By about 610 C.E., Muhammad was around forty years old, living in comfort as the husband of a wealthy widow, surrounded by slaves, freedmen, and relatives who depended on him. Outwardly he had everything an ambitious Meccan man could desire: a respected household, a reputation for handling trade, and a position in the Quraysh clan network. Inwardly he was restless and dissatisfied. He hated the open idolatry of Mecca but did not bow to Jehovah or accept the already existing Scriptures. Instead, he slipped away to a cave on Mount Hira, looking not to the written Word of God but to private experiences.

What happened there did not resemble the calm, clear calling of biblical prophets. It resembled demonic oppression, sleep-paralysis episodes, and hallucinations. The Islamic sources admit that Muhammad himself first feared he was possessed by a jinn and repeatedly wanted to throw himself off a cliff. Only after Khadija and her relative Waraqa reinterpreted his terror as a “prophetic” experience did he begin to call it revelation. That rebranding, not any change in the nature of the experiences, marks the beginning of Islam.

This chapter follows the events of roughly 610–613 C.E.—from the first terrifying “squeeze” in the cave, through suicidal despair, to the convenient endorsements that turned a tormented man into a self-proclaimed prophet. We will not simply repeat Islamic claims. We will show why those claims are false and why this period exposes the true spiritual source behind the Qur’an.

The First “Squeeze”: Jibril or Sleep Paralysis?

Islamic tradition describes Muhammad’s first encounter in the cave in vivid terms. He was alone on Hira, engaged in solitary ritual, when a presence suddenly confronted him. He later claimed it was an angel. The figure ordered him, “Recite!” Muhammad answered that he was not a reciter. The figure then seized him and squeezed him so violently that he thought he would die. This happened not once but three times. Only after these crushing assaults did the being release him and recite words that later became part of the Qur’an.

That is not how Jehovah’s holy angels act. In Scripture, when angels visit humans, the first reaction is usually fear, but the angel immediately speaks words that bring clarity and reassurance. When Gabriel appeared to Mary, he did not strangle her or crush her chest. He greeted her and announced Jehovah’s plan. When angels spoke to Daniel, they strengthened him so he could listen, rather than nearly killing him to force obedience. Terror may be the first human response to a glimpse of the supernatural, but the holy messenger’s behavior is not sadistic.

Muhammad’s own description shows a very different pattern. The presence in the cave did not introduce Himself as a messenger from Jehovah. He did not appeal to the already revealed Scriptures. He attacked. He physically overwhelmed Muhammad, pressed him to the point of suffocation, and repeated the assault. That matches what many people through the centuries have described in episodes of sleep paralysis: waking or half-waking in the night, feeling a crushing weight on the chest, being unable to move or speak, and sensing a hostile presence.

From the standpoint of a biblical worldview, such episodes are not harmless bodily glitches. They are opportunities for demonic beings to torment and deceive, preying on fear and confusion. When men and women do not cling to Jehovah’s Word but seek spiritual experience on their own terms, they open themselves to these assaults. Muhammad had filled his mind with jinn tales, soothsayer rhythms, and distorted stories of prophets. Alone in the cave, he was ripe for exactly this kind of attack.

Most revealing is Muhammad’s immediate reaction afterward. He did not run down the mountain rejoicing that Jehovah had spoken. He ran in panic. He begged Khadija to cover him. He said he feared for himself, and early reports preserve statements where he uses language associated with possession. In other words, his first interpretation was that something dark had grabbed him. The “angel” label came later, only after others persuaded him to accept that explanation.

If this had truly been Gabriel—the same messenger Jehovah sent to Daniel and Mary—we would expect a consistent pattern with those earlier missions: reverent fear replaced by clear communication grounded in previous revelation. What we actually see is a terrifying, choking encounter more consistent with demonic harassment and sleep-related phenomena than with holy communication from Jehovah.

Suicidal Depression and Khadija’s Damage Control

The aftermath of the cave experience was not triumph but collapse. Islamic sources openly admit that Muhammad sank into deep despair. He was not sure whether he had been visited by a holy messenger or attacked by an evil spirit. He felt that his sanity was slipping. He feared that his people would call him possessed. Far from feeling honored, he felt ruined.

Then comes one of the most disturbing admissions from Islamic tradition: Muhammad repeatedly wanted to kill himself. Reports say he went up to high points in the mountains to throw himself off. Each time, he says, the same presence would appear and command him to stop, telling him that he was indeed the messenger of Allah. That pattern—terror, self-destruction, then forced submission—is the opposite of how Jehovah deals with those He calls.

