Surah 10:94: The Qur’an Verse That Confirms Jesus’ Divinity

What Will This Article Give You?

By the end of this article, you will have evidence—from non-Christian and non-biblical sources—that the Bible was not altered or corrupted before the time of the Prophet Muhammad.

Through ancient manuscripts, historical records, archaeological discoveries, and the Qur’an itself, we’ll trace a single, consistent testimony: that the Scriptures Muhammad was told to consult are the same Scriptures believers read today.

This is not a theological defence—it is a historical investigation. One grounded in physical evidence, surviving fragments, and the witness of time.

References are listed in the footnotes at the end of the article and can be accessed through the numbered superscripts throughout the text.

Muhammad’s Fatrah al-wahy

The prophet Muhammad hadn’t asked to be chosen. There was no ambition in him to be great, no hunger for influence, and no desire to speak for God. He wasn’t a scholar or a priest—he had no training in law, and no education under scribes.

Instead, he worked with his hands, earned what he needed, and lived with quiet integrity.

People knew him as honest and reliable, but in every other way, he was unremarkable. No star heralded his birth, no prophets named him before he spoke, and no voice from the heavens called him by name. What he did have was unrest—a quiet ache beneath the surface that left him restless in the noise of the world.

He began to withdraw from the crowds, climbing into the hills—not driven by ambition, but drawn by a silence he could not find among men. And it was there, high above the city, that he found a cave. He returned to it often—not to escape, but to listen.

And then, without warning, the silence broke.

According to Islamic tradition, a presence entered the cave and seized him—it gripped him tightly, threw him to the ground, strangled him.¹ He had no name for it, no frame to understand it. He only knew that something had found him in the dark, and it would not let him go. Like fire without smoke, it pressed into the stillness, and from it came a voice:²

Read, ‘O Prophet,’ in the Name of your Lord Who created.

ٱقْرَأْ بِٱسْمِ رَبِّكَ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَ

Qur’an 96:1 — Quran.com

He could not read, yet the voice returned. Three times the command came. Three times he was seized—thrown down, gripped, released—until the cave fell still.

He made his way home in terror, his breath ragged, his skin soaked in sweat.³ When he reached Khadijah,⁴ he collapsed into her arms and asked to be wrapped—still trembling, still unable to say what had happened, only that something had spoken, and it had not let him go.

Had it been an angel? A jinn?⁵ Or perhaps something darker?⁶ He didn’t know.

And then—silence.

For a year or two, no further words came.⁷ The presence was gone. And in its absence came fear and doubt. According to hadith, he wandered the cliffs alone, unsure of what he had seen. More than once, he climbed to the heights and attempted to throw himself down⁸—so great was the despair.

And just when it seemed the silence might last forever, the voice returned—not in force, but in fragments. A verse. Then another. Slowly, the message resumed.

Early accounts describe him as overwhelmed when it came—shaking, collapsing, foaming at the mouth,⁹—as though overtaken by something far beyond his strength.

Islamic tradition calls this the fatrah al-wahy—the pause in revelation when Muhammad feared he had been forsaken, and questioned whether the voice he had heard had truly come from God.¹⁰

How could he be sure? He held no scripture. He carried no proof. Only the weight of a message no one else could hear.

And so, in that silence—when the fear had not lifted and the questions had not passed—Allah answered. And He did so through the angel Gabriel.

The Qur’anic Instruction

It was just one verse—rarely quoted, seldom explained—yet once read, difficult to forget:

If you ‘O Prophet’ are in doubt about ‘these stories’ that We have revealed to you, then ask those who read the Scripture before you. The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord, so do not be one of those who doubt.

