encounter with the Divine. He feels himself the passive recipient of
a message, which must remain uncontaminated by his personal
desires and feelings:
He, the Nabi does not speak of (his own) desire (53:3).
This is as far as we can go in understanding the nature of Wahi. It
is not, therefore, strange that in his ordinary life, the Nabi talks and
behaves very much like other men. Only during the experience of
Wahi, does he speak with absolute authority and discloses the truth
which human intellect cannot discover by itself. The words he utters
in this state are not his but God's. Those who knew the Nabi
Muhammad (PBUH) intimately have recorded the fact that, although
in secular matters he was always willing to make concessions to
those who differed from him, (of course, within the restrictions
imposed by Wahi) if by doing so he could settle a dispute amicably,
he was adamant in refusing to make the slightest change in the Wahi
which had been delivered to him. In day-to-day affairs, the basis of
his decision-making process was mutual consultation with its give
and take, but he would countenance no departure from his Wahi.
Throughout his life he was never tempted to change even a single
word of the Revelation for reasons of expediency. The Qur'an bears
witness to the fact:
Say (O Muhammad): It is not for me to change it of my own accord. I
only follow that which is revealed to me (10:15).
The Nabi has not the slightest inkling of the Revelation before he
has actually received it. Nor does he strive for it. It is to him literally a
revelation, the impact of something new, unexpected and
unsuspected; something not deriving either from his past
experience or from his present mental state. Says the Qur'an:
And thus We have revealed to thee a revelation by Our Command;
thou didst not know what the Book was nor the faith; but We have
made it a light by which We guide whom We please of Our servants
(42:52; 28:86).
Even the office of nubuwwah, when it comes, takes him by
surprise. He had not expected to be chosen to act as the vehicle of
Wahi. God selects a man for the role of the Nabi but keeps it from
his knowledge till he has actually been assigned the role. The man is
selected because he possesses exceptional qualities which fit him for
the role of nubuwwah. However, years of probation, years during
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