On the Night of Power, the Prophet Muḥammad underwent a spiritual and mystical experience. The celestial power which granted him this experience is called the Holy Spirit which – as Ṣūrah al-Qadr states – descended in the Night of Power:
Inna anzalnāhū fī laylati al-qadri
“Verily, We sent it/him down in the Night of Power.” (Holy Qur’ān 97:1)
Tanazzalu’l-malāikatu wa’l-rūḥ fīhā bi-idhn rabbihim min kulli amrin
“The Angels and the Spirit descend in it by the permission of their Lord for every affair.” (Holy Qur’ān 97:4)
The Qur’ān was not merely dictated to the Prophet in the form of Arabic sounds and letters. Rather, it was infused and inspired into the Prophet’s heart and soul in the form of the Holy Spirit which is itself beyond sound, letters, and language. Sayyidnā Nasir-i Khusraw is very critical of those who presume that the Muḥammad merely heard the Qur’an in Arabic from the Angel Gabriel and then repeated it. For Nāsir and other Ismā‘īlī Muslim theosophers, the Angel Gabriel is the imaginal rank (ḥadd al-khayāl) of the Holy Spirit that inspires the soul of the Prophet as opposed to his physical ears:
“His learning of the knowledge of the higher world was done through his luminous soul (nafs-i rawshān), and not through his physical ears in the manner in which we hear.”
– Sayyidnā Nāsir-i Khusraw, (Six Chapters – Shish Fasl, transl. W. Ivanow)
Source: Ismaili Gnosis
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- His learning of the knowledge of the higher world – Prophet Muḥammad’s spiritual and mystical experience
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