فَإِن كُنتَ فِى شَكٍّۢ مِّمَّآ أَنزَلْنَآ إِلَيْكَ فَسْـَٔلِ ٱلَّذِينَ يَقْرَءُونَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ مِن قَبْلِكَ ۚ لَقَدْ جَآءَكَ ٱلْحَقُّ مِن رَّبِّكَ فَلَا تَكُونَنَّ مِنَ ٱلْمُمْتَرِينَ ٩٤

Surah 10:94 — Quran.com

Some modern commentators suggest this instruction was rhetorical—meant only for the disbelievers of Muhammad’s time—but the verse does not speak in riddles. Its language is plain. If there was any uncertainty, the Prophet was told where to turn: not to poets, nor to elders, but to the People of the Book¹¹—those still reading the Scriptures God had already given.

It was a command: ask. Ask those who still carry My Word—not because their traditions might offer perspective, but because the truth had already been entrusted to them.

The Qur’an places this responsibility directly on the Prophet himself. And its purpose was never to test the former Scriptures, but to confirm the message he had received. Because if the Qur’an came from the same voice that once spoke to Moses, to David, and to Jesus, then it could not stand apart. It had to align with what they were given—and be recognised by it.

And such a command only makes sense if the earlier Scriptures were still in their hands—intact, unbroken, and still able to speak.

The Muslim Objection

At this point, many Muslims offer a sincere and thoughtful reply. They acknowledge that the Qur’an points to the Bible. They accept that the Prophet Muhammad was instructed to consult those who read the earlier Scriptures. But then comes the caveat.

The Bible, they say, once contained the truth—but that truth has been lost, altered, or rewritten.

Two views usually follow. One holds that the Bible had already been changed by the time of Muhammad, so what he was told to consult no longer held its original message. The other claims the opposite—that the Bible was still reliable during his lifetime, as the Qur’an implies, but has since been corrupted.

Yet despite the first view being widely held today, it is not what the Qur’an itself suggests. And if the aim is to present the strongest possible case for Islam, that argument must be set aside.

Both positions attempt to resolve the tension—trying to protect the Qur’an from contradiction—but each rests on the same assumption:

That the Bible has been changed.

It is a serious claim, and a reasonable defence—if the evidence supports it. But if the Bible remained reliable in Muhammad’s time, then any claim of later corruption must be proven. And that proof would need to appear in the manuscripts. Earlier copies—those preserved before 500 AD—should look significantly different from the Bible we hold today.

Which brings us to the question that matters most.

Was the Bible changed—at any point—before or after the time of Muhammad?

Because if the evidence says no, then this verse does more than challenge the objection. It dismantles it. And if the Bible has not been altered, then everything it says—about Jesus, about the cross, about who He is and what He came to do—still stands. Affirmed by none other than Allah Himself.

Evidence For An Unchanged Bible

This is the heart of the objection. Muslims are taught that the Scriptures given to the People of the Book—the Torah and the Gospel—were once true, but later altered. The Qur’an, they believe, came not to contradict those books, but to correct them—to restore the original message of God that had been lost. But for that objection to hold, one thing must be true:

The Bible must have been changed before the time of Muhammad.

Because if today’s Scriptures still match those first preached by the apostles and preserved in the earliest centuries, then the charge of corruption cannot stand. There would have been no space for distortion to take root—no time for a false gospel to replace the true—before the words had already been copied, quoted, and carried across the ancient world.

And so we turn to the evidence. Not to theology, and not to tradition, but to what has been written—what remains in ink and parchment, in fragments and scrolls, in records that time could not erase.

Let us consider what remains—what the manuscripts reveal, what impartial scholars have found, and what the earth has quietly preserved.

Because if the Bible has not been changed, then the truth has already been spoken. And all that remains is to recognise it.

Codex Vaticanus & Codex Sinaiticus

If the Bible had truly been changed—if the earlier Scriptures were altered before the rise of Islam—then no full, unedited copies should exist from before the seventh century.

But they do.

Codex Vaticanus¹² and Codex Sinaiticus¹³ are two of the oldest surviving Bibles in the world. Both date to the early 300s AD—more than two centuries before Muhammad received his first revelation. Written in Koine Greek, they preserve nearly the entire Old and New Testaments: the Gospels, the letters of Paul, the writings of the prophets, and the teachings of Jesus.

