The explanation of the term "enwrapped in thy mantle" shows the
prevailing belief in good and evil spirits characteristic of Mahomet's
time. Wandering on the mountain, he saw in a vision the angel Gabriel
seated on a throne between heaven and earth, and afraid before so much
glory, ran to Khadijah, beseeching her to cover him with his mantle that
the evil spirits whom he felt so near him might be avoided. Thereupon
Gabriel came down to earth and revealed the Sura of Admonition. This
supernatural command would appear to be the translation into the
imaginative world of the peace of mind that descended upon Mahomet, and
the conviction as to the reality of his inspiration following on a time
of despair.

The command fell to one who was peculiarly fitted by nature and
circumstance to obey it effectively. To Mahomet, who knew somewhat the
chaos of religions around him--Pagan, Jewish, and Christian struggling
together in unholy strife--the conception of God's unity, once it
attained the strength of a conviction, necessarily resolved itself into
an admonitory mission. "There is no God but God," therefore all who
believe otherwise have incurred His wrath; hasten then to warn men of
their sins. So his conviction passed out of the region of thought into
action and received upon it the stamp of time and place, becoming thereby
inevitably more circumscribed and intense.

From now onwards the course of Mahomet's life is rendered indisputably
plainer by our possession of that famous and much-maligned document, the
Kuran, virtually a record of his inspired sayings as remembered and
written down by his immediate successors. Apart from its intrinsic value
as the universally recognised vehicle of the Islamic creed, it is of
immense importance as a commentary upon Mahomet's career. When allowance