcaused the flow of springs and growth of plants
in the town andthe country.