26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be calledfn the Son of God.36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Approximately 610 years later, Gabriel is recorded as having visited Muhammad, in Ibn Ishaq's biogrpahy of Muhammad's life:
"'He came to me', said the apostle of God, 'while I was asleep, with a coverlet of brocade whereon was some writing, and said, 'Read!' I said, 'What shall I read?' He pressed me with it again so that I thought it was death; then he let me go and said 'Read!' I said, 'What shall I read?' He pressed me with it the third time so that I thought it was death and said, 'Read!' I said, 'What then shall I read?' - and this I said only to deliver myself from him, lest he should do the same to me again. He said:
'Read in the name of thy Lord who created,
Who created many of blood coagulated.
Read! They Lord is the most beneficient,
Who taught by the pen,
Taught that which they knew not unto men.'
So I read it, and he departed from me.
I find Gabriel's behavior inconsistent. In Luke's account, Mary is greatly troubled, but the angel quickly shares God's familiar encouragement all through the O.T. "Do not be afraid." The angel answers respectfully and kindly to Mary's question.
In Ibn's account, I find Gabriel forceful and rude. I find this uncharacteristic of the God I know. God gave us a choice in the beginning and he does not take it from us by coercion to do His will. Here the angel exclaims three times, "Read!" and presses Muhammad so hard that he thinks it is death himself pressing upon him. The God I know does give the feeling of death. Death is separation from God, God is Life.
After the angel leaves, we find Mary's and Muhammad's responses to their encounters. Mary's response is described in Luke 1:
39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea,40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
46 And Mary said:
56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.
Mary's response is filled with excitement and praise and immediately affirmed by her Aunt.
Muhammad's response is also described by Ibn's account:
... "And I awoke from my sleep, and it was as though these words were written on my heart (Now none of God's creatures was more hateful to me than an (ecstatic) poet or a man possessed: I could not even look at them. I thought, Woe is me poet or possess - Never shall Quraysh (an Arab tribe) say this of me! I will go to the top of the mountain and throw myself down that I may kill myself and gain rest. So I went forth to do so and then) when I was midway on the mountain, I heard a voice from heaven saying, 'Oh Muhammad! thou art the apostle of God and I am Gabriel." ...
The angel confronts Muhammad again and speaks identity to Muhammad, "Oh Muhammad! thou art teh apostle of God and I am Gabriel." Muhammad just stood still while his wife sent messengers looking for him. The angel departed again and Muhammed returned home, and drew close to his wife and shared the story. She set forth with Muhammad to a Christian cousin who heard the story and concluded that Muhammad was a great prophet, like Moses and "added to Muhammad's confidence and lightened his anxiety"
Ibn continues on to share what Muhammad's wife, Khadija had to say about it:
"she (Khadija) said to the apostle of God, 'O son of my uncle, are you able to tell me about your visitant, when he comes to you? He replied that he could, and she asked him to tell her when he came. So when Gabriel came to him, as he was wont, the apostle said to Khadija, "This is Gabriel who has just come to me,' 'Get up, O son of my uncle,' she said, 'and sit by my left thigh.' The apostle did so, and she said, 'Can you see him?' 'Yes,' he said. She said, 'Then turn round and sit on my right thigh.' He did so, and she said, 'Can you see him?' When he said that he could she asked him to move and sit in her lap. When he had done this she again asked if eh could see him, and swhen he said yes, she disclosed her form and cast aside her veil while the apostle was sitting in her lap. Then she said, 'Can you see him?' And he replied, 'No.' She said, 'O son of my uncle, rejoice and be of good heart, by God he is an angel and not a satan.'"
