Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources by Martin Lings

 

The 2006 edition of Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources by Martin Lings is a revised edition that includes the final updates made to the text before the author's death in 2005.  The book is based on eighth- and ninth-century Arabic biographies and is described as presenting "original English translations of many important passages that reveal the words of men and women who heard Muhammad speak and witnessed the events of his life."  This book provides perspectives of the life of Muhammad (circa 570-632) that humanize a historical figure of religious influence, encompassing descriptions of miraculous experiences.  Muhammad is quoted on one occasion: "I hold intimate converse with one whom ye converse not with."

In chapter 65 an incident of 'Revelation' was described by 'A'ishah, one of Muhammad's many wives, after she became the object for suspected adultery.

"He remained sitting in our company and all of us were still present when a Revelation came to him: he was seized with the pangs that seized him at such times, and as it were pearls of sweat dripped from him, although it was a wintry day.  Then, when he was relieved of the pressure, he said in a voice that vibrated with gladness: 'O 'A'ishah, praise God, for He hath declared thee innocent.'"

The book also presents descriptions of occasions in the lives of other people who heard the voices of unseen communicators and experienced prophetic dreams and visions.  Similar to many human figures associated with religious traditions, many of the anecdotes involving Muhammad seem to have been filtered through a prism of acceptance and aggrandizement; however, as Lings observed: " . . . the revealed Book itself was the central miracle of the Divine intervention now taking place, just as Christ had been the central miracle of the preceding intervention."

In the following excerpt from chapter 15 "The First Revelations," voices of unknown speakers are described to have been heard by Muhammad as precursor events to his first encounter with Gabriel.  The "outward sign" mentioned regarding Mohammad's "authority" was an incident where it had been suggested that the arbiter of a disagreement be "the first man who shall enter in through the gate of this Mosque."  That individual was Muhammad who was returning to Mecca after an absence.

It was not long after this outward sign of his authority and his mission that he began to experience powerful inward signs, in addition to those of which he had already been conscious.  When asked about these he spoke of "true visions" which came to him in his sleep and he said that they were "like the breaking of the light of dawn."  The immediate result of these visions was that solitude became dear to him, and he would go for spiritual retreats to a cave in Mount Hirã' not far from the outskirts of Mecca.  There was nothing in this that would have struck Quraysh [his Arab tribe] as particularly strange, for retreat had been a traditional practice amongst the descendants of Ishmael, and in each generation there had been one or two who would withdraw to a solitary place from time to time so that they might have a period that was uncontaminated by the world of men.  In accordance with this age-old practice, Muhammad would take with him provisions  and consecrate a certain number of nights to the worship of God.  Then he would return to his family, and sometimes on his return he took more provisions and went again to the mountain.  During these few years it often happened that after he had left the town and was approaching his  hermitage he would hear clearly the words "Peace be on thee, O Messenger of God," and he would turn and look for the speaker but no one was in sight, and it was as if the words had come from a tree or a stone.

Ramadan was the traditional month of retreat, and it was one night towards the end of Ramadan, in his fortieth, when he was alone in the cave, that there came to him an Angel in the form of a man.  The Angel said to him: "Recite!" and he said: "I am not a reciter," whereupon, as he himself told it, "the Angel took me and whelmed me in his embrace until he had reached the limit of mine endurance.  Then he released me and said: 'Recite!'  I said: 'I am not a reciter,' and again he took me and whelmed me in his embrace, and again when he had reached the limit of mine endurance he released me and said, 'Recite!,' and again I said 'I am not a reciter.'  Then a third time he whelmed me as before, then released me and said:

"Recite in the name of thy Lord who created!

He created man from a clot of blood.

Recite; and thy Lord is the Most Bountiful,

He who hath taught by the pen,

taught man what he knew not."

He recited these words after the Angel, who thereupon left him; and he said; "It was as though the words were written on my heart."  But he feared that this might mean he had become a jinn-inspired poet or a man possessed.  So he fled from the cave, and when he was halfway down the slope of the mountain he heard a voice from above saying: "O Muhammad, thou art the Messenger of God, and I am Gabriel."  He raised his eyes heavenwards and there was his visitant, still recognizable but now clearly an Angel, filling the whole horizon, and again he said: "O Muhammad, thou art the Messenger of God, and I am Gabriel."  The Prophet stood gazing at the Angel; then he turned away from him, but whichever way he looked the Angel was always there, astride the horizon, whether it was to the north, to the south, to the east or to the west.  Finally the Angel turned away, and the Prophet descended the slope and went to his house.  "Cover me!  Cover me" he said to Khadîjah [his first wife] as with still quaking heart he laid himself on his couch.  Alarmed, yet not daring to question him, she quickly brought a cloak and spread it over him.  But when the intensity of his awe had abated he told her what he had seen and heard; and having spoken to him words of reassurance she went to tell her cousin Waraqah, who was now an old man, and blind.

The old man warned Mohammad about the likelihood of him being called a liar and experiencing other ill-treatment due to his predicament.  Some people called him 'the reprobate' and 'Mudhammam' (meaning blamed) instead of Muhammad (meaning praised).  

The singularity of the forementioned 'thy Lord'/Creator is ameliorated by a passage at the beginning of the chapter "Smoke" in The Koran (here from the N. J. Dawood translation):

Ha mim.  We swear by the Glorious Book that We revealed the Koran on a blessed night.  We revealed it to warn mankind, on a night when every precept was made plain as a commandment from Ourself.  We sent it down as a blessing from your Lord, who hears all and knows all.

He is the Lord of the heavens and the earth and all that lies between them.  (Mark this, if you are true believers!)  There is no god but Him.  He ordains life and death.  He is your God and the God of your forefathers.  Yet they divert themselves with doubts.  

