It is reported that almost immediately, Mohammed felt his intelligence illuminated with the light of spiritual understanding, and all that had previously vexed his spirit with doubt and non-comprehension, was clear as crystal to his understanding.  Nevertheless, this feeling of assurance did not remain with him at that time, definitely, for we are told that “Mohammed arose trembling and went to Khadeejeh and told her what he had seen and heard; and she did her woman’s part and believed in him and soothed his terror and bade him hope for the future.  Yet he could not believe in himself.  Was he not perhaps, mad? or possessed by a devil?  Were these voices of a truth from God?  And so he went again on the solitary wanderings, hearing strange sounds, and thinking them at one time the testimony of heaven and at another the temptings of Satan, or the ravings of madness.  Doubting, wondering, hoping, he had fain put an end to a life which had become intolerable in its changings from the hope of heaven to the hell of despair, when he again heard the voice:  ‘Thou art the messenger of God and I am Gabriel.’  Conviction at length seized hold upon him; he was indeed to bring a message of good tidings to the Arabs, the message of God through His angel Gabriel.  He went back to his faithful wife exhausted in mind and body, but with his doubts laid at rest.”

With the history of the spread of Mohammed’s message we are not concerned in this volume.  The fact that his own nearest of kin, those of his own household, believed in his divine mission, and held to him with unwavering faith during the many years of persecution that followed, is proof that Mohammed was indeed a man who had attained Illumination.  If the condition of woman did not rise to the heights which we have a right to expect of the cosmic conscious man of the future, we must remember that eastern traditions have ever given woman an inferior place, and for the matter of that, St. Paul himself seems to have shared the then general belief in the inferiority of the female.

It is undeniable that Mohammed’s domestic relations were of the most agreeable character; his kindness and consideration were without parallel; his harem was made up for the most part of women who were refused and scorned by other men; widows of his friends.  And the fact that the prophet was a man of the most abstemious habits argues the claim that compassion and kindness was the motive in most instances where he took to himself another and yet another wife.

However, the points which we are here dealing with, are those which directly relate to Mohammed’s unquestioned illumination and the spirit of his utterances as contained in the Ku-ran, corroborate the experience of Buddha, of Jesus, and of all whose illumination has resulted in the establishment of a religious system.

Mohammed taught, first of all, the fact of the one God.  “There is no God but Allah,” was his cry, and, following the example, or at least paralleling the example of Jesus, he “destroyed their idols” and substituted the worship of one God, in place of the tribal deities, which were a constant source of disputation among the clans.