Muhammad
His Call
According to the majority witness of early Islamic tradition, when
Muhammad was about 40 years old, the first part of the Qur'an revealed to
him was sura 96:1f. The circumstances of this revelation are^1 said to have
been that Muhammad was in the cave at Hira' near Mecca performing his
monthly devotions, when the angel Gabriel appeared to him, c^23 ommanding
him to "recite" (or "read"). Muhammad then recited Qur'an 96:1f and the
angel vanished. Believing himself to have become a "poet" or "possessed,"
both of which he despised, Muhammad thought of jumping off the
mountain. Gabriel then called from heaven saying that Muham^4 mad was the
apostle of Allah. Muhammad either went to or was found by Khadija and
told her what had happened. Khadija then decided to take her husband to
her cousin Waraqa b. Naufal, who had become a Christian and was even
said to have read and translated the scriptures. After heari^5 ng Muhammad's
story, Waraqa said that the angel was the Namus who had come to^6 Moses.
Waraqa also warned Muhammad that he would experience opposition.
One Muslim historian shows Qur'an 68:1f; 74:1f and 93:1f as being the
next suras to have been revealed, and most Islamic sura orde^7 rings also
place Qur'an 68 immediately after Qur'an 96. Major Islamic h^8 istories
report that after the first revelations, there was a period during which
Gabriel did not appear to Muhammad, and the revelations ceased. The^9
reason for this interruption (fatra) in revelations is not explained at all in the
earliest accounts of Muhammad's biography, but is rather strongly implied
in some canonical hadith. According to one collection of^10 Sira traditions,
Khadija told Muhammad she thought his Lord "must have come to hate"
him during the fatra, but then Qur'an 93:1-3 was revealed to Muhammad as
a reassurance that Allah had not forsaken him, and the resumption of
revelation is then implied.^11
Western scholars of Islam have very many reservations about the
authenticity of these traditions. `A'isha, one of the original narrators, could
not have been an eyewitness of these events, as she was not yet born, the^12
alleged name of the angel, "Gabriel", first appears in suras which were
undoubtedly revealed in Medina, the notion of Qur'an 96:1f (^13 or 74:1f) as