Qurayshi Umar ibn a-Khattab had been a virulent opponent of Mohammad, and ready to assassinate the Prophet. But this Muslim Saul of Tarsus was converted not by a vision of Jesus the Word but by the Koran. His conversion comes in two versions. The first has Umar discovering her sister, who had secretly become a Muslim, listening to a recitation of a new sura. "What was the balderdash?" he had roared angrily as he strode into the house, knocking poor Fatimah to the ground. But when he saw his sister was bleeding, he probably felt shamed because his face changed. He picked up the manuscript, which the visiting Koran reciter had dropped in the commotion, and being one of the few Qurayshis who were literate, he started to read. Umar was an acknowledged authority on Arabic oral poetry and was consulted by poets as to the precise significance of the language, but he had never come across anything like the Koran. "How fine and noble this speech!" he said wonderingly, and was instantly converted to the new religion of al-Lah" (Koran 75:17-19)In the other version of Umar's conversio, he encountered Muhammad one night at the Kabah, reciting the Koran quietly to himself before the shrine. Thinking that he would like to listen to the words, Umar crept under the damask cloth that covered the huge granite cube and edged his way around until he was standing directly in front of the Prophet. As he said, "There was nothing between us but the cover of the Kabah" - all his defenses but one were down. Then the magic of the Arabic did its work: "When I heard the Koran, my heart was softened and I wept and Islam entered into me." It was the Koran which prevented God from being a mighty reality "out there" and brought him into the mind, heart and being of each believer.
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*Excerpt from the book A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, by Karen Armstrong, pp.145-46.
Posted April 20, 2013
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