Wahy (revelation), which literally means ‘to speak fast and secretly', ‘to command', ‘to inspire', ‘to imply or to refer to' or ‘to send a messenger' in Arabic, is a supernatural and mystic phenomenon that is described in the science of Islamic exegesis (tafsir) as revelation from Allah Almighty to His messengers in a manner, the nature of which is unknown to us, or His communication from behind a veil or communication from Him through His messengers of whatever He wishes, with His permission.

In the following verse of the Quran, Allah, Who is the owner and the source of wahy, emphasizes that being a prophet is a difficult mission in terms of spreading His word: ‘Surely We will make to light upon you a weighty word.' The weight of wahy on the body is also referred to and Allah commands His messenger to wake up halfway through the night to read the Quran with tarteel (proper recitation of the Quran in the manner that Gabriel revealed) and to worship in order to be able to bear this weight.

It was most probably because of this weight that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) almost collapsed and was left under immense pressure when he received wahy. Whenever this state of receiving wahy came over him, his face became pale, he could be seen to shiver in spite of the hot weather, or sometimes, in cold weather, his forehead would perspire; this pressure was so great that it caused the camel he rode upon to kneel down. Once, when in the state of receiving wahy, Prophet Muhammad's knee touched that of Zayd ibn Sabit who said ‘I thought my knee was going to break' because of the weight he felt. Also Umar says, ‘during some moments of wahy, we would hear sounds like the buzzing of bees around the head of the Messenger of Allah'. All of these situations are examples of the changes that Prophet Muhammad's body went through when receiving wahy.

We believe that it is necessary to focus on Prophet Muhammad himself and his personality so that we can be more familiarized with and understand in clearer what it takes for wahy to occur between Allah and Prophet Muhammad.