These are not fragments. Not summaries. Not oral traditions later committed to memory. They are complete manuscripts—copied, catalogued, and carried through history for over sixteen centuries.¹⁴

And the message they contain matches the Bible we hold today—in its wording, its doctrine, and its witness to Christ.

To make the continuity clear, here is a comparison of 1 John 5:5–10 in Codex Sinaiticus (c. 330–360 AD) and the English Standard Version (2016):

The differences are minor. The message is the same.

To claim that the Bible was changed—then or now—is to reject not only Scripture, but the physical evidence that still stands in its defence. Because here, in ink and parchment, the truth has already come.

The Church Fathers

Before the Bible was bound in a single book, its words were already alive—spoken in gatherings, copied by hand, and carried through fire and persecution.

The early Church Fathers—those who led in the generations after the apostles—left behind a trail of letters, sermons, and written defences.¹⁵

Clement of Rome, writing as early as 95 AD, echoed the voice of Paul in his appeals to the church. Ignatius of Antioch quoted the Gospels on his way to martyrdom. Polycarp, a disciple of John, passed on the teachings of Jesus from memory. Line by line, the divine verses they preserved tell the same story—long before any council gathered to name a canon.

By the time Irenaeus wrote in 180 AD, the four Gospels were already recognised, quoted, and defended. Decades earlier, Justin Martyr described Christian gatherings where “the memoirs of the apostles” were read aloud—side by side with the writings of the prophets.

They lived in different regions, faced different threats, and wrote to different audiences. Yet their citations align—with each other, and with the Scriptures we hold today.

Their witness predates Muhammad by more than four hundred years. And it confirms what the manuscripts already show:

The Gospel was not lost.

When Allah told Muhammad to ask those who read the Scripture, it was this tradition He was pointing to. These were the ones who stood behind it—preserving the message, proclaiming the truth, and bearing witness to the holy sentence that still endures.

Rylands Fragment (P52)

It’s just a fragment—no bigger than a postcard. But what it carries cannot be overstated.

Known as P52, the Rylands Papyrus is the oldest surviving portion of any New Testament text. Written in Greek and dated to around 125 AD,¹⁶ it preserves a few lines from John 18—words spoken during Jesus’ trial before Pilate.

That places it less than forty years after the Gospel of John was composed. And nearly five centuries before Muhammad received his first revelation.

It was discovered in Egypt—far from where John first wrote—evidence that the Scriptures were already being copied and carried across the ancient world. The text is unembellished. No mythology. No legend. Just a courtroom exchange between a Roman governor and a man accused of calling Himself king.

To illustrate how little has changed, here is a comparison between the Rylands fragment (front and back) and two modern translations: the New Living Translation (NLT) and the English Standard Version (ESV).

This is not legend evolving through time. This is history being written, read, and passed on while the memories were still fresh. While the people still lived.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

Hidden for nearly two thousand years, the Dead Sea Scrolls emerged from the caves of Qumran¹⁷ in 1947—bringing with them the oldest Hebrew Scriptures ever discovered.

These were not scraps or summaries. They were full books—preserved through centuries of exile, empire, and silence. Nearly every book of the Old Testament was found among them, including the Great Isaiah Scroll, dated to around 125 BC.

And what did they reveal?

That the Scriptures Jesus read—the same ones quoted by the apostles and referenced in the Qur’an—had not been lost. The laws, the psalms, the prophecies—they had not been rewritten or erased. They had been copied with extraordinary care.

As a window into the past, consider these two passages—one from Isaiah,¹⁸ the prophet most often quoted by Jesus; the other from the Psalms,¹⁹ written long before His birth. Both are echoed in the New Testament. And both remain intact in modern translations.

Even secular²⁰ scholars were astonished. These were not remnants of another religion, but intact Scriptures—bearing witness to the same prophetic line. What the Qur’an appears to suggest, the Scrolls quietly refute.

If the earlier Scriptures had been corrupted, this would have been the moment to expose it. But instead of contradiction, we find agreement. Instead of distortion, we find precision.

