by Dr. Ali Shehata
Muhammad – The Messenger of God
That night, the air was crisp near the mouth of the cave where he worshipped. He used to go there for long retreats to better worship what his heart knew was the One. Muhammad pbuh had rejected his people’s idol worship – their raucous singing, clapping and dancing at the Sacred House, often times while drunk. Something within him recognized the error of their ways, but they never really seemed to notice his sojourns to the mountain of Hira where he worshipped alone.
That night though, something was different. A certain electricity filled the air. It felt charged, but at the same time, peaceful. As he worshipped quietly that night, he suddenly realized that he wasn’t alone. Terrified, he tried to back away from the swiftly approaching figure, but fear seemed to paralyze his whole body. Before he knew it, the imposing being had grabbed Muhammad pbuh by the shirt and pressed his trembling body firmly against the cold, uneven walls of the cave.
“Read,” he said to him in a thunderous tone!
“I cannot read,” Muhammad pbuh said with difficulty and fear in his voice.
The figure momentarily released his pressure, but just as quickly pressed him once again to the wall, repeating the same command, “Read!”
Muhammad pbuh quivered before him, but could only manage to say the same thing, “I cannot read.”
Unaffected by the response, the mysterious visitor pressed him further and said to him,
“Read! In the Name of your Lord who Created All.
Created mankind from something resembling a clot.
Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous.
The One who taught by the Pen,
Taught mankind what he knew not before.” {96:1-5}
And thus began the revelation. These were the first five verses of the Quran to be revealed to Muhammad pbuh from God, through the Angel Gabriel. Although their first encounter was one that terrified Muhammad pbuh, the coming of Gabriel thereafter was more pleasant and comforting to the Prophet, and indeed they came to love one another as two brothers love and care for one another.
Muhammad pbuh was forty years old at the time of the initial revelation, and from that point on his life would never be the same. Before the descent of the revelation, Muhammad pbuh used to be known amongst his people, in the city of Makkah, as “alSaadiq al-Ameen” – the Truthful, the Trustworthy. His people respected him greatly and he maintained a noble status among them before the trust of prophethood was given to him. But soon, his own people would turn against him and try to kill him.
The Mission of the Prophets and Messengers
As previously mentioned, when God revealed a scripture to a people, he sent with that scripture a Messenger. These men were sent with the heavy burden of declaring the word of truth to their people, and of informing them of God’s plan and command. They were to exemplify the Message, serving as role models for their people, to show them in the most practical sense how to apply the word of God to their own lives. Each one was aided by the Angel of Revelation, the special envoy to the Prophets and Messengers, the Angel Gabriel. Yet, no matter what the condition, no matter what the town, these men were always viciously opposed and sometimes even murdered.
These Prophets and Messengers provided their people with the correct interpretations of the words of God so that they wouldn’t go astray with incorrect and misleading interpretations of their own. They demonstrated to them how to perform the acts of worship prescribed for them like prayer, pilgrimage, charity, and purification, to name a few. They were oppressed and attacked, as were their followers, and so they were also beacons of light to show their people how to be patient, how to persevere, how to be forgiving and yet also, how to also properly resist in certain circumstances. Without them, God would be distant and unreachable; His words open to the interpretation of those with impure intentions. But they provided that direct link to God, and hence, life on this planet has always been shaped by the lives of these noble men.
Muhammad pbuh was indeed no different than his predecessors in many of these ways. He followed the honorable heritage of those before him like: Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Moses and Aaron, David, Solomon, Job, Zachariah, John the Baptist, and Jesus, the son of Mary, (peace be on them) to name only a few – a heritage of calling people to the worship of God alone. Yet, just as each of them had some special features, no doubt, Muhammad too was unique in his own ways.
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