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why did Muhammad believe he was a prophet

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AlaynaMarie View Drop Down
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    Posted: 16 November 2009 at 10:31pm
HelloSmile I am taking a world religions class at the university of Michigan. I am finding Islam to be a very beautiful religion and have questions that my text book and surfing the internet are not answering. To start; Muhammad said he was a prophet, can someone tell me the story of why he believed this? The answer I keep getting is not detailed. Thank you for your time.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote seekshidayath Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 November 2009 at 2:53am
Hello Alayna,
 
Welcome to  discussion forum of Islamicity.  Sorry for being late to respond.
 
Hope these notes, which are extracted from a biography of Prophet Muhammad {Pbuh} -  {Sealed Nectar} shall help you. If you have got any doubts, kindly feel free to post them. We shall try our best to answer them, insha Allah
 

GAGRIEL BRINGS DOWN THE REVELATION:

When he was forty, the age of complete perfection at which Prophets were always ordered to disclose their Message, signs of his Prophethood started to appear and twinkle on the horizons of life; they were the true visions he used to experience for six months. The period of Prophethood was 23 years; so the period of these six months of true visions constituted an integral part of the forty-six parts of Prophethood. In Ramadan, in his third year of solitude in the cave of Hira�, All�h�s Will desired His mercy to flow on earth and Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was honoured with Prophethood, and the light of Revelation burst upon him with some verses of the Noble Qur��n.

�Aishah, the veracious, gave the following narration of that most significant event that brought the Divine light which would dispel the darkness of disbelief and ignorance. It led life down a new course and brought about the most serious amendment to the line of the history of mankind:

Forerunners of the Revelation assumed the form of true visions that would strikingly come true all the time. After that, solitude became dear to him and he would go to the cave, Hira�, to engage in Tahannuth (devotion) there for a certain number of nights before returning to his family, and then he would return for provisions for a similar stay. At length, unexpectedly, the Truth (the angel) came to him and said, �Recite.� �I cannot recite,� he [Muhammad (Peace be upon him)] said. The Prophet (Peace be upon him) described: �Then he took me and squeezed me vehemently and then let me go and repeated the order �Recite.� �I cannot recite� said I, and once again he squeezed me and let me till I was exhausted. Then he said: �Recite.� I said �I cannot recite.� He squeezed me for a third time and then let me go and said:

  • �Read! In the Name of your Lord, Who has created (all that exists), has created man from a clot (a piece of thick coagulated blood). Read! and your Lord is the Most Generous.�� [96:1-3]
  • The Prophet (Peace be upon him) repeated these verses. He was trembling with fear. At this stage, he came back to his wife Khadijah, and said, �Cover me, ... cover me.� They covered him until he restored security. He apprised Khadijah of the incident of the cave and added that he was horrified. His wife tried to soothe him and reassured him saying, �All�h will never disgrace you. You unite uterine relations; you bear the burden of the weak; you help the poor and the needy, you entertain the guests and endure hardships in the path of truthfulness.�

    She set out with the Prophet (Peace be upon him) to her cousin Waraqa bin Nawfal bin Asad bin �Abd Al-�Uzza, who had embraced Christianity in the pre-Islamic period, and used to write the Bible in Hebrew. He was a blind old man. Khadijah said: �My cousin! Listen to your nephew!� Waraqa said: �O my nephew! What did you see?� The Messenger of All�h (Peace be upon him) told him what had happened to him. Waraqa replied: �This is �Namus� i.e. (the angel who is entrusted with Divine Secrets) that All�h sent to Moses. I wish I were younger. I wish I could live up to the time when your people would turn you out.� Muhammad (Peace be upon him) asked: �Will they drive me out?� Waraqa answered in the affirmative and said: �Anyone who came with something similar to what you have brought was treated with hostility; and if I should be alive till that day, then I would support you strongly.� A few days later Waraqa died and the revelation also subsided.

    At-Tabari and Ibn Hisham reported that the Messenger of All�h (Peace be upon him) left the cave of Hira� after being surprised by the Revelation, but later on, returned to the cave and continued his solitude. Afterwards, he came back to Makkah. At-Tabari reported on this incident, saying:

    After mentioning the coming of the Revelation, the Messenger of All�h (Peace be upon him) said: �I have never abhorred anyone more than a poet or a mad man. I can not stand looking at either of them. I will never tell anyone of Quraish of my Revelation. I will climb a mountain and throw myself down and die. That will relieve me. I went to do that but halfway up the mountain, I heard a voice from the sky saying �O Muhammad! You are the Messenger of All�h (Peace be upon him) and I am Gabriel.� I looked upwards and saw Gabriel in the form of a man putting his legs on the horizon. He said: �O Muhammad You are the Messenger of All�h (Peace be upon him) and I am Gabriel.� I stopped and looked at him. His sight distracted my attention from what I had intended to do. I stood in my place transfixed. I tried to shift my eyes away from him. He was in every direction I looked at. I stopped in my place without any movement until Khadijah sent someone to look for me. He went down to Makkah and came back while I was standing in the same place. Gabriel then left, and I went back home. I found Khadijah at home, so I sat very close to her. She asked: �Father of Al-Qasim! Where have you been? I sent someone to look for you. He went to Makkah and returned to me.� I told her of what I had seen.