The verse continues—unbroken from Moses to Christ, from the prophets to the Gospel, from the parchment to the page. And when the Qur’an told Muhammad to ask those who read the Scripture before him, this is what they would have shown:

That the message never changed. That the promise still stands. That a Saviour is coming—and His name is Jesus.

The Contradiction at the Heart of Islam

We now stand on solid ground. The Scriptures that Hadrat Muhammad was commanded to consult are the same Scriptures believers hold in their hands today. That point is no longer in question. The fragments, the scrolls, the codices, and the pious scholars who preserved them—often at great cost—offer exhaustive proofs. This is not myth, and it is not tradition. It is unbroken testimony.

The command was not vague. It was not partial. Allah did not say, “ask them about some things,” or “consult their altered words.” He said clearly: ‘ask those who read the Book before you.’ And He sealed it with this: the truth has certainly come.

So the question is no longer whether the Bible can be trusted. The question now is—what does it say?

Jesus the Son of God

They say that Jesus was not merely a prophet among former prophets.
He is the Son of God. That He was not spared the cross—but willingly embraced it. That He did not remain in the grave—but rose from it.

This is no folklore. It is the cornerstone of Christian faith—declared by Jesus Himself, and affirmed by His disciples.

And the Scriptures show it most clearly in His own words:

Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am.

John 8:58

Those who heard it reached for stones. They understood the claim. “I Am” was the sacred name revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14)—a name no man would dare to utter unless he claimed divine identity.

And He did not stop there:

• John 10:30
  “I and the Father are one.”
• John 14:9
  “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
• Matthew 11:27
  “All things have been committed to me by my Father… no one knows the Father except the Son.”

When a man was lowered through the roof to be healed, Jesus asked:

• Matthew 9:5-6
  “”Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!”

Only God can forgive sins. And yet Jesus did so publicly—speaking not as a prophet, but as one who held that authority Himself.

When challenged about the source of His miracles, He did not claim the office of a messenger. He said:

Don’t believe me unless I carry out my Father’s work. But if I do his work, believe in the evidence of the miraculous works I have done, even if you don’t believe me. Then you will know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.

John 10:37–38

Even at the end—after the beatings, the scourging, the crucifixion—when the work was complete, He said:

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Revelation 22:13

This was no poetic flourish. No honorary title. It was the declaration that every prophet, every holy sentence, every previous revelation pointed to Him—and that in Him, the story finds its fulfilment.

The numerous tidings of the preceding prophets were not the climax. They were the introduction. And when Christ came, He did not pass on the message.

He was the message.

The New Testament contains no expectation of a prophet to follow. No hint of future Scripture. No space left in the line of revelation. Instead, Jesus said:

When I go, I will send the Helper—the Holy Spirit—who will guide you into all truth.

John 14–16

No further Scripture. No new messenger. Only the Spirit—sent not to revise, but to remind. Because there would be nothing more to add.

Two Testimonies, One Truth

And so the contradiction stands—unavoidable, and absolute. If the Scriptures Muhammad was told to consult are the very ones that proclaim Jesus as the Son of God—crucified, risen, and returning—then Islam cannot be true.

Because it categorically rules out everything the Gospels proclaim.

To believe the Qur’an is to believe that Jesus was not divine. That He was not crucified. That He will return—not as King, but as servant to another prophet.

But to believe the Gospel is to believe that Jesus is God in the flesh. That He is the final revelation. That no prophet will come after Him—because none are needed.

This is not an attack. It is a tension. And a choice every seeker of genuine truth must eventually face.

Even Abdullah ibn Salam,²² one of Medina’s most learned Jews, expressed doubts when he first heard Muhammad’s words. But he did not reject them outright. He searched the Qur’an for harmony with the Torah. And when he could not find it, he walked away.

He was not alone. History remembers countless pious scholars—former imams, scribes, and seekers—who turned not out of hatred, but out of conscience. Because the contradictions ran too deep. And the truth shone too clear.

So now we are left with one final question.

Not whether the Bible was changed—because it wasn’t. Not whether the Qur’an affirms it—because it did. But whether we are willing to believe what God had already revealed.