Biblical prophets experienced discouragement. Elijah, for example, wished for death after facing opposition, but he poured out his heart to Jehovah, and Jehovah corrected and strengthened him. Jeremiah lamented his suffering, yet he could not stop speaking Jehovah’s Word because it burned in his bones. None of them tried repeated suicide attempts immediately after receiving their calling. They knew they were dealing with the true God, even when they were overwhelmed.

Muhammad’s suicidal impulses show that he did not have that assurance. He was crushed, confused, and desperate to escape. That is exactly what demonic oppression produces: despair, self-loathing, and the urge to end one’s life. Satan “was a murderer from the beginning” and delights in pushing people toward destruction. A man who truly hears Jehovah’s voice may struggle with fear or inadequacy, but he does not conclude, again and again, that his only hope is to throw himself off a cliff.

In the middle of this chaos, Khadija stepped forward—not as a prophetess, not as a teacher of Scripture, but as a wife determined to stabilize her husband and protect their household. She covered him with garments, comforted him, and insisted that God would never disgrace a man who was generous and good to his relatives. Her argument had nothing to do with the Gospel or with the holiness of Jehovah. It rested on Muhammad’s social virtues: hospitality, helpfulness, and care for kin.

Another famous story reports that she “tested” the being in the cave by telling Muhammad to sit on her lap and asking whether he still saw the figure. Then she uncovered her hair or more of her body and asked again. When Muhammad said the being had vanished, she concluded that this must be an angel, because angels supposedly do not remain present when a woman uncovers herself in such a way. That entire “test” is bizarre and unworthy of Jehovah. Scripture never presents sexual exposure as a valid method of discerning holy angels from demons. The episodes with Abraham, Lot, Mary, Zechariah, and others show that recognition of angels rests on their message and their consistent obedience to Jehovah, not on whether they flee from intimate scenes.

What Khadija was really doing was damage control. She had a husband who was unraveling, hearing voices, and talking about suicide. If she accepted the idea that he was possessed or mentally broken, her entire household—and her standing in Mecca—would suffer. It was far safer to declare that he was chosen. By recasting his terrifying experiences as signs of prophethood, she protected the family’s honor and kept her husband functional.

From a Christian perspective, that attempt to soothe him with positive affirmation did not make the experiences holy. It only helped Muhammad reinterpret demonic assaults as divine favor. Her emotional loyalty provided the first human endorsement for the lie that would become Islam.

Waraqa ibn Nawfal’s Convenient Confirmation

Khadija did not stop with her own reassurances. She brought Muhammad to her elderly relative Waraqa ibn Nawfal, a man reported to have some knowledge of Jewish and Christian Scriptures or to be a kind of Hanif leaning toward Christianity. He had either read some Christian writings or listened to Christian teaching. In the Islamic narrative, Waraqa listens to Muhammad’s description of the cave experience and immediately declares that the same “Namūs” (a term used for the angelic bearer of revelation) who came to Moses has now come to him.

This moment is crucial in Islamic storytelling. It gives Muhammad a supposed endorsement from someone linked to the Bible. Waraqa even predicts that Muhammad’s people will drive him out and that he will fight them once his mission takes hold. This fits perfectly with the later course of events, in which Muhammad moves to Medina and then returns to conquer Mecca by force. The story, told after the fact, functions like a retroactive prophecy designed to prove divine foreknowledge.

Why is this story not true? Several reasons are plain.

First, there is no record in any independent Jewish or Christian source that such a man as Waraqa publicly authenticated Muhammad as a prophet. The only accounts of this scene appear in Islamic literature, written by believers who had every motive to produce a Christian-sounding endorsement.

Second, no faithful Christian elder who knew the Gospel and revered the inspired Scriptures could have responded as Waraqa is said to have done. The apostle Paul warns that even if an angel from heaven should announce a different message than the one already preached, that messenger is cursed. Any supposed revelation that denies the crucifixion of Christ, rejects His deity, and twists the doctrine of salvation cannot be from Jehovah. A servant of Christ must measure every spirit by that standard. Waraqa, in the story, does the opposite. He welcomes a new revelation without any serious comparison to the apostolic Gospel. That is not Christian discernment; it is gullibility or betrayal.

