Mohammad was terrified and unable to understand what had happened to him. Had he gone mad or become one of the Kahins, the ecstatic poets whom he despised? What had happened? He staggered down the mountain and sought Khadija, crying “Wrap me up! Wrap me up!” Khadija covered him in a cloak and held him and when he was calmer, questioned him. He told her what he had experienced and that he feared he had gone mad, but Khadija had no doubt that his revelation was authentic, “This cannot be my dear, God would not treat you thus. You are known to be truthful and a bearer of the burdens of others. You give to the poor, you feed guests, you work against injustice.”
(The Life of Muhammad, I. Ishaq, translated by A. Guillaume pg.106)
But Mohammad was inconsolable, so Khadija went to the only person she could think might be able to verify the nature of what had happened, her cousin Waraqa. Waraqa had been one of the founding four Hanifs but was currently a practicing Christian. He was familiar with the Scriptures and recognized Mohammad’s experience for what it was. “If this be true, Khadija, there has come to him the great divinity who came to Moses aforetime, and lo, he is the Prophet of this people.” (Mohammad: A Prophet of our Time, Karen Armstrong)
Some scholars doubt that Mohammad would have been the successful businessman he was, had he been unable to read and write the correspondence and documentation relating to his own business. He may have been able to read both Arabic and the Aramaic in common use by the Jewish community at the time. They suggest that the epithet the Qur’an uses for Mohammad: “an-nabi al-ummi” traditionally meaning “the unlettered Prophet,” might instead mean “The Prophet for the unlettered,” in other words, for the people without a holy book. “We did not give [the Arabs] any previous books to study, nor sent them any previous Warners before you.” (The Qur’an 34:44).
Nevertheless, the revelations that Mohammad received were in words remote from his world: he was not known to have composed any poetry and had no special rhetorical gifts. From the first revelation, the Surahs (chapters) of the Qur’an would deal with matters of belief, law, politics, ritual, spirituality and personal conduct, cosmology, and economics in what Karen Armstrong describes as an “entirely new literary form.” The Qur’an itself states, “If you are in doubt of what We have revealed to Our messenger, then produce one chapter like it. Call upon all your helpers, besides God, if you are truthful.” (The Qur’an 2.23) No one was able to do this.
(The Life of Muhammad, I. Ishaq, translated by A. Guillaume pg.106)
But Mohammad was inconsolable, so Khadija went to the only person she could think might be able to verify the nature of what had happened, her cousin Waraqa. Waraqa had been one of the founding four Hanifs but was currently a practicing Christian. He was familiar with the Scriptures and recognized Mohammad’s experience for what it was. “If this be true, Khadija, there has come to him the great divinity who came to Moses aforetime, and lo, he is the Prophet of this people.” (Mohammad: A Prophet of our Time, Karen Armstrong)
Some scholars doubt that Mohammad would have been the successful businessman he was, had he been unable to read and write the correspondence and documentation relating to his own business. He may have been able to read both Arabic and the Aramaic in common use by the Jewish community at the time. They suggest that the epithet the Qur’an uses for Mohammad: “an-nabi al-ummi” traditionally meaning “the unlettered Prophet,” might instead mean “The Prophet for the unlettered,” in other words, for the people without a holy book. “We did not give [the Arabs] any previous books to study, nor sent them any previous Warners before you.” (The Qur’an 34:44).
Nevertheless, the revelations that Mohammad received were in words remote from his world: he was not known to have composed any poetry and had no special rhetorical gifts. From the first revelation, the Surahs (chapters) of the Qur’an would deal with matters of belief, law, politics, ritual, spirituality and personal conduct, cosmology, and economics in what Karen Armstrong describes as an “entirely new literary form.” The Qur’an itself states, “If you are in doubt of what We have revealed to Our messenger, then produce one chapter like it. Call upon all your helpers, besides God, if you are truthful.” (The Qur’an 2.23) No one was able to do this.
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