revelations?
According to his favorite wife, Aisha, Muhammad was
chosen as a prophet after devoting himself to prayer for long
periods. He received his revelations in dreams after long
periods of seclusion in the cave of Hira. It is said that the
Truth came to him in the form of the angel Gabriel.
This is the famous first revelation of the Koran, now
found as Sura 96:1–5.[9] It began a series of messages from
Allah that would continue off and on for the rest of
Muhammad’s life. Muhammad seems to have gone into a
trancelike state to receive them, and he would recite them
when he returned to consciousness. His followers committed
his messages to memory and wrote them on whatever was
available, and as we have seen, they were collected into the
Koran after his death.
At the beginning, however, Muhammad was not at all
sure what was happening to him. He returned to his wife
Khadija from his first meeting with Gabriel in a state of
tremendous distress: ‘‘Then Allah’s Messenger returned
with the Revelation, and with his heart beating severely till
he entered upon Khadija and said, ‘Cover me! Cover me!’
They covered him till his fear was over and then he said, ‘O
Khadija, what is wrong with me?’ Then he told her
everything that had happened and said, ‘I fear that
something may happen to me.’ ’’[10]⁰
Khadija, according to this Hadith, had more confidence in
Muhammad than he did in himself. She responded, ‘‘Never!