The Encampment.
When the Prophet crossed the threshold of his house, he rushed to Khadijah, hiding his face in her lap and trembling as if in a fit of ague, as he cried: 'Cover me up! Cover me up!' His servants flocked busily round him, keeping him enwrapped until his emotion had subsided. Khadijah, much upset, questioned him: 'O Father of Qasim, where wert thou? By Allah, what befell thee? I sent some of my servants to meet thee, but they came back without having met thee, either at Hira, or on the outskirts of the city.'
The Prophet told her what had happened to him. 'I thought I should have died!' he added. 'That could not be,' answered Khadijah, regaining her composure. 'Surely Allah sought not to do thee harm, for thou art kind to thy family, merciful to the weak and helpful towards the victims of injustice. O son of my uncle! thou dost bring me excellent tidings and that I do affirm. I swear, by the name of Him who holdeth in His hands the soul of Khadijah, that I hoped for this news. There is no doubt about it—thou wilt be the Prophet of our nation.'
Ever since she had heard the miraculous reports that Maisarah, her slave, brought her, and which confirmed what she had remarked herself, Khadijah was convinced that the highest destiny was in store for her husband, and she was not at all astonished at such a Revelation. She quickly gathered her flowing robes about her, and hastened to the house of her cousin Waraqah ibn Naufal to apprise him of what had just come to her ears.
No man in Makkah was more conversant with Holy Writ than Waraqah, a convert to Christianity; and, like the Syrian monks, he lived in hopes of the advent of a Prophet to be born in Arab-land. Therefore, he had no sooner heard his cousin's story than he cried out, while tears of joy welled up in his eyes: 'Most Holy God! If what thou sayest is exact, O Khadijah, He who manifested His presence to thy husband is the great Namus, Allah's confidant: the Angel who appeared to Our Lord Moses! Mohammad will be the Prophet of our Nation! Doubt it not and repeat my words to him that he be convinced thereof.'
What time the Prophet, according to his wont after each term of retirement, was performing the ritual circuits round the Ka'bah, Waraqah, despite weakness due to his great age and blindness caused by too much reading, had himself led at once into Mohammad's presence, so as to listen to the story of his adventure from his own lips. When the sightless old man was satisfied that Mohammad told the truth and had repeated to him the same predictions, he exclaimed: 'Ah! I should like to be still in the land of the living when your fellow-men will send thee into exile!'—'How so?' cried the Prophet. 'Shall I be banished?'—'Of a surety, they will send thee into exile,' Waraqah went on, 'for never hath mortal man brought what thou bringest without falling a victim to the most dastardly persecution. Ah! if God deigned to lengthen my days until then, I would devote all my energies to helping thee to triumph over thy enemies!' Death, however, prevented Waraqah from seeing his wishes fulfilled.
All Mohammad's doubt vanished. The fulgurating Revelation set all his unknowing aspirations in a blaze and fanned the flame of the latent forces stored in his soul during fifteen years of contemplation. It had opened his eyes and taught him the formidable, superhuman part he had to play and which was now forced upon him. In reality, all this was quite unexpected, despite the monks' predictions that he had forgotten long ago, even if he had ever paid the slightest attention to them. His anguish and his fear lest he should have fallen a victim to diabolical hallucinations furnishes us with indisputable proofs of his state of mind.