Because if Jesus is who He says He is, then no prophet can follow. And no voice—not even one that echoed from a cave—can overturn what heaven has already fulfilled.

Muhammad the False Prophet

If the Scriptures Muhammad was told to consult proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God—crucified, risen, and glorified—then what does it say of a prophet who came after and denied all three?

The Qur’an offers a test. Not from sceptics, but from Allah Himself. A line of divine logic that, once followed, leads to only one conclusion.

Surah 69 delivers it without subtlety:

Had the Messenger made up something in Our Name, we would have certainly seized him by his right hand, then severed his aorta.

وَلَوْ تَقَوَّلَ عَلَيْنَا بَعْضَ ٱلْأَقَاوِيلِ لَأَخَذْنَا مِنْهُ بِٱلْيَمِينِ ثُمَّ لَقَطَعْنَا مِنْهُ ٱلْوَتِينَ

Surah 69:44–46 — Quran.com

This is not metaphor. It is a rule—a defining measure by which a prophet is judged. If he ascribes even one false verse to God, he will be struck down—not slowly, not symbolically, but by the severing of life itself. The Arabic word used is al-watīn—the aorta. The artery of the heart. The channel of breath and blood.

And then the prophecy fulfilled itself.

According to the Hadith, after the Battle of Khaybar,²³ Muhammad was served poisoned meat by a Jewish woman. He tasted it, and though he spat it out, the damage had already begun. Years later, on his deathbed, he said:

I continued to feel pain from the morsel which I had eaten at Khaybar. This is the time when it has cut off my aorta.

ما زِلْتُ أَجِدُ مِنَ الأَكْلَةِ الَّتِي أَكَلْتُ بِخَيْبَرَ، فَهَذَا أَوَانُ انْقِطَاعِ أَبْهَرِي

Sunan Abi Dawood 4512 — sunnah.com

This was no passing remark. It was a direct reflection of Surah 69—the very test by which Allah declared a false prophet would be exposed.

The aorta has no sensory nerve endings. It does not produce sharp or localised pain. No ordinary man would describe it that way—only someone who knew the verse, and feared it. Most would speak of chest pain, of pressure, of struggling to breathe. Not of a severed aorta.

He had been warned. And he knew it.

But this was not the only warning sign. Even earlier in his mission, revelation had been shaken by doubt. According to multiple early Islamic sources,²⁴ Muhammad once recited verses that praised pagan deities—what are now known as the Satanic Verses. He later retracted them, claiming they had come not from God, but from Satan.

Yet this only deepens the dilemma, for if even one verse could be whispered by the devil, how can any verse that followed be trusted?

Then comes a detail—easy to miss, yet impossible to ignore:

Then they schemed [against the Messiah], and Allah countered their schemes by schemes of His own. Allah is the best of schemers.

وَمَكَرُوا (ضِدَّ ٱلْمَسِيحِ) وَمَكَرَ ٱللَّهُ وَٱللَّهُ خَيْرُ ٱلْمَـٰكِرِينَ

Surah 3:54 — myislam.org

The Arabic word used is makar—a term that, in every authoritative lexicon,²⁵ refers not to strategy or wisdom, but to cunning and deceit. Lane’s Lexicon,²⁶ one of the most respected Arabic-English dictionaries, defines makar as “deception, artifice, or stratagem.”

Modern translations often soften it—rendering it “planner” or “strategist.” But the root meaning remains: trickery. And here, the Qur’an claims Allah is the greatest of all who scheme.

The implications are staggering. If the Almighty is described as the best of deceivers, then the moral compass of revelation collapses. Deception becomes a divine attribute. Truth becomes negotiable—reshaped to serve the will of the one who deceives.

But the God of Scripture does not deceive. The God of Abraham does not lie. And the God revealed through Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)

So here is the line that cannot be escaped:

If Allah’s own standard is that a false prophet will die by the severing of the aorta, and if Muhammad, at the hour of death, described that very symptom—if this same man once confessed to delivering verses from Satan—then by the Qur’an’s own test, by its own defining rule, Muhammad cannot be a true prophet. Not because we say so, but because Allah already did.

