THE LIFE OF THE APOSTLE

MUHAMMAD BEFORE PROPHETHOOD

Muhammad was now approaching his forty-third lunar year. He always spent a grand part of the night awake waiting for that “Weighty Word”.

“Verily, We shall send down to you a weighty Word (i.e. obligations, laws).” (LXXIII, 1-5). Even, since the first revelation, he used to retire alone to Mount Hirâ in the month of Ramadan. At last, when he just had ended his seclusion and had begun to get down the mountain, he heard a voice calling him. He turned right, left and back, but saw nothing. Then, he looked to the sky and recognized the Angel whom he had seen before on Mount Hirâ. However, the suddenness of the appearance of the Celestial Creature and his majestic immensity struck him so hard that his legs could not carry him. He shook with fear and hastened back to Khadija asking her for the same prior care. Nevertheless, the honourable visitor rejoined him at home carrying the decree which was entrusted to him the second attribution:

“O you (Muhammad) enveloped in garments! Arise and warn”. (LXXIV, 1-2). From that time on, the role of the apostleship had been added to that of his prophethood. From Muhammad apostolate forth, he received the revelation, I do not say, regularly nor frequently, but with a certain continuity and without undergoing such long ruptures.

The year 612 A.D. is the true point of departure for the career of the Islamic message. The date of the Hejira [1] divided this career into two nearly equal periods: ten years at Makkah and another ten at Medina. Where the Prophet died on the 12^th or the 13^th of Rabi’I in year 11 H. (7^th or 8^th June, 632 A.D.) aged exactly sixty-three lunar years or a little bit more than sixty-one solar years.

No doubt, it will be most interesting to follow up the Apostle in his indefatigable preaching activity during those twenty years which had produced one of the most glorious and civilized revolutions which humanity has ever known, but as the principal object of this book is the analysis of the Qur’anic system itself, we will now consider the work which he had left to us. In the following chapter, we shall explain how this Holy Book was composed, organized, preserved and transmitted through history

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[1] Hejira means rupture of relations and voluntary remoteness. It is known that Muhammad had to leave Makkah on the point of a conspiracy against his life, and to settle down at Medina where he arrived at the beginning of Rabi’I, (2^nd, 8^th, or 12^th according to historians). The Egyptian astronomer, mentioned before, considered Monday 8^th, Rabi’I, the day, of the Hejira correspondent to September, 20, 622 A.D. We should not forget that the Islamic Era started with the beginning of the lunar year in which the Hejira took place (the first of Muharram correspondent to 15^th or 16^th July, 622 A.D.). So long as the lunar leap-year is 355 days only and that the total of 33 lunar years equals 32 solar years nearly, the Hejirian date (H) can be converted into Christian date (C) or vice versa, by the use of one of the two following formulas: