Peaceful Beginning of the Prophetic Mission

PEACEFUL BEGINNING OF THE PROPHETIC MISSION nobles of Makkah, Muhammad would wander into the barren hills of the desert. He would sit for hours and ponder over the mysteries of creation. The vast silence of the desert, with endless sand and sky during the days and equally endless darkness at night, alive only with the twinkling of millions and millions of tiny stars, seemed to bring him very close to the Creator. Muhammad often stayed alone for days in the Cave of Hira, near the top of Jabal al-Nur, or the Mountain of Light, three miles from Makkah. He would return home only for more supplies of food and water and then go back to the solitude of nature to pray and meditate, asking the Maker of the heavens and the earth for answers to the questions that surged in his mind. What is man’s true role in life? What does the Lord require of men as His servants? From where does man come, and where will he go after death? It was to find answers to these difficult questions that he went off into the stillness of the desert. With these questions in mind, worldly gain, loss, comfort and distress did not concern him. Instead, he urgently