Conclusion: The Only Way Home

The earliest followers of Jesus did not wait centuries to write, they wrote while the witnesses still lived. Paul’s letters came within fifteen years of the crucifixion, the first Gospel followed soon after, and the New Testament was complete before that generation faded.

And it came with a warning:

Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse.

Galatians 1:8

If the Bible is true, then nothing that came after can contradict what God has already made known.

That’s why the Qur’an’s message about Jesus cannot be reconciled with the Gospels. The divide isn’t in detail—it runs through the centre. His identity, His death, His rising, and His power to save. Not one can be removed without undoing the rest.

But even the Qur’an did not deny the Book. It pointed toward it. Allah Himself told Muhammad to consult the Scriptures that came before. That was not rejection—it was redirection. A path to follow. A door to open.

And that door still stands open:

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.

John 14:6

If you’ve come this far, it wasn’t by chance. It was grace. Jesus is calling—not for your rituals, but for your heart. He isn’t asking you to perform. He is asking you to come.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30

God’s promise is not complicated: Draw near to Me, and I will draw near to you. You don’t need to earn Him. You don’t need to prove yourself. Heaven is not the prize of the righteous—it is the home of the forgiven.

And forgiveness was always the point of the cross.

A man the world rejected chose to walk that road anyway—blood in His steps, love in His eyes. He gave Himself—freely, willingly, painfully—for you. Not because you had it all together, but because you didn’t. He didn’t wait for your belief. He laid down His life so you would never again have to live without Him.

Now, the veil is torn. The way is made. The invitation still stands.

Will you come home?

Bonus: A Note to the Muslim Seeker

You may feel the urge to take what you’ve read and bring it to someone you trust—a local imam, a sheikh, a learned voice at the mosque. That’s understandable. But before you do, pause—and consider what may never be said aloud.

In Islam, it is not always a sin to lie—especially if the truth would weaken the faith, or cause someone to doubt their own. In fact, in some cases, it is not only allowed—it is praised.

There is a story in your own books, found in both Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, about a man named Ka‘b ibn al-Ashraf. He was a poet, not a warrior—and his weapon was a pen, which he used to criticise Muhammad. For that act alone, his fate was sealed. One day, the Prophet’s companions came to him and asked:

“O Messenger of Allah, do you permit us to lie to him?”

“Yes, you may say what you need to say.”

قَالَ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ مَسْلَمَةَ: أَتُحِبُّ أَنْ أَقْتُلَهُ؟ قَالَ: نَعَمْ. قَالَ: فَأْذَنْ لِي فَأَقُولَ. قَالَ: قَدْ فَعَلْتُ.

Sahih al-Bukhari 4037; Sahih Muslim 1801 — sunnah.com

And so they lied, gained his trust, and when his guard was down, they struck—ultimately killing him for the crime of using words against their Prophet. It was not regretted. It was remembered.

If a lie can be told to silence a poet, what lie might be told to keep you inside the faith? What truth might be buried, softened, or reshaped, if it means keeping your mind unshaken?

You are not being asked to believe without reason—you are being asked to seek without fear. The Qur’an itself did not warn Muhammad against the Scriptures—it directed him toward them. The Gospels were not to be avoided—they were to be consulted.

So open them—not with the voice of others ringing in your ears, but quietly, for yourself. Let the one they crucified speak, and let His words reach you as they are.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

