Abdal Hakim Murad - The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology

20 M. A. S. Abdel Haleem
Prophet, or talks about him, and nowhere leaves him to speak for
himself. The Qur’an describes itself as a scripture which God ‘‘sent
down’’ to His prophet, and this expression, ‘‘sent down’’, in its various
derivations, is used in the Qur’an well over 200 times. In Arabic this
locution conveys immediately, and, implicitly, the principle that the
origin of the Book is heavenly, and that Muh _
ammad is no more than its
receptacle. God is the one who speaks in this Book: Muh _
ammad
is addressed as ‘‘O Prophet!’’, ‘‘O Messenger!’’, ‘‘Do’’, ‘‘Do not do’’,
‘‘They ask you ...’’, ‘‘Say!’’ (this last command appearing more than 300
times). Sometimes the Prophet is reproached (9:43; 80:1–11). His status
is unequivocally defined as ‘‘messenger’’ (rasul), and he is often
reminded that his duty is simply to communicate (balagh) the message
to his community.
A hadith reports that during his first experience of revelation the
Prophet was alone in the cave, but subsequent circumstances in which
the received episodes of revelation were witnessed by others and
recorded. Sometimes these witnesses would report visible, audible and
sensory reactions when the Prophet experienced the ‘‘state of revelation’’.
His face would ‘‘become bright’’, and he would fall silent and
seem to be contemplating distant things; his body would become heavy
as though in sleep, a humming sound would be heard around him, and
sweat might appear on his brow, even on winter days. This stage would
swiftly end, and as it did so he would immediately recite new verses of
the scripture. The sources report that this state was not the Prophet’s to
command: it might descend on him as he was walking, sitting, riding or
giving a sermon, and there were occasions when he waited for it anxiously
for over a month when he needed an answer to a question he had
been asked, or sought an interpretation of some event. The Prophet and
his followers understood these signs as experiences accompanying the
communication of scriptural verses by Gabriel, the Angel of Revelation;
his adversaries explained them as proof that he was ‘‘possessed’’, and in
this regard, the Qur’an itself records many claims and attacks made
upon it and upon the Prophet in his lifetime. 2
The evidence suggests that for the Prophet himself, the Qur’an was
‘‘sent down’’ and communicated to him by ‘‘the faithful Spirit’’, Gabriel,
and was categorically not his own speech. Stylistically, qur’anic material
which the Prophet recited following the states of revelation described
above is so evidently different from the Prophet’s own sayings as
recorded in the hadith, whether uttered incidentally or after long
reflection, that the tradition has always ascribed them to two radically
different levels of discourse.
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