Third, the content of Muhammad’s later message proves that the spirit in the cave was not the same messenger Jehovah sent to Moses. Moses proclaimed Jehovah as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, pointed forward to the prophet like himself who would come—fulfilled in Christ—and upheld sacrifices that foreshadowed the atoning death of the Messiah. Muhammad’s Qur’an explicitly denies Christ’s crucifixion, rejects Him as the Son of God, and replaces the rich covenant history of Israel with a shallow, altered retelling. The same Spirit cannot produce both the Law and the Gospel and then later deny their core.

These facts leave us with only two options. Either the Waraqa scene is a fabrication inserted into Muhammad’s biography to give him borrowed Christian legitimacy, or it records the foolish opinion of a man who did not truly submit to Christ. In either case, it does not validate Muhammad. It exposes the lengths to which early Muslims went to surround their founder with borrowed authority.

From the beginning, then, Muhammad’s confidence did not rest on direct assurance from Jehovah through the already revealed Word. It rested on the emotional support of his wife and the convenient words of a relative. That shaky foundation did not suddenly become solid truth; it remained fragile and heavily dependent on human approval.

The Gap: Two to Three Years of Silence and Doubt

After the first wave of visions and recitations, something striking happened: the experiences stopped. Islamic tradition calls this interruption a “fatrah”—a break. For a period often estimated at two or three years, Muhammad received no new “revelation.” The same sources admit that during this time his despair returned. The suicidal thoughts resurfaced. He felt abandoned and humiliated.

This silence is incompatible with the claim that Jehovah had chosen him as the final and greatest prophet. When Jehovah called Moses, He remained with him throughout the exodus, guiding him through clear instructions. When He raised up the prophets of Israel, they might go through seasons of personal struggle, but the Word of Jehovah did not vanish while they were in the middle of their assigned mission. The 400-year gap between Malachi and John the Baptist existed before the next stage of redemptive history; it was not inserted right after a prophet’s first message.

In Muhammad’s case, the break came at the very beginning. He had barely started proclaiming anything when the experiences ceased. A man who had been told that he was the messenger of Allah suddenly found himself alone again. If this were genuine inspiration, one would expect him to turn to the already existing Scriptures, seeking guidance and strength. Instead, he simply plunged back into fear and hopelessness, again wishing for death.

This gap reveals much. It shows that Muhammad had no ongoing relationship with the true God. He depended on the return of the same crushing, terrifying experiences in order to feel validated. When they stopped, he felt empty. That is exactly how mediumship and demonic influence work: the spirits come and go, leaving their victims unstable and desperate. Jehovah’s servants, by contrast, stand on His written Word whether or not they feel special experiences.

Eventually the visions resumed, and with them Muhammad’s confidence returned. But nothing had changed about their nature. The same presence that had choked him in the cave and driven him toward suicide now continued speaking. The break did not purify or clarify anything. It simply deepened his dependence on the very voice that had unbalanced him. That is not the mark of true prophecy. It is the mark of a man trapped in a cycle of oppression and self-justification.

Early Verses: Threats, Hellfire, and Personal Grievances

The earliest chapters of the Qur’an, typically associated with the Meccan period, have a distinctive style. They are short, rhymed, and intense. They sound very similar to the utterances of pre-Islamic soothsayers, the kahins, whose speech patterns Muhammad heard growing up. They rush from image to image: the shattering of the sky, graves disgorging their dead, scorching fire consuming the wicked. There is very little sustained teaching, no explanation of Jehovah’s covenant with Israel, and no presentation of a Savior who dies for sins. Judgment dominates.

Islamic apologists claim that this shows deep moral concern: Muhammad, they say, was warning his people about the hereafter. But when we examine the content closely, a different motive emerges. The threats often target those who mocked Muhammad personally. Sura 111 famously condemns Abu Lahab—Muhammad’s uncle who opposed him—by name, cursing him and his wife to a fate of fire and twisted rope. This is not a general call to repentance. It is a personal curse embedded in supposed revelation.

The pattern continues. Those who doubt his experiences in the cave are called “foolish” and “arrogant” and are promised torment. People who refuse to accept him as a prophet are depicted as blind and deaf, stumbling toward flames. He does not present a clear way of salvation based on Jehovah’s grace; he presents himself as the dividing line. To reject him is to earn hellfire. The message is not “turn to Jehovah through the Messiah,” but “submit to the messenger or be destroyed.”

These early verses also reflect Muhammad’s own inner fear. He talks constantly about a crushing day, blinding heat, and inescapable punishment. Instead of being a man at peace with Jehovah, eager to share joy, he is a man projecting his own dread onto everyone around him. The God he presents is distant and arbitrary, forgiving those who follow Muhammad and burning those who do not.