John 8:32

Footnotes

1. Gabriel Seizing Muhammad — Islamic tradition holds that during the first revelation, the Angel Gabriel physically gripped the Prophet Muhammad. Aisha narrates in Sahih al-Bukhari that when Muhammad replied he could not read, “the angel caught me forcefully and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it any more… He then released me and asked me to read.” This event is directly linked with the command in Qur’an 96:1. sunnah.com ↩︎
2. Qur’an 96:1 — “Recite in the name of your Lord who created.” This is widely accepted as the first verse revealed to Muhammad. quran.com/96 ↩︎
3. Sahih al-Bukhari 1:1 — Describes Muhammad’s terror and the aftermath of the first revelation. sunnah.com/bukhari:3 ↩︎
4. Khadijah — Khadijah bint Khuwaylid was Muhammad’s first wife and the first person to believe in his prophethood. A respected merchant in Mecca, she was known for her wisdom, integrity, and loyalty. Islamic tradition holds that she comforted Muhammad after his first revelation and played a foundational role in the earliest days of Islam—supporting him not only emotionally, but financially and spiritually as the message unfolded. ↩︎
5. Jinn — In Islamic theology, jinn are unseen beings created by God from smokeless fire, distinct from angels and humans. They possess free will and are morally accountable—some worship God, while others are rebellious or demonic, including Shayṭān (Satan), who is identified in Islam as a jinn, not a fallen angel (Surah 18:50). They are believed capable of influencing human thoughts and behaviour, and belong to the unseen realm (‘alam al-ghayb) known only to God. The Qur’an affirms their existence in Surah 15:27, 51:56, 72:1, and 72:11 ↩︎
6. Something Demonic — According to Sahih al-Bukhari and Al-Tabari, Muhammad initially feared that the being who appeared in the cave might have been a jinn or a devil. Al-Tabari records that Muhammad even confided in Khadijah, “I am afraid that I have a jinn.” (Jami‘ al-Tawarikh, Vol. 1, p. 1159; see also Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6982). This fear led to intense spiritual distress, including reported suicide attempts during the early pause in revelation. ↩︎
7. Fatrah al-Wahy Duration — The scholar Ibn Kathir reports that “some of them said the duration of the pause was about two years or two and a half.” Traditional sources commonly state that the first interruption in revelation lasted around one to two years, with two years being a frequently cited opinion in early Islamic narrations.
   islamqa.info ↩︎
8. Muhammad’s Suicide Attempt — This hadith from Bukhari (a most reliable source in Islam) explicitly affirms that during the fatrah, Muhammad attempted to hurl himself off a cliff, only to be stopped by the angel’s reassurance that he was truly a prophet of God. Each time he climbed to the mountaintop, Gabriel would appear and say, “O Muhammad! You are indeed Allah’s Messenger in truth,” which calmed him. The account underscores the depth of Muhammad’s despair during the pause in revelation and the severity of his doubts. sunnah.com ↩︎
9. Physical Reactions to Revelation — Reports describe Muhammad experiencing intense physical symptoms during revelation. A narration attributed to A’ishah in Tabaqat by Ibn Sa’d (as cited by Imam Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti) states, “whenever the Prophet received Inspiration (al-wahy), his head would twitch, he would foam at the sides of his mouth… and he would break into a sweat until it flowed down like pearls.” Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal also recorded that he would become distressed, foam at the mouth, close his eyes, and snort like a young camel. These early, orthodox sources describe his body trembling, collapsing, or entering a trance-like state during revelation. islamqa.org, thespiritofislam.com ↩︎
10. Fatrah al-wahy — A temporary pause in revelation during which Muhammad feared he had been forsaken and questioned the divine origin of his experience. Classical tafsir—including Qurtubi and Tabari—affirm his doubts in his message being other than God’s.
    Ma’ariful Qur’an, Surah 93: quran.com ↩︎
11. People of the Book — The People of the Book referred to the Jews and Christians who still followed the Torah and the Bible. ↩︎
12. Codex Vaticanus — A 4th-century Greek manuscript of the Bible containing both the Septuagint (Old Testament) and the New Testament. Housed in the Vatican Library (Vat. gr. 1209), it is one of the oldest surviving complete biblical manuscripts. historyofinformation.com ↩︎
