The Divine Revelation to the Prophet Muhammad

 The Prophet Muhammad received the Divine Order to call the people, once more, for the last time, to the same true religion, that’s of worshipping and submitting to the One true God, Allah in Arabic. God ordered him in the Quran: “Say, we believe in Allah, and that which has been revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes, and that which was given to Moses and Jesus, and to the Other Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and to Him we submit” [3:83].

      The creed of Islam is summed up in the Testimony of Faith: There is no deity but God and Muhammad is His messenger.

      The Revelation the Prophet Muhammad received from God is called the Quran, which means the Reading or the Recitation. God sent down the Quran on the heart and soul of the Prophet Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel. The Revelation began in the month of Ramadan of the year 610c.e. in the cave of Hira`, in the mountains surrounding Mecca, where the Prophet used to retreat for meditation. It continued for 22 years, until the death of the Prophet, at the age of 62, in Medina.

     The Revelation was brought in clear and distinct Arabic verses “Ayaat”. They came in an intermittent manner, whenever God found it necessary to reveal how the problems, the circumstances, the needs, the important issues related to the new faith should be dealt with, or to reveal the ways of worshipping, salvation, preparation for death and resurrection on the Day of Judgment.

     The Prophet was transmitting faithfully the Words of God to the believers, as those Words were engraved forever in his heart and memory. The companions of the Prophet were memorizing and writing down all the Revelations dictated by the Prophet. All the verses constituting the Quran were put in the order they exist now, under the instructions of the Angel Gabriel who had transmitted to the Prophet the Will and the Words of God as embodied today in the Quran.

     The Quran is the first and most authentic source of Islam. The Quran is the Word of God whereas the traditions, the Sunnah, of the Prophet Muhammad are the practical interpretations of the Quran. The role of the Prophet was to convey the Quran as he received it, to interpret it and to practice it fully. These interpretations and practices produced what is known as the Sunnah, the Traditions of the Prophet. They are considered to be the second source of Islam and must be in complete harmony with the first source, the Quran.