The Apostle excelled, particularly in social virtue

The Apostle excelled, particularly in social virtue

The Apostle excelled, particularly in social virtue. He was never rough with anyone talking with him, nor would he cut them off. Never was he the first to draw his hand from his interlocutor. In spite of his firmness and impartiality in the application of the common justice, he was indulgent concerning his personal rights. Anas Bin Malik, one of his servants, affirmed that, during the ten years of his service, he never has been interrogated why he did something or did not do something else.

Although he succeeded in living with people in peace up to that time, he would not belong to provoke the animosity and the opposition even of those who did not cease to cherish him. Now, he was approaching the forties of his life. He was at the point of a decisive event which would stamp his conduct with a new direction and constitute a turning point in history.

The first indication of this prophetic vocation, as narrated by himself to Aïsha, was the fact that all he saw in dreams was punctually realized in reality “with a clarity similar to that of the morning”. Then he felt a certain inclination for solitude and he chose Mount Hirâ or “the Mountain of Light”, in the north of Makkah, where he liked to retire in a cave overlooking the Ka’ba and the landscape behind it. One night, exactly on the 17^th of the month of Ramadan, as Ibn Sa’d says, (February, 610 A.D.) Muhammad had his first experience of the properly called revelation. He, himself, reported in the form of a dialogue the process of what had happened between Gabriel and him. “Read! (or recite!)”, said the Angel to him: “I’m not one of those who knows reading”, responded Muhammad astonished. “Read” repeated the Angle after hugging his interlocutor in a scarcely supportable manner. “What should I read?” said Muhammad. The same order of reading was reiterated with a more violent pressure as if he wanted to awake to extreme his attention and inculcate in his soul all the seriousness which deserves the superhuman charge which would be imposed upon him: “But how to read (or recite).” replied our terrified solitary. Then, the Angel recited before him:

“Read in the Name of your Lord Who has created (all that exists), He has created man, from a clot (a piece of thick coagulated blood). Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous. Who has taught (the writing) by the pen. He has taught man that which he knew not.” (XCVI, 1-5)[1]

These holy words were fixed in his mind and he kept on repeating them after the disappearance of the Angel. Just after Muhammad left the cave to go home, he heard a voice calling him. He raised his head to find the Angel covering the horizon and declaring, “O Muhammad, truly you are the Apostle of God and I am Gabriel”. Afterwards, he saw nothing.