69; Sprenger’s Life of Mohammad, p. 111) it was the next revealed after the
Fatrah, and the designation to the prophetic office. The main features of
the tradition are, that Muhammad while wandering about in the hills near
Mecca, distracted by doubts and by anxiety after truth, had a vision of the
Angel Gabriel seated on a throne between heaven and earth, that he ran to his
wife, Chadijah, in the greatest alarm, and desired her, perhaps from
superstitious motives (and believing that if covered with clothes he should
be shielded from the glances of evil spirits-comp. Stanley on I Cor. xi. 10),
to envelope him in his mantle; that then Gabriel came down and addressed him
as in v. I. This vision, like that which preceded Sura xcvi., may actually
have occurred during the hallucinations of one of the epileptic fits from
which Muhammad from early youth appears to have suffered. Hence Muhammad in
Sura lxxxi. appeals to it as a matter of fact, and such he doubtless believe
it to be. It may here be observed, that however absurd the Muslim traditions
may be in many of their details, it will generally be found that where there
is an ancient and tolerably universal consent, there will be found at the
bottom a residuum of fact and historical truth. At the same time there can
be no doubt but that the details of the traditions are too commonly founded
upon the attempt to explain or to throw light upon a dark passage of the
Koran, and are pure inventions of a later age.

2 The Arabic words are not those used in later Suras to express the same
idea.

3 Said to be Walid b. Mogheira, a person of note among the unbelieving
Meccans. This portion of the Sura seems to be of a different date from the
first seven verses, though very ancient, and the change of subject is similar
to that at v. 9 of the previous Sura.

4 This and the three following verses wear the appearance of having been