The Faith of Islam | Page 4

by him. When he recovered from his paroxysm, he said "O Khadíja! he of whom one would not have believed (i.e., himself) has become either a soothsayer (káhin) or mad." She replied, "God is my protection, O Ab-ul-kásim. He will surely not let such a thing happen unto thee, for thou speakest the truth, dost not return evil for evil, keepest faith, art of a good life and art kind to thy relatives and friends, and neither art thou a talker abroad in the bazaars. What has befallen thee? Hast thou seen aught terrible?" Muhammad replied "Yes." And he told her what he had seen. Whereupon she answered and said:--"Rejoice, O dear husband and be of good cheer. He in whose hands stands Khadíja's life, is my witness that thou wilt be the Prophet of this people."[4] The next Súra, the 74th, was revealed at Mecca, after which there seems to have been an intermission, called the Fatrah. It was during this time that the Prophet gained some knowledge of the contents of the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures.
Gabriel is believed to have been the medium of communication. This fact, however, is only once stated in the Qurán:--"Say, whoso is the enemy of Gabriel--For he it is {4} who by God's leave hath caused the Qurán to descend on thy heart" (Súra ii. 91.) This Súra was revealed some years after the Prophet's flight to Madína. The other references to the revelation of the Qurán are:--"Verily from the Lord of the worlds hath this book come down; the Faithful Spirit (Rúh-ul-ámín) hath come down with it" (Súra xxvi. 192.) "The Qurán is no other than a revelation revealed to him, one terrible in power (Shadíd-ul-Quá) taught it him." (Súra liii. 5.) These latter passages do not state clearly that Gabriel was the medium of communication, but the belief that he was is almost, if not entirely, universal, and the Commentators say that the terms "Rúh-ul-ámín" and "Shadíd-ul-Quá" refer to no other angel or spirit. The use of the word "taught" in the last Súra quoted, and the following expression in Súra lxxv. 18. "When we have recited it, then follow thou the recital," show that the Qurán is entirely an objective revelation and that Muhammad was only a passive medium of communication. The Muhammadan historian, Ibn Khaldoun, says on this point:--"Of all the divine books the Qurán is the only one of which the text, words and phrases have been communicated to a prophet by an audible voice. It is otherwise with the Pentateuch, the Gospel and the other divine books: the prophets received them under the form of ideas."[5] This expresses the universal belief on this point--a belief which reveals the essentially mechanical nature of Islám.
The Qurán thus revealed is now looked upon as the standing miracle of Islám. Other divine books, it is admitted, were revelations received under the form of ideas, but the Qurán is far superior to them all for the actual text was revealed to the ear of the prophet. Thus we read in Súra lxxv. 16-19:--
{5}
"Move not thy tongue in haste to follow and master this revelation; For we will see to the collecting and recital of it; But when we have recited it, then follow thou the recital; And verily it shall be ours to make it clear to thee."
The Qurán is, then, believed to be a miraculous revelation of divine eloquence, as regards both form and substance, arrangement of words, and its revelation of sacred things. It is asserted that each well-accredited prophet performed miracles in that particular department of human skill or science most flourishing in his age. Thus in the days of Moses magic exercised a wide influence, but all the magicians of Pharaoh's court had to submit to the superior skill of the Hebrew prophet. In the days of Jesus the science of medicine flourished. Men possessed great skill in the art of healing; but no physician could equal the skill of Jesus, who not only healed the sick, but raised the dead. In the days of Muhammad the special and most striking feature of the age was the wonderful power of the Arabs in the art of poetry. Muhammad-ud-Damiri says:--"Wisdom hath alighted on three things--the brain of the Franks, the hands of the Chinese and the tongue of the Arabs." They were unrivalled for their eloquence, for the skill with which they arranged their material and gave expression to their thoughts. It is in this very particular that superior excellence is claimed for the Qurán.[6] It is to the Muhammadan mind a sure evidence of its miraculous origin that it should excel in this respect. Muslims say that miracles have followed the revelations given to other prophets in order to confirm the divine message. In this case the