Christianity and Islam

part I). Much later, at the age of forty, when the Prophet was in a cave called Hira, situated near Makkah, he was visited by the angel Gabriel, who came to him with the first revelations from God. (Quran, chapter No. 96.) “Read in the name of your Lord Who created, created man from clots of congealed blood. Read! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One, Who taught by the pen, taught man what he did not know.” The Prophet’s biographers write that after this extraordinary experience with the Angel Gabriel and the First Revelation of the initial verses, he rushed back home from Hirah. Trembling with fear, he said to his wife Khadijah, ‘Cover me with a cloak, cover me with a cloak.’ After a while, when he had recovered a little from his state of anxiety, he related what he had experienced to his wife and said, ‘I feel there is danger to my life.’ She responded, ‘No, never, God will never bring you to grief.’ Then she took him to Waraqa ibn Naufal, who was her cousin. He had embraced Christianity and had a good knowledge of the religion. Hearing from him what had happened, Waraqa said without any hesitation, ‘The One who came to you is the same Namus (the specially appointed Divine Messenger) who came to Moses. I wish I were a young man and could live till the time when your people will expel you.’ The Prophet said, ‘Will my people expel me?’ He replied: ‘Yes, no one has been before, who brought the same thing that you have brought, without the people turning hostile to him.’ The third encounter between Christianity and Islam took place a few years after the Prophethood of Muhammad, may God’s blessings be upon him. During this period, Makkah was dominated by the idolaters. They vigorously opposed the call of