13. Codex Sinaiticus — A Greek manuscript dated to circa 330–360 AD, containing the full New Testament and much of the Old. Recognised as the earliest complete copy of the New Testament, it is preserved across multiple institutions, including the British Library.
    britishlibrary.uk, theguardian.com, codexsinaiticus.org ↩︎
14. The Greek text of 1 John 5:5–10—as preserved in Codex Sinaiticus (circa 330–360 AD)—is fully digitised and viewable online in its original Koine Greek. codexsinaiticus.org ↩︎
15. Early Church Fathers — Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna are widely recognised by secular scholars as Apostolic Fathers—Christian leaders of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries who had direct or near-direct contact with the apostles. Their surviving letters quote extensively from the New Testament and are dated by historians to approximately 95–140 AD, offering strong evidence of early scriptural circulation and doctrinal consistency. cambridge.org, mdpi.com, scholarsarchive.byu.edu ↩︎
16. Rylands Fragment (P52) — Universally recognised as the oldest known fragment of the New Testament, P52 contains a portion of John 18 and is dated by paleographers to around 100–150 AD. First published by C. H. Roberts in 1935 and housed at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester. archive.org, library.manchester.ac.uk ↩︎
17. Qumran — Qumran is an archaeological site near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. The scrolls were found in a series of caves near the ruins of an ancient Jewish settlement, believed to have been home to a separatist sect known as the Essenes. Preserved for nearly two thousand years, these manuscripts offer the earliest known copies of the Hebrew Scriptures—unchanged in content, and unmatched in historical significance. ↩︎
18. Isaiah 53:11 — The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaᵃ), dated to around 125 BC, contains a complete version of Isaiah 53. While it was originally a continuous manuscript, over time it has suffered damage, leading to its current fragmented condition. Digitised by the Israel Museum in collaboration with Google. deadseascrolls.org.il. Compare with the English Standard Version (2016) biblegateway.com ↩︎
19. Psalm 22:16 — This verse appears in Fragment 11 of 5/6HevSev4Ps (Nahal Hever), dated to the 1st century BC. The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library provides access to this fragment deadseascrolls.org.il. Compare with the English Standard Version biblegateway.com ↩︎
20. Secular — In this context, “secular” refers to historians, archaeologists, or scholars who do not approach their research from a Christian or religious worldview, ensuring that the evidence is evaluated without doctrinal bias. ↩︎
21. Abdullah ibn Salam — A highly respected Jewish scholar of Medina, Abdullah ibn Salam is reported to have investigated the Qur’an upon hearing of Muhammad’s claims. When he could not reconcile its message with the Torah, he reportedly said, “This cannot contradict the Torah,” and withdrew. Cited in The Life of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq, trans. A. Guillaume, Oxford University Press, 1955, p. 240. archive.org, oxforduniversitypress.com ↩︎
22. Battle of Khaybar — A significant conflict in 628 AD between Muhammad’s forces and the Jewish tribes of Khaybar, an oasis north of Medina. The battle ended in a Muslim victory, and it was at this event that Muhammad was reportedly served poisoned meat by a Jewish woman named Zaynab. Sources include Sahih al-Bukhari 2617 and Ibn Sa’d’s Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir. archive.org, sunnah.com ↩︎
23. Satanic Verses — A controversial incident found in early Islamic sources such as al-Ṭabarī’s Tārīkh al-Rusul wa al-Mulūk and Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīrat Rasūl Allāh, in which Muhammad reportedly recited verses acknowledging pagan Meccan deities, later claiming they had been inspired by Satan. Though rejected by later Islamic orthodoxy, the account is preserved in multiple early traditions. Sources include The History of al-Ṭabarī, Vol. VI, trans. Watt & McDonald, pp. 107–110, and Ibn Isḥāq’s The Life of Muhammad, trans. A. Guillaume, pp. 165–166. archive.org (Tārīkh al-Rusul wa al-Mulūk), archive.org (Sīrat Rasūl Allāh) ↩︎
24. Lexical Source — A reference work or scholarly dictionary that provides the original meanings, root structures, and contextual usage of words in a given language, often used to clarify the precise meaning of terms in ancient texts. ↩︎
25. Lane’s Lexicon — Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon is considered one of the most authoritative classical dictionaries. ↩︎