Art. #10:  HOW DID HE BECOME A PROPHET AND A MESSENGER OF GOD?    At the age of 40, while engaged in a meditative retreat, Muhammad received his first revelation from God through the Angel Gabriel.  This revelation, which continued for twenty-three years, is known as the Qur’an.  As soon as he began to recite the words he heard from Gabriel, and to preach the truth, which God had revealed to him, he and a small group of followers suffered bitter persecution, which grew so fierce that in the year 622 God gave them the command to emigrate.  This event, the Hijra, “migration”, in which they left Makkah for the city of Madinah some 260 miles to the north, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar.  After several years, the Prophet and his followers were able to return to Makkah, where they forgave their enemies and established Islam definitively.  Before the Prophet died at the age of 63, the greater part of Arabia was Muslim, and within a century of his death Islam had spread to Spain in the West and as far to the East as China. 

REBUTTAL:  He appointed himself as God’s last and most perfect Prophet, though the Angel Gabriel supposedly brought the appointment from God.  He told his first wife, Khadija, that Gabriel had visited him with a message from God that Muhammad was to be God’s appointed Prophet.  This is what Muslims call “The Night of Power”.  His second revelation came three years later and then the revelations continued until his death.  As to forgiving enemies; Muhammad was never known for any forgiveness of enemies, much to the contrary.  He was known for taking revenge at the slightest provocation, including murdering those jesting at his attempts at storytelling.  For an overview of Muhammad’s activities before and after returning in triumph to Mecca refer  to “Life of Muhammad”, with emphasis on the dates 624 and 627 A.D.