Muhammad Reacts to His Prophetic Call

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At the beginning Muhammad regarded his spiritual encounter with the angel Gabriel with considerable agitation. He “suffered much pain and his face turned dust-colored.” He wondered if he had been demonically possessed, and even contemplated suicide:

I will go to the top of the mountain and throw myself down that I may kill myself and gain rest. So I went forth to do so and then when I was midway on the mountain, I heard a voice from heaven saying: “O Muhammad! Thou art an apostle of God and I am Gabriel.” I raised my head towards heaven to see (who was speaking) and lo, Gabriel in the form of a man with feet astride the horizon, saying, “O Muhammad! Thou art the apostle of God and I am Gabriel.”

Muhammad returned to Khadija in tremendous distress. According to Aisha: “Then Allah’s Messenger returned with that (the Revelation), and his heart severely beating; (and the) muscles between his neck and shoulders were trembling till he came upon Khadija (his wife) and said, ‘Cover me!’ They covered him, till his fear was over, and after that he said, ‘O Khadija! What is wrong with me? I was afraid that something bad might happen to me.’ Then he told her all that had happened.”

And he repeated to her his initial fears: “Woe is me poet or possessed.” He meant “poet” in the sense of one who received ecstatic, and possibly demonic, visions.

Khadija appeared to have more confidence in Muhammad than he did in himself. She then went to see her uncle Waraqa, who by most accounts was a Christian priest, and told him what Muhammad had told her he had experienced in the cave of Hira. Waraqa exclaimed: “Holy! Holy! Verily by Him in whose hand is Waraqa’s soul, if thou has spoken to me the truth, O Khadija, there hath come unto him the greatest Namus [that is, Gabriel] who came to Moses aforetime, and lo, he is the Prophet of this people. Bid him be of good heart.”

Khadija told Muhammad what Waraqa had said, lessening Muhammad’s anxiety. According to another account, she went with Muhammad to visit Waraqa:

…who, during the [pre-Islamic] Period of Ignorance became a Christian and used to write the writing with Hebrew letters. He would write from the Gospel in Hebrew as much as Allah wished him to write. He was an old man and had lost his eyesight. Khadija said to Waraqa, “Listen to the story of your nephew, O my cousin!” Waraqa asked, “O my nephew! What have you seen?” Allah’s Apostle described whatever he had seen. Waraqa said, “This is the same one who keeps the secrets (angel Gabriel) whom Allah had sent to Moses.”

Then Waraqa gave the new prophet a warning:

“I wish I were young and could live up to the time when your people would turn you out.” Allah’s Messenger asked, “Will they drive me out?” Waraqa replied in the affirmative and said, “Anyone (man) who came with something similar to what you have brought was treated with hostility; and if I should remain alive till the day when you will be turned out then I would support you strongly.”

Then Waraqa kissed the new prophet on the forehead and bid him farewell.

As a final test of his prophethood, Khadija asked Muhammad, “O son of my uncle, are you able to tell me about your visitant, when he comes to you?” When Muhammad told her that he could, she devised a sure-fire way to tell if the spirit was good or evil:

So when Gabriel came to him, as he was wont, the apostle said to Khadija, “This is Gabriel who has just come to me.” “Get up, O son of my uncle,” she said, “and sit by my left thigh.” The apostle did so, and she said, “Can you see him?” “Yes,” he said. She said, “Then turn round and sit on my right thigh.” He did so, and she said, “Can you see him?” When he said that he could she asked him to move and sit in her lap. When he had done this she again asked if he could see him, and when he said yes, she disclosed her form and cast aside her veil while the apostle was sitting in her lap. Then she said, “Can you see him?” And he replied, “No.” She said, “O son of my uncle, rejoice and be of good heart, by God he is an angel and not a satan.”

When she “disclosed her form,” the angel departed.

Muslim hardliners to this day insist upon the veiling of women because of, among other things, this underlying assumption: the sight of an unveiled woman is so distressing, so deeply sinful, that it causes even the angels to flee.