Muhammad came to understand he had been chosen as Allah’s prophet and messenger—the last such in a long line that stretched back through Jesus, Solomon, David, Abraham, Noah, and Moses all the way to the first man, Adam. This was big news, but he overcame his initial terror and confusion. His next visitation took three years to arrive, but when it did, Muhammad began to receive the word of God regularly, sometimes in spoken form and sometimes as a ringing sound that had to be deciphered. The angel showed him ritual ablutions and the best way to pray to Allah. These were the basic rites of a
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