What time the Prophet, according to his wont after each term of retirement, was performing the ritual circuits round the Ka'bah, Waraqah, despite weakness due to his great age and blindness caused by too much reading, had himself led at once into Mohammad's presence, so as to listen to the story of his adventure from his own lips. When the sightless old man was satisfied that Mohammad told the truth and had repeated to him the same predictions, he exclaimed: 'Ah! I should like to be still in the land of the living when your fellow-men will send thee into exile!'--'How so?' cried the Prophet. 'Shall I be banished?'--'Of a surety, they will send thee into exile,' Waraqah went on, 'for never hath mortal man brought what thou bringest without falling a victim to the most dastardly persecution. Ah! if God deigned to lengthen my days until then, I would devote all my energies to helping thee to triumph over thy enemies!' Death, however, prevented Waraqah from seeing his wishes fulfilled.
All Mohammad's doubt vanished. The fulgurating Revelation set all his unknowing aspirations in a blaze and fanned the flame of the latent forces stored in his soul during fifteen years of contemplation. It had opened his eyes and taught him the formidable, superhuman part he had to play and which was now forced upon him. In reality, all this was quite unexpected, despite the monks' predictions that he had forgotten long ago, even if he had ever paid the slightest attention to them. His anguish and his fear lest he should have fallen a victim to diabolical hallucinations furnishes us with indisputable proofs of his state of mind.
He who had fled from his fellows and had never aspired to fill any post of public utility, such as his citizen-comrades would have been glad to grant, was ready now, with resolute faith and courage, to fulfil the most overwhelming mission that can be confided to a human being, and he cared not a jot for the terrible ordeals that he knew were inevitable.
During that night, for ever memorable, known by the name of "Leilat-al-Qada," or "Night of Destiny," the Qur'an came down in its entirety from the highest Heaven where it was kept, as far as the inferior Heaven, situated immediately above the earth. And there it had been deposited in the "Bait-al-Izza," or "House of Glory," underneath which was erected the "Baitu'l-Lah," or "House of Allah," which signifies the Holy Ka'bah.