The Seven Forms of Revelation

Ibn al-Qayyim talks about the different types of revelation — this is from his book Zād al-Maʿād. Ibn al-Qayyim is a fascinating scholar. He was the most prominent of the students of Ibn Taymiyyah, and he was a prolific writer — he wrote so many books on so many different subjects. This particular book is called Zād al-Maʿād, and in this book he writes about the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). So he writes about prophetic medicine — the book The Medicine of the Prophet is one volume of Zād al-Maʿād. The book is everything surrounding the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), everything that had to do with him: he would write about the different forms of transportation the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had, all of his weapons, his wives, his children, his family life. What would the Messenger of Allah do when he was in Ḥajj? What did he do in ṣalāh? So it is everything about the life of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).

The amazing thing about this book is that Ibn al-Qayyim says in the introduction to the book, allaftuhu fī al-safari lā fī al-iqāmah. He said, "I wrote this book when I was travelling, not when I was residing in my house — therefore I didn't have my references and books with me." So it is amazing how someone could write about such a topic without having references and books with them, and write such a book while travelling, and it is pretty much the best book written on the subject.

Ibn al-Qayyim, in the book, talks about the stages, or the different categories, of revelation. He says the first is the period of true vision — it was the starting point of the revelation to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). For six months before receiving the revelation, he used to frequently see dreams. He would see a dream at nighttime, and he would see the fulfilment of the dream during the daytime, and this continued for six months — whatever he saw at night would happen the next day. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says about dreams that the true dream is one out of forty-six parts of prophecy. The true dreams are one, are a part out of forty-six parts of prophecy.

The third type is the angel appearing to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in the physical form of a human being, and an example of that would be the hadith of Jibrīl. Jibrīl (peace be upon him) came in the form of a man, and he was seen by the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and by the other Companions. The fourth: the angel came to him like the toll of a bell, and this was the most difficult form, because the angel used to seize him tightly, and sweat would stream from his forehead even on the coldest day. This was the most difficult form. Jibrīl (peace be upon him) would descend on the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and he would feel the weight, and he would hear like the voice of a ringing bell — and that might be the vibration of the wings of the angel, because there's another hadith that says that when Allah (swt) reveals His command, the angels are struck with such awe that they start beating their wings, and the sound of the movement of their wings is like dragging a chain over a rock bed — like dragging steel over rocks. It has that violent, ringing sound. That's the sound of the vibration of the wings of the angels.

When Jibrīl would come to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in this form, his weight would increase, and if he was on top of his camel, the camel would be forced to get down on its knees because of the extreme weight, and the back of the camel would bend. Once the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had his knee over the thigh of Zayd ibn Ḥārithah, and Jibrīl descended upon him. Zayd ibn Ḥārithah said, "I felt the weight of the knee of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and it was almost going to crush my thigh." And again, what seems to be very heavy is because the words of the Qur'an are heavy. Allah (swt) says:

The words of Allah are heavy. It's a heavy burden. Number five: the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) would see Jibrīl in his actual form, and this occurred twice, and is mentioned in Sūrat al-Najm — he saw him another time. So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) saw Jibrīl in his original form twice, and Jibrīl in his original form had wings that would cover the horizon, huge — he would cover the horizon, in fact. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, wherever he would look he would see the wings of the angel Jibrīl in front of him, covering the horizon in every direction. Finally, the sixth: Allah (swt) would speak to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) directly, without any intermediary, and this occurred in al-Miʿrāj. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) spoke directly to Allah (swt), and Allah spoke directly to him, and this form actually also occurred to Mūsā (peace be upon him). So these are the seven different forms of revelation.^*