Created man from a clot of blood in the womb.
Read! for thy Lord is the most beneficent,
He hath taught men the use of the pen;
He hath taught man that which he knoweth not.’
(These are [the first five verses] of the XCVIth Sūrah of the Qurʾān. The other verses of the Sūrah being of a later date.)
“Then the Prophet repeated the words himself, and with his heart trembling he returned (i.e. from Ḥirāʾ to Makkah) to K͟hadījah, and said, ‘Wrap me up, wrap me up.’ And they wrapped him up in a garment till his fear was dispelled, and he told K͟hadījah what had passed, and he said: ‘Verily, I was afraid I should have died.’ Then K͟hadījah said, ‘No, it will not be so. I swear by God, He will never make you melancholy or sad. For verily you are kind to your relatives, you speak the truth, you are faithful in trust, you bear the afflictions of the people, you spend in good works what you gain in trade, you are hospitable, and you assist your fellow men.’ After this K͟hadījah took the Prophet to Waraqah, who was the son of her uncle, and she said to him, ‘O son of my uncle! hear what your brother’s son says.’ Then Waraqah said to the Prophet, ‘O son of my brother! what do you see?’ Then the Prophet told Waraqah what he saw, and Waraqah said, ‘That is the Nāmūs [[NAMUS]] which God sent to Moses.’ ʿĀyishah also relates that Ḥāris̤ ibn Hishām asked the Prophet, ‘How did the revelation come to you?’ and the Prophet said, ‘Sometimes like the noise of a bell, and sometimes the angel would come and converse with me in the shape of a man.’ ”
According to ʿĀyishah’s statement, the Sūratu ʾl-ʿAlaq (xcvi.) was the first portion of the Qurʾān revealed; but it is more probable that the poetical Sūrahs, in which there is no express declaration of the prophetic office, or of a divine commission, were composed at an earlier period. Internal evidence would assign the earliest date to the Sūrahs az-Zalzalah (xcix.), al-ʿAṣr (ciii.), al-ʿĀdiyāt (c.), and al-Fātiḥah (i.), which are rather the utterances of a searcher after truth than of an Apostle of God.
Although the Qurʾān now appears as one book, the Muslim admits that it was not all made known to the Prophet in one and the same manner.
Mr. Sell, in his Faith of Islām, quoting from the Mudāriju ʾn-Nubūwah, p. 509, gives the following as some of the modes of inspiration:—
“1. It is recorded on the authority of ʾA′yesha, one of Muhammad’s wives, that a brightness like the brightness of the morning came upon the Prophet. According to some commentators, this brightness remained six months. In some mysterious way Gabriel, through this brightness or vision, made known the will of God.