Bilal

[NaSra]

<b>Bilal witnesses revelation</b>


You might envy us, who had the first bright happiness of Islam. But I’d also like you to pity us. We trembled lest our minds were unfit for the knowledge; even Noah ran and hid himself from the approach of the Divine. We were limited uneducated men, none of us equipped to bring an order, much less apply -ologies or –isms to the great truths we knew so clearly in our hearts.


Today the young know everything- I even catch my son at angles and triangles; he holds facts by the camel-load in his small head- but all we held were the small, immense lamps of the early verses.


<b>Say that God is One</b>


The Eternal God


He begot none


Nor was He begot,


No one is equal to Him.


Many and many a time I saw Muhammad, the Messenger of God, in the very moment a revelation came down to him. Suddenly he would start to tremble and look around for some corner or hiding place. In the coldest nights I saw the sweat run on his face. I saw the pain strike him, his body shuddering, his hands gripping his sides in the spasms.


He might lie for an hour without hearing one word spoken to him- and why not? He who is called by angels is deaf to men.


He never knew when a revelation might come down. He might be in the middle of a conversation or going about the house, or riding on his camel. Then he dismounted quickly and covered himself with his cloak. Sometimes, at the beginning, he heard bells or passing wings or a sound like the clinking of chains. Often an angel appeared and spoke to him, but we who were only an arm’s length away neither saw nor heard.


God’s revelations to His Prophet were not in words as we use them to each other- surely God made our mouths as the very hollows of our heads!


The Message was pressed down on Muhammad’s heart, and only after the Prophet had got up and come back to us did God permit him to recall the inspiration in words. But not one syllable, not one noun or verb was out of its proper order. Then it was written down on skin or bark or shoulder-bone of sheep- whatever was at hand. All was as Gabriel gave it, unaltered.


When I saw his human distress, I have to admit that sometimes my awe of prophecy was overtaken by my love for the man. I wanted to go to him, but my feet stood still- for who can dare God? He told us once when he underwent in these exalted moments.


‘I never receive a revelation,’ he said, ‘without thinking that my soul has been torn away from me.’


Revelation followed revelation, until Heaven itself seemed busy, and we lived in joy. We were young. We stood at the beginning. Every dawn rushed to our heads. But we saw no dancing sun.


For the Qur’an is a miracle without words, a victory without processions, even a book without writers.