The Faith of Islam | Page 4

up by
understanding and knowledge of the Lord, who is most beneficent, and
who by the pen had revealed that which man did not know, Muhammad
woke up from his trance and felt as if "a book had been written in his
heart." He was much alarmed. Tradition records that he went hastily to
his wife and said--"O Khadíja! what has happened to me!" He lay down
and she watched 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