The Quran—The Word of God

“I am sure that the angel who descended on Moses has descended on you. You will be abused, and you will be pursued. I wish I could be alive to give you my support when your people will turn you out.” “Will they turn me out?” The Prophet found this difficult to believe. Waraqa replied that people have always turned against those who are recipients of God’s messages. The Quran—The Word of God The Prophet Muhammad faced many people in his lifetime who did not believe in him. They challenged him to work a miracle just as Jesus had done in order to prove that God had really sent him as His messenger. This he did not do. He retorted that it was quite unnecessary, as the Quran itself was the supreme miracle. If anyone doubted it, let them try to compose ten surahs that would bear comparison with it. “If you are truthful, produce ten invented chapters like it, and call on whom you can besides God, to help you.” (Hud, 11:13). In the pre-Islamic era, the Arabs excelled at poetry and tried to match the Quran. They were unable to do so. The matchless literary quality of the Quran is one of the proofs that it is the word of God. He also pointed out that there were obvious signs of God everywhere—in the beauty of nature, in life-giving water, in the growth of crops and in the miracle of birth. The entire universe, in fact, was proof of His existence as the Creator and Sustainer. There were two main ways in which the Quran came to The Prophet Muhammad . Sometimes the angel Jibril would reveal the verses of the Quran as one man to another. This way it was easy. But, at other times, it was like the ringing of a bell piercing his heart and tearing him apart. This method was very hard and painful. The revelation of the Quran started when the Prophet was 40 years old and continued intermittently throughout his life. The last revelation of the Quran came only a few months before his death, when the Prophet was 63 years of age. The Prophet Muhammad declared that each prophet was sent with miracles and that the Quran was one of the Prophet’s miracles. The First Believers The Prophet’s wife, Khadijah, was the first convert to Islam. When the news of Muhammad’s prophethood reached his freed slave, Zayd bin Haritha, who was 30 years of age, and his cousin Ali, who was about eleven, both declared their faith in Islam. Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s friend from childhood, also professed his faith. This small group of the faithful were the first believers of Islam. In the first stage, the Prophet was asked to spread the message of Islam quietly to avoid arousing any hostility. Abu Bakr, being an influential merchant, was able to bring some of his friends, also rich merchants, into the fold of Islam. But the majority of the conversions took place among the weak and the poor. In the second stage, the Prophet received the command from God to spread the message publicly, but first to his own kin. For this purpose, he invited his family members to a meal at his house. It was Ali who managed the food. After they had taken their meal, the Prophet put his message before them: that God had made him His messenger and that they should extend their cooperation to him so that he could fulfil this responsibility of prophethood.