    She replied: �It is a propitious sign, O my husband. Pull yourself together, I swear by All�h that you are a Messenger for this nation.�
     
    Then she stood up and went to Waraqa and informed him. Waraqa said: �I swear by All�h that he has received the same Namus, i.e. angel that was sent to Moses. He is the Prophet of this nation. Tell him to be patient.�
     
    She came back to him and told him of Waraqa�s words. When the Messenger of All�h (Peace be upon him) finished his solitary stay and went down to Makkah, he went to Waraqa, who told him: �You are the Prophet of this nation. I swear by All�h that you have received the same angel that was sent to Moses.��


    Edited by seekshidayath - 18 November 2009 at 2:56am
    Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: �All the descendants of Adam are sinners, and the best of sinners are those who repent."
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    seekshidayath View Drop Down
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    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote seekshidayath Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 November 2009 at 3:00am
    You can also read the biography by  Marmaduke Pickthall
     
     
    These lines are important for you to understand, which am sharing from above link.
     

    His Distress
    To understand the reason of the Prophet�s diffidence and his extreme distress of mind after the vision of Hira�, it must be remembered that the Hunafa, of whom he had been one, sought true religion in the natural world and regarded with distrust the intercourse with spirits of which men �avid of the Unseen� sorcerers and soothsayers and even poets, boasted in those days. Moreover, he was a man of humble and devout intelligence, a lover of quiet and solitude and the very thought of being chosen out of all mankind to face mankind, alone, with such a message, appalled him at the first.

    Recognition of the Divine nature of the call he had received involved a change in his whole mental outlook sufficiently disturbing to a sensitive and honest mind, and also the forsaking of his quiet, honored way of life. The early biographers tell how his wife Khadijah �tested the spirit� which came to him and proved it to be good, and how, with the continuance of the revelations and the conviction that they brought, he at length accepted the tremendous task imposed on him, becoming filled with enthusiasm of obedience which justifies his proudest title of �the Slave of Allah.�



    Edited by seekshidayath - 18 November 2009 at 3:00am
    Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: �All the descendants of Adam are sinners, and the best of sinners are those who repent."
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    Mansoor_ali View Drop Down
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    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mansoor_ali Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 November 2009 at 1:50pm
    Originally posted by AlaynaMarie AlaynaMarie wrote:

    HelloSmile I am taking a world religions class at the university of Michigan. I am finding Islam to be a very beautiful religion and have questions that my text book and surfing the internet are not answering. To start; Muhammad said he was a prophet, can someone tell me the story of why he believed this? The answer I keep getting is not detailed. Thank you for your time.


     Why does AlaynaMarie believe that she is AlaynaMarie?
     
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    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AlaynaMarie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 November 2009 at 8:55am
    Thank you so much for your help!
    Mansoor Ali, I really enjoyed your post :) I wish I woulda thought of that when answering my professor, lol! The answer is so simple... Faith.
     
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    Chrysalis View Drop Down
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    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Chrysalis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 November 2009 at 10:42am
    Hello AlaynaMarie ! Smile

    I see that Seeks found you first. Btw Your World Religions class sounds really interesting !

    Seeks gave a very nice detailed response to you already. One of my favourite parts of the story is how the first person our Prophet Muhammad rushed to in distress was his wife, Khadija.

    That incident is summarised beautifully in this song (Nasheed) called "Zamilooni" (means "Envelop Me" in arabic). Its really nice, do lend it an ear. . . is in english, with subtitles, few typos in it tho...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IERph9zpgeo&feature=PlayList&p=14A4B05B24667EC0&index=0

    Do stick around ! Smile

    PS: Btw Seeks, Before I even saw ur post, I intended on quoting from "the Sealed Nectar too! and then I saw your post - SubhanAllah you used the same ! Big%20smile

    "O Lord, forgive me, my parents and Muslims in the Hereafter. O Lord, show mercy on them as they showed mercy to me when I was young."
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