(2) Dr. A. Sprenger, Persian translator of the Government of India, and Principal of the Calcutta Madrasah, gives the following valuable review of the character of Muḥammad, as regards his assumption of the prophetic office:—
“Up to his fortieth year, Mohammad devoutly worshipped the gods of his fathers. The predominance of his imaginative powers, and his peculiar position, gave him a turn for religious meditation. He annually spent the month of Ramazan in seclusion in a cave of Mount Hirá, where the Qorayshites used to devote themselves to ascetic exercises. In this retreat he passed a certain number of nights in prayers, fasted, fed the poor, and gave himself up to meditation; and on his return to Makkah he walked seven times round the Kaʿbah before he went to his own house.
“When he was forty years of age, the first doubts concerning idolatry arose in his mind. The true believers ascribe this crisis to a divine revelation, and therefore carefully conceal the circumstances which may have given the first impulse. It is likely that the eccentric Zaid, whom he must have met in Mount Hirá, first instilled purer notions respecting God into his mind, and induced him to read the Biblical history. To abjure the gods, from whom he had hoped for salvation, caused a great struggle to Mohammad, and he became dejected and fond of solitude. He spent the greater part of his time in Hirá, and came only occasionally to Makkah for new provisions.
“Undisturbed meditation increased his excitement, and his overstrained brains were, even in sleep, occupied with doubts and speculations. In one of his visions he saw an angel, who said to him, ‘Read.’ He answered, ‘I am not reading.’ The angel laid hold of him and squeezed him, until Mohammad succeeded in making an effort. Then he released him, and said again, ‘Read.’ Mohammad answered, ‘I am not reading.’ This was repeated three times; and at length the angel said, ‘Read in the name of thy Lord, the Creator, who has created man of congealed blood;—read, for thy Lord is most beneficent. It is He who has taught by the pen (has revealed the Scriptures); it is He who has taught man what he does not know.’ These are the initial words of a Surah of the Quran, and the first revelation which Mohammad received. If this dream was as momentous as authentic traditions make it, it must have been the crisis, which caused Mohammad to seek for truth in the books of the Jews and Christians. The words of the angel admit hardly any other sense. After much hesitation he determines to study the tenets of another faith, which was hostile to that of his fathers. His resolve is sanctioned by a vision, and he thanks the Creator, whom the Qorayshites always considered the greatest among their gods, for having sent a revelation to direct man.
“It is certain, however, that no Musalman will admit the sense which I give to these verses of the Quran; and Mohammad himself, in the progress of his career, formally denied having read any part of the Scriptures before the Quran had been revealed to him. This, however, can only be true if he meant the first verses of the Quran, that is to say, those mentioned above; for in the following revelations he introduces the names of most prophets, he holds up their history as an example to the Makkians, he borrows expressions from the Bible which he admired for their sublimity, he betrays his acquaintance with the gospels by referring to an erroneously translated verse of St. John, for a proof of his mission, and he frequently alludes to the legends of the Rabbins and Christians. Whence has the Prophet of the Gentiles obtained his knowledge of the Biblical history? He answers the question himself: It is God who has revealed it to me. This assertion satisfies the believer, and is a hint to the inquirer in tracing the sources of his information. He would hardly have hazarded it had he not obtained his instruction under considerable secrecy. The spirit of persecution at Makkah, which manifested itself against Zaid, made caution necessary for Mohammad, though originally he may have had no ulterior views, in making himself acquainted with another faith. Yet with all his precautions, the Qorayshites knew enough of his history to disprove his pretensions. He himself confesses, in a Surah revealed at Makkah ([Sūrah xxv. 5]), that they said that the Quran was a tissue of falsehood; that several people had assisted him; and that he preached nothing more than what was contained in the “Asátyr of the Ancients,” which he used to write, from the dictation of his teachers, morning and evening. Who were the men who instructed Mohammad? It is not likely that he would have dared to declare before them, that the doctrines which he had received from them had been revealed to him; nor is it likely that, had they been alive after the new religion had become triumphant, they would have allowed him to take all the credit to himself. Those who exercised an influence upon Mohammad were his disciples; but we find no instance in which he appeared to buy secrecy by submitting to the dictation of others. I am inclined to think, therefore, that his instructors died during his early career; and this supposition enables us to ascertain the names of some of them. The few specimens of the sayings of Zaid, which have been preserved, prove that Mohammad borrowed freely from him, not only his tenets, but even his expressions; and Zaid did not long survive Mohammad’s assumption of his office. It is likely that Waraqah, the cousin of Khadyjah, who, it would appear, brought about her marriage with Mohammad, who was the first to declare that the Great Law [[NAMUS]] would be revealed to him, and who expressed a wish to assist him during the persecutions to which every prophet was subject, was one of his teachers. Waraqah died shortly before the time when he publicly proclaimed his mission. The defence of the Prophet, that the man, of whom his countrymen said that he assisted him in writing the Quran, was a foreigner ([Sūrah xvi. 105]), and unable to write so pure Arabic as the language of the Quran was, leads us to suspect that one of his chief authorities for the Biblical legends was ʾAddas, a monk of Nineveh, who was settled at Makkah. (See Tafsīru ʾl-Baiẓāwī on [Sūrah xxv. 6].) And there can be no doubt that the Rabbins of the Hijaz communicated to Mohammad their legends. The commentators upon the Quran inform us further, that he used to listen to Jabr and Yasár, two sword-manufacturers at Makkah, when they read the scriptures; and Ibn Isháq says, that he had intercourse with ʾAbdal-Rahmán, a Christian of Zamámah; but we must never forget that the object of these authorities, in such matters, is not to instruct their readers, but to mislead them.
