- Feb 5, 2002
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A Muslim fasts to draw nearer to a distant God. A Christian fasts to draw nearer to a God who became man and dwelt among us.
From the mouth of the Cave of Mount Hira he could see the moon and countless stars hovering in the firmament above. He was an illiterate merchant, 40 lunar years of age, a descendant of Ishmael. He was an honest man who’d been orphaned at a tender age, hailing from a city filled to the brim with greedy and depraved idol-worshippers: Mecca. The customs of so many of his neighbors deeply disturbed him. It was to the caves that Muhammad periodically withdrew from them, for several weeks at a time, to contemplate the ways of the true God in solitude.
“Read!” a voice suddenly told him. As the story goes, it was that of the angel Gabriel.
“I cannot read,” Muhammad, terrified as he was, tried to explain.
“Read!” the voice said again.
Continued below.
From the mouth of the Cave of Mount Hira he could see the moon and countless stars hovering in the firmament above. He was an illiterate merchant, 40 lunar years of age, a descendant of Ishmael. He was an honest man who’d been orphaned at a tender age, hailing from a city filled to the brim with greedy and depraved idol-worshippers: Mecca. The customs of so many of his neighbors deeply disturbed him. It was to the caves that Muhammad periodically withdrew from them, for several weeks at a time, to contemplate the ways of the true God in solitude.
“Read!” a voice suddenly told him. As the story goes, it was that of the angel Gabriel.
“I cannot read,” Muhammad, terrified as he was, tried to explain.
“Read!” the voice said again.
Continued below.
A Former Muslim Looks at Lent and Ramadan
A Muslim fasts to draw nearer to a distant God. A Christian fasts to draw nearer to a God who became man and dwelt among us.
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