From a biblical viewpoint, this is a counterfeit. The Lord Jesus spoke of hell and judgment, but always in connection with Himself as the Savior who lays down His life for His sheep. The Gospel offers forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice, cleansing the conscience and giving boldness before Jehovah. Muhammad’s early preaching offers no such cleansing. It offers fear and the demand for obedience to a man whose own experiences were haunted and unstable.

The personal nature of these curses also shows that the source behind them is not the God who commands love for enemies. It is a spirit eager to harden resentment into eternal condemnation. When a book devotes an entire chapter to insulting one relative who criticized the prophet, we are not looking at a timeless word from the Creator of the universe. We are looking at the angry output of a man who has fused his identity with his supposed revelation.

Khadija, Ali, and Abu Bakr: The First Forced Conversions

Islamic narrative proudly lists the “first believers”: Khadija, Ali ibn Abi Talib, Zayd ibn Haritha, and Abu Bakr, among a few others. These names are used to show that Muhammad convinced people close to him purely through the clarity of his message. Supposedly, the people who knew him best immediately recognized his truthfulness and embraced his call. When we look at their situations, however, we find heavy pressure, dependence, and obligation rather than free, informed conviction.

Khadija had the most to lose if Muhammad’s experiences were treated as madness. Her husband was the head of her household and the manager of her wealth. If he were labeled insane or possessed, their status in Mecca would collapse. Her enthusiastic “conversion” therefore cannot be separated from self-interest. By accepting his claim to prophethood, she protected both of them socially. She also gained a new role as the prophetic founder’s first supporter, which elevated her status in a different way. Her belief was intertwined with domestic economics and honor, not with careful study of Scripture.

Ali was a child living in Muhammad’s house, taken in by Muhammad and Khadija to reduce the financial burden on his own father, Abu Talib. When Islamic tradition says that Ali “believed” while still very young, it means that a boy under the authority of his guardians agreed with what his elder told him. In a patriarchal tribal society, a child’s religion is whatever the household head commands. Presenting Ali as an independent, free-thinking convert is misleading. He did what dependent children have always done: he followed the man who fed and protected him.

Zayd, the former slave whom Muhammad had adopted, was even more bound. His entire improved status came from Muhammad’s decision to treat him as family. His loyalty was the loyalty of a man who had been purchased, then elevated. When he accepted Muhammad’s message, he was obeying the one person who had the greatest power over his life. It is no surprise that he followed, but that obedience tells us nothing about the truth of the message, only about social power.

Abu Bakr, a merchant and friend of Muhammad, is often portrayed as the first adult male outsider to believe. Yet even here, social ties are decisive. Abu Bakr belonged to the same commercial network, shared the same tribal environment, and had much to gain if his friend’s new religious leadership succeeded. His early support gave Muhammad added legitimacy in the eyes of Meccan society, and in return, Abu Bakr later gained a central leadership role after Muhammad’s death. Their relationship was mutually reinforcing, not purely spiritual.

Calling these decisions “forced conversions” does not mean that swords were held to their throats at this stage. It means that none of them encountered Muhammad as neutral observers reading Scripture and comparing messages. They were bound by family, dependence, gratitude, and ambition. Khadija’s resources, Ali’s vulnerability, Zayd’s adoption, and Abu Bakr’s partnership all created webs of obligation. Saying “no” to Muhammad was not a simple intellectual choice; it was a direct challenge to the man who controlled their security.

From the beginning, therefore, Islam grew inside a household shaped by economic and emotional pressure. The first “community of believers” did not emerge from public debate where Moses, the prophets, and the Gospel were opened and examined. It emerged from a rich woman’s house, where one troubled man’s experiences were rebranded as revelation and those dependent on him were brought into line. That pattern—power first, then religious conformity—would mark the movement from that day forward.

The years 610–613 thus show the true origin of Islam. The cave of Hira did not unveil a new revelation from the Creator of the universe. It unveiled a tormented man, assaulted by a spirit he first feared as a demon, rescued from despair only by the flattery of his wife and the uncritical words of a relative, and then surrounded by followers whose loyalty sprang from dependence rather than from the Gospel. When we examine this period honestly, the conclusion is unavoidable: the “angel” who squeezed Muhammad into submission was not Gabriel, and the message that followed was not from Jehovah.

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