“It is certain, from the context, where the expression occurs, and from the commentators on the Quran, that ‘Asátyr of the Ancients’ is the name of a book; but we have very little information as to its origin and contents. (See the Commentaries of al-Baiẓāwī and the Jalālān on [Sūrah xxv].) That dogmas were propounded in it, besides Biblical legends, appears from several passages of the Quran, where it is said that it contained the doctrine of the Resurrection. ([Sūrahs xxvii. 70], [xlvi. 16].) It is also clear that it was known at Makkah before Mohammad; for the Qorayshites told him that they and their fathers had been acquainted with it before he taught it, and that all that he taught was contained in it. ([Sūrah lxviii. 15].) Mohammad had, in all likelihood, besides, a version of portions of the scriptures, both of the genuine and some of the apocryphal works; for he refers his audience to them without reserve. Tabary informs us that when Mohammad first entered on his office, even his wife Khadyjah had read the scriptures, and was acquainted with the history of the prophets. (See Balʾāmy’s translation of Tabary in Persian.)
“In spite of three passages of the Quran quoted above, the meaning of which they clumsily pervert, almost all modern Musalman writers, and many of the old ones, deny that Mohammad knew reading or writing. Good authors, however, particularly among the Shiahs, admit that he knew reading; but they say he was not a skilful penman. The only support of the opinion of the former is one passage of the Quran, [Sūrah vii. 156], in which Mohammad says that he was the Prophet of the Ummis, and an Ummi himself. This word, they say, means illiterate; but others say it means a man who is not skilful in writing; and others suppose it to mean a Makkian or an Arab. It is clear that they merely guess, from the context, at the meaning of the word. Ummi is derived from ummah, ‘nation’ (Latin gens, Greek ethnos), and on comparing the passages of the Quran, in which it occurs, it appears that it means gentile (Greek ethnicos). It is said in the Quran, that some Jews are honest, but others think there is no harm in wronging the Ummis. Imám Sadiq observes (Ḥayātu ʾl-Qulūb, vol. ii. chapter 6, p. 2) on this passage, that the Arabs are meant under Ummis, and that they are called so, though they knew writing, because God had revealed no book to them, and had sent them no prophet. Several instances in which Mohammad did read and write are recorded by Bokhary, Nasay, and others. It is, however, certain that he wished to appear ignorant, in order to raise the elegance of the composition of the Quran into a miracle.
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“According to one record, the doubts, indecision, and preparation of the Prophet for his office lasted seven years; and so sincere and intense were his meditations on matters of religion, that they brought him to the brink of madness. In the Quran we can trace three phases in the progress of the mind of Mohammad from idolatry to the formation of a new creed. First, the religion of the Kaʿbah, in which he sincerely believed, seems to have formed the principal subject of his meditations. The contemplation of nature, probably assisted by instruction, led him to the knowledge of the unity of God; and there is hardly a verse in the Quran which does not shew how forcibly he was struck with this truth. By satisfying the faith of his fathers, he tried to reconcile it with the belief in one God; and for some time he considered the idols round the Kaʾbah daughters of God, who intercede with Him for their worshippers. But he gave up this belief, chiefly because he could not reconcile himself to the idea that God should have only daughters, which was ignominious in the eyes of an Arab; and that men should have sons, who reflect honour on a family. He also connected the idolatrous worship of the black stone, and the ceremonies of the Hajj, and almost all the other pagan usages of the Haramites, with their Abraham. This idea was not his own. The sceptics who preceded him held the same opinion; yet it was neither ancient nor general among the pagan Arabs. We find no connexion between the tenets of Moses and those of the Haramites; and though Biblical names are very frequent among the Musalmans, we do not find one instance of their occurrence among the pagans of the Hijaz before Mohammad.
“It has been mentioned that the vision in which he was ordered to read, caused him finally to renounce idolatry; we are told that after this vision an intermission of revelation, called fatrah, took place, which lasted upwards of two years. The meaning of fatrah is simply that, though this vision was a revelation, he did not assume his office for two or three years. It is certain that he composed many Surahs of the Quran during this time; and it must have been during this period that the tenets of the Jews and Christians seriously occupied his mind. Before the vision he was an idolater; and after the fatrah he possessed the acquaintance with the scriptural history which we find in the Quran. Even after he had declared himself a prophet, he shewed, during the beginning of his career, a strong leaning towards, and a sincere belief in, the scriptures and Biblical legends; but in proportion to his success he separated himself from the Bible.