Pmono/t!J lind Spirillllll QIIlSJ^27
whether th e veneratio n of statues o r the worship of power and riches. For
some time already he had been telling his wife, Khadijah, about some
dreams that turned out to be true and which troubled him because of the
strong impressions they left when he woke up. It was indeed a quest for
truth: dissatisfied with the an swers offered by those around him, driven
by the intimate conviction that he must search further, he decided to iso-
late himself in contemplation. He was nearing forty and had reached a
point in his spiritual development that made deep introspection the nec-
essary next step. Alone with himself, in the cave o f I-lira, he meditated on
the meaning of his life, his presence on earth, and the signs that had
accompanied him throughout his life. The spaces stretching out all around
him must have reminded him of the horizons of his childhood in the
(!esen, with the difference now that maNnty had filled them with myriad
fundamental existential questions.
He was searching, and this spirirual quest was naturally leading him
toward the calling that signs had tacitly and inevitably pointed to through-
out this life. The signs that had protected and calmed him, the visions that
first appeared in dreams and then came to pass in waking life, and the
questio ns asked by the mind and heart allied to the horizons offered by
narure were insensibly leading Muhammad to the supreme initiation into
meaning, to the encounter with his Educator, the One God. At the age of
forty, the first cycle of his life had just come to an end.
It was when he was approaching the cave of Him during the month of
Ramadan in the year 610 that he first heard a voice calling and greeting
him: "As-sa/al"'t a/ayka,,)'o m$u/ A/lab! Peace be upon you, Messenger of
Godt"iO