Muhammad’s first impression of his revelations was that they were demonic in origin. Muhammad’s first impression of his revelations was that they were demonic. So you’ve heard that Muhammad received revelation through the angel Gabriel. That was a later Muslim position. Muhammad eventually came to believe that but when he first started receiving revelations, he did not have a very good opinion of them. And let me go ahead and read the passage this is from Ibn Assad Surah rasul Allah. This describes the night that Muhammad began receiving revelations.
When it was the nights on which God honored him with his mission and showed mercy on his servants thereby, Gabriel brought him the command of God. He came to me, said the Apostle of God, while I was asleep with a cover that brocade whereupon was some writing and said “read” I said “what shall I read?” he pressed me with it so tightly that I thought it was death. Then he let me go and said “read”. I said “what shall I read?”. He pressed me with it again so that I thought it was death. Then he let me let me go and said “read.” I said “what should I read?”. He pressed me with that the third time so that I thought it was death and said “read.” I said “What then shall I read?” and this I said only to deliver myself from him lest he should do the same to me again. He said “read in the name of thy Lord who created, created man from blood coagulated, read “Thy Lord is the most beneficent who taught by the pen, taught that which he knew not unto men”. So I read it and he departed from me and I woke from my sleep and it was as though these words were written on my heart.
So that’s the first revelation that Muhammad received from what he would eventually regard as the angel Gabriel but here’s the important point. When Muhammad ran out of that cave terrified, he didn’t think that he had encountered the angel Gabriel. He believed that he was possessed. So anyway the passage continues. Now none of God’s creatures was more hateful to me than an ecstatic poet or a man possessed. I could not even look at them. I thought woe-is-me poet or possessed. Never shall Quarish say this of me. So Muhammad didn’t want his tribe to realize that he was possessed. And so they came up with a plan which is actually going to be our next point. But think about this. Sometimes my friends, first impressions are the correct ones right? And when Muhammad encountered whatever it was that he encountered, when it keeps pressing on him until he thinks it’s death. He thinks it’s something profoundly bad. He doesn’t think like “I’ve encountered the Lord, have encountered one of his angels, doesn’t think that, he thinks this was something very very bad. And it’s actually other people who convinced him “No, it wasn’t something demonic, that was an angel. It wasn’t anyone who is there either right? It says it’s his wife Khadijah and her cousin, didn’t even know the content of the revelation that the so-called Angel is eventually to bring them. All they heard was Muhammad said this is what happened and according to the tradition what her cousin, supposed to be a Christian who study the gospel, says “If what you telling me the truth, then the same lawgiver that appeared to Moses as to you and your prophet as to these people.
So the ultimate credibility of Islam doesn’t go to Mohammed; it goes to Khadijah and her cousin. They are the ones who said “No, you have met an angel.” It’s important to realize this, where the real authority lies in Islam but Muhammad’s first impression again was that whatever he had encountered was demonic. It was other people who weren’t there, who had no idea what he’d experienced, who convinced him otherwise. Muhammad actually is recorded in the Arabic as saying that he was possessed by a jinn.