For twenty-three years, our beloved Prophet; Muhammad (Peace be upon him) received Qur’anic revelations from Allah through Angel Jibril. Throughout the period of revelation, it was never an easy one. The first revelation in the cave of hira came with lots of fright for the Prophet as he went through a phase in his life that he never experienced before. He was asked to read something he couldn’t read under duress as the Angel pressed him and commanded him to. He ended up reading what he was told to even though he was an illiterate, he read it anyways, for it was a divine revelation.
When asked about the Divine inspiration and how it takes place, he replied:
_”Sometimes it is (revealed) like the ringing of a bell, this form of Inspiration is the hardest of all and then this state passes off after I have grasped what is inspired. Sometimes the Angel comes in the form of a man and talks to me and I grasp whatever he says.” ‘Aisha added: Verily I saw the Prophet (ﷺ) being inspired divinely on a very cold day and noticed the sweat dropping from his forehead (as the Inspiration was over).”_
After the first revelation in the cave of hira, other revelations followed in piecemeal for twenty-three(23) years, and the result of all the revelations is the Qur’an we have today. The companions of the Prophet and those who followed them did a lot in preserving the Qur’an and made sure it gets to us without any form of adulteration whatsoever.
They never regarded the Qur’an as a play thing, they took their time to study it, they memorized it, they learnt at the feet of the Prophet, at the gatherings of fellow companions and at the doorsteps of the people of knowledge amongst them. They wake up reading the Qur’an, go about their daily activities reading the Qur’an and retire to bed at night reading the Qur’an, sought healing through the Qur’an, engaged in transactions and dealing justly with fellow humans through the teachings of the Qur’an, and much more. Zaid bin Thabit was reported to have narrated that:
_Abu Bakr sent for me and said, “You used to write the Divine Revelations for Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) : So you should search for (the Qur’an and collect) it.” I started searching for the Qur’an till I found the last two Verses of Surat at-Tauba with Abi Khuza`ima Al-Ansari and I could not find these Verses with anybody other than him. (They were): ‘Verily there has come unto you an Apostle (Muhammad) from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you should receive any injury or difficulty …’_ (Sahih al-Bukhari 4989)
In yet another narration, `Abdullah bin Mas`ud was reported to have said:
_The Prophet (ﷺ) said to me, “Recite (the Qur’an) to me.” I said, “O Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) Shall I recite (the Qur’an) to you while it has been revealed to you?” He said, “Yes.” So I recited Surat-An-Nisa’ (The Women), but when I recited the Verse: ‘How (will it be) then when We bring from each nation a witness and We bring you (O Muhammad) as a witness against these people.’ (4.41) He said, “Enough for the present,” I looked at him and behold! His eyes were overflowing with tears._ (Sahih al-Bukhari, pg 5050)
Thousands of narration and we’ll keep on…
— SHEHU, Abdus-Salam Aladodo
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