“Until the late age of forty, Muhammad Ibn Abdullah, a merchant from the Arabian city of Mecca, was a righteous, virtuous, yet still seemingly unexceptional man. He did not expect to receive divine revelations, challenge his own tribe, suffer persecution, flee his hometown, command armies, conquer cities, and ultimately change the world forever.
“In other words, Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, was not like Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of Christianity, who had a supernatural birth, a wise childhood, a preconceived mission, and a foreknown finale. Rather, he was like Moses who, until his encounter with a burning bush on Mount Horeb, also didn’t know what God expected of him.
“Notably, Muhammad’s first encounter with the divine also took place on a mountain: Jabal al-Nour, or 'Mountain of Light,' a small hill that rises a few miles outside Mecca.”