In chapter 34, there is an incident where Muhammad found himself in disfavor of the voices—here one is identified as Satan—after Muhammad promised paradise for people who became his followers after a man of Khazraj told them they would be pledging themselves to war.

And Satan was watching and listening from the top of Aqabah; and when he could contain himself no longer he cried out in the loudest voice possible and spoke the name Mudhammam, Reprobate; and the Prophet knew who it was who had thus cried, and he answered him, saying: "O enemy of God, I will give thee no respite."

In chapter 69, another apparently clairaudient occurrence is described.

It happened on this occasion that seated next to the Prophet was a Khazrajite named Bishr, the son of the Barã' who had led the Muslims of Yathrib to the Second Aqabah and who had been the first ever to pray the ritual prayer in the direction of Mecca.  When the Prophet took a mouthful of lamb, Bishr did the same and swallowed it, but the Prophet spat out what was in his mouth, saying to the others: "Hold off your hands!  This shoulder proclaimeth unto me that it is poisoned."  He sent for the woman and asked her if she had poisoned the joint.  "Who told thee?" she asked.  "The shoulder itself," said the Prophet.  "What made thee do it?"  "Well thou knowest," she said, "what thou hast done unto my people; and thou hast slain my father and mine uncle and my husband.  So I told myself: 'If he be a king, I shall be well quit of him; and if he be a Prophet he will be informed of the poison.'"  The face of Bishr was already ashen pale, and he died shortly afterwards.  But the Prophet nonetheless pardoned the woman.

There are incidents of voice-hearing also chronicled as having been experienced by others, as in chapter 69:

"Where are the Bani Ghatafãn?" was a question that was being asked throughout Khaybar, but not answered.  They had in fact set out with an army of four thousand men as promised.  But after a day's march they had heard during the night a strange voice—they did not know whether it came from earth or heaven—and the voice cried out three times in succession: "Your people!  Your people!  Your people!," whereupon the men imagined that their families were in danger, and hastened back whence they had come, only to find everything in order.  But having returned, they were unwilling to set out a second time, partly because many of them were convinced that they would now arrive too late to have a share in the defeat of the enemy.

There is also a momentous occasion in chapter 82 when the angel Gabriel is reported to have been seen with Muhammad although the dogma expressed by him as recorded is manifestly imperfect.

Umar said: "One day when we were sitting with the Messenger of God there came unto us a man whose clothes were of exceeding whiteness and whose hair was of exceeding blackness, nor were there any signs of travel upon him, although none of us knew him.  He sat down knee unto knee opposite the Prophet, upon whose thighs he placed the palms of his hands, saying: 'O Muhammad, tell me what is the surrender (islâm).'  The Messenger of God answered him saying: 'The surrender is to testify that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God's Messenger, to perform the prayer, bestow the alms, fast Ramadan, and make, if thou canst, the pilgrimage to the Holy House.'  He said: 'Thou hast spoken truly,' and we were amazed that having questioned him he should corroborate him.  Then he said: 'Tell me what is faith (iman).'  He answered: 'To believe in God and His Angels and His Books and His Messengers and the Last Day, and to believe that no good or evil cometh but by his Providence.'  'Thou hast spoken truly,' he said, and then: 'Tell me what is excellence (ishan).'  He answered: 'To worship God as if thou sawest Him, for if thou seest Him not, yet seeth He thee.'  'Thou hast spoken truly,' he said, and then: 'Tell me of the Hour.'  He answered: 'The questioned thereof knoweth no better than the questioner.'  He said: 'Then tell me of its signs.'  He answered: 'That the slave-girl shall give birth to her mistress; and that those who were but barefoot naked needy herdsmen shall build buildings ever higher and higher.'  Then the stranger went away, and I stayed a while after he had gone; and the Prophet said to me: 'O Umar, knowest thou the questioner, who he was?'  I said: 'God and His Messenger know best.'  He said: 'It was Gabriel.  He came unto you to teach you your religion.'"

Chapter 83 of Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources identifies the Koran as a work of transcendental communication (the common contemporary expression for this is 'channeling').

It was in Ramadan every year that Gabriel would come to him to make sure that nothing of the Revelation had slipped from his memory; and this year, after the retreat, the Prophet confided to Fatimah, as a secret not yet to be told to be told to others: "Gabriel reciteth the Koran unto me and I unto him once every year; but this year he hath recited it with me twice.  I cannot but think that my time hath come."

In chapter 84, an eventual proverb is associated with Muhammad at the age of 63.  "They had grown accustomed to thinking of him as one who is already in a sense in the Hereafter.  Perhaps it was partly for this reason that when he spoke of his death . . . his words made little impression on them . . . Yet on one occasion a remark of his when he was with his wives was sufficiently ominous to prompt the question as to which of them would be the first to rejoin him in the next world."

He replied: "She of the longest reach will be the soonest of you to join me," whereupon they set about measuring their arms, one against another.  Presumably, though it is not recorded, Sawdah was the winner of this contest, for she was the tallest of them and in general the largest.  Zaynab, on the other hand, was a small woman, with an arm to match.  But it was Zaynab who died first of them all, some ten years later.  Only then did they realize that by "she of the longest reach" the Prophet had meant the most giving, for Zaynab was exceedingly generous, like her predecessor of the same name who had been called "the mother of the poor."

A 'chosen one' by God achieving success on the battlefield perhaps finds an epithet with the word 'mad' being prominent in the English translation of the name Muhammad.  On one occasion reported by Lings, Muhammad declared that "war is deception." In the final chapter Muhammad is quoted: "I and this world are as a rider and a tree beneath which he taketh shelter.  Then he goeth on his way, and leaveth it behind him."