Muhammad
Peace be Upon him

     In the age of 40, the divine inspiration came to Muhammad. He was used to going for meditation in the cave of Mount Hira. His meditations were the on the same religion of Abraham, or what was called at that time the religion of the Hanifs. In one of the days of Ramadan, 609 A.D. , he heard a voice saying to him "Read." But the illiterate Muhammad replied asking: " How can I read? I don’t know how to read. " This was repeated until the sound said:

Read in the name of thy lord who created
He created man from a clod
Read, and thy lord is most honorable
Who taught to write with pen,
Taught man when he knew not.
    Muhammad started shivering, so he ran towards his house. When he reached he had nothing on his tongue except :" Enwrap me enwrap me. " His wife, Khadija, ran towards her relative Warakah, the son of Naufal. Warakah was a man of religion, he was Christian, and he was always pursuing the truth. When he heard the story, he said:" Kaddosh, Kaddosh, this is the Greater Nomos. " Kaddosh means in Greek holy, while Nomos means law. Warakah said:" By the most holy God! If what thou sayest is correct, He who manifested His voice to thy husband is the same greater Nomos, that is Allah’s confident, the Angel who appeared to our lord Moses. But thy husband is the prophet risen out of the clan of Quraish. Go and be of good cheer. "
     Khadija knew that her husband had to play the role of Allah’s missionary and prophet to the world. He is a Nabi.

     Muhammad started calling for Islam in secret. He started to learn the basis of Islam throughout the inspiration. He first started with his family, his wife Khadija. The second believer, and the youngest as well, was Ali, the son of Abu-Talib, later on Imam Ali and the fourth rightly Guided khalif. Then his former slave and his adopted son Zaid, the son of Harith.
Muhammad went after that to his closest friend Abu-Bakr. As soon as Muhammad started talking about the new religion, Abu-Bakr submitted himself directly. Abu-Bakr became the second most important man in the mission. For three years, the four succeeded to convince a lot of people to submit. The most important point, which some false historians tried to deny, was that the first Moslems were from all categories and not only slaves, as they mentioned. The first list included a lot of the clan chiefs like Othman, the son of Affan, Saad, the son of Abu-Wakkas, Talha, Zubair. At the end of the first three years in the mission, the Moslems became about 40 to 50 man and woman. They were used to practicing their rites in the mountains of Mecca. It was difficult to hide the secret of about 50 people and their new religion from Quraish. They came once when they were praying and they insulted the Moslems. So Saad, the son of Wakkas, threw a bone on one of them and he wounded him. Thus Saad was known to be the first one who wounded the non-believers in Islam.

     The Publicity became a must for Muhammad. He organized several feasts for the chiefs of Quraish asking them to join the Islam. He was usually insulted by his uncle Abu-Lahab, or Omar, the son of Hisham. The harm of Quraish increased on Muhammad, but his uncle Abu-Talib, who brought him up after the death of his grandfather, was the only protector for Muhammad. The chiefs of Quraish tried several times to make deals with Abu-Talib to give Muhammad to them. But Abu-Talib, despite being non-believer, refused several times to get involved with them. Once Abu-Talib went to Muhammad asking him to give up the mission, but Muhammad replied:" I swear by Allah, if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand to leave the message, I would never leave it. "

     As a result the war on Islam was declared by Quraish. It was a specific torture and oppression. It was not a bloody one like the famous stories of torture in the history. Every tribe started to insult every Moslem by bad words and that was only for the elite people who became Moslems in the tribes. On the other hand, the stick was for the slaves. For example: Bilal, the son of Rabah, was tortured by his master by putting a piece of rock on his breast in the hot desert. From all the cases of torture, only one woman was killed of the torture. But the greatest amount of torture was for Muhammad himself; they used to throw rubbish on him while he was praying and in front o f his house. The wife of Abu-Lahab used to throw wood on his neck when he was praying.

     The cause of that opposition was because Quraish considered that Islam was a threat for their trade. Quraish gained its power from supervising the pilgrimage to the Holy Kaa’ba and the trade to Iraq and Persia. In addition, Muhammad did not attack the idea of the religion but he attacked paganism. The Arabs at that time had another religions living among them including Christianity and Judaism, and we have never heard any story about any torture for them. Perhaps the strong opposition was attributed to the strong changes in the social system that Islam demanded.
     As a result of that torture Muhammad asked his fellows to migrate to Ethiopia, where they could live under the rule of the just king the Nagus. Quraish knew that so they sent some of their men to convince the Nagus to give those Muslims to them. In that situation, Jafar, son of Abu-Talib, who was the spokesman of the emigrants narrated how they were leading a barbarous life, worshipping idols, eating carrion, violating the ties of the consanguinity and how the strong man’s hand was always lifted against the weak: thus, they continued to live, he asserted, till the Apostle of Allah rose among them to summon them to God.

     At that time in Mecca, Islam was strengthened by two great men: Hamza, the son of Abd-El-Muttalib, who was Muhammad’s uncle, and Omar, the son of El-Khattab. The two men played a great role in defending the Islamic small community. But Allah, Almighty, tested the patience of his Apostle. In one year, Muhammad lost two of the main people of the mission: His uncle Abu-Talib and his wife Khadija. That year was known as the year of mourning for Muhammad.
     But Allah was also merciful to his slave Muhammad. He decreased his pains by taking him in a heavenly journey to Him. That is the Persecution and the Ascension. Muhammad ascended to the seventh sky where he talked to Allah and at that time the daily prayers were assigned on the Moslems. Muhammad met all the prophets and then they went to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque.
     When Muhammad said that story the pressure increased on him. As a result Allah ordered him to migrate to the Medinah.  And that was the start of a new chapter in Islam, in the Utopian city Medinah.
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