Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/21

Rh to which he was a victim from his childhood. The important crisis having at last arrived—not before his fortieth year, however—he supposed or pretended to have received the first divine communication in the solitude of the cave, where the archangel Gabriel appeared to him in human form, with a written revelation in his hand, which was in Arabic, and giving it to him commanded him to "read." Mohamet, his followers say, did not know how to read, but as soon as he looked over the "waraka" (the writing) he was endowed with a miraculous gift of reading and began to rehearse it fluently and eagerly. This was the first of 114 warakas which Gabriel brought him from time to time and on various occasions, and which, being compiled after the death of Mohamet, composed the book of the Koran.

On the day he received this first divine message he returned home, and at once broke to his wife the solemn news of supernatural visions and heavenly voices in his seclusion, and recited before her the "waraka" which he claimed to be conveyed to him by the archangel Gabriel, and invited her to accept this true religion and to become the first believer among his kindred and countrymen. Being unable to resist such a powerful exhortation, she immediately accepted the invitation and became the first proselyte among the future hosts of the Mohametan world.

5. The Rapid Progress of Islam. Mohamet's teachings, especially those that were against the idols of Kabeh, were very much opposed by his own tribe and kindreds. But owing to the circumstances of his