The modes (ranks) of revelation

Before detailing the life of the mission, al-Rahiq al-Makhtum digresses to set out the kinds of revelation, which is the source of the mission, transmitting its degrees from Ibn al-Qayyim's Zad al-ma'ad with slight summarising. ^{1 2}

The first is the true dream, which was the beginning of his revelation (the beginning of revelation). ^{1 2} The second is what the angel cast into his spirit and heart without his seeing him; he cites the hadith that the Holy Spirit breathed into his spirit that no soul will die until it has completed its provision. ^{1 2} The third is that the angel appears to him as a man and addresses him until he understands; in this degree the Companions sometimes saw him. ¹ The fourth is that it comes to him like the ringing of a bell, which was the hardest for him, so that his brow would sweat on a very cold day, and his mount would kneel beneath him; once it weighed so heavily on the thigh of Zayd ibn Thabit (may God be pleased with him) that it nearly crushed it. ^{1 2} The fifth is seeing the angel in the form in which he was created, which happened to him twice, as in Surat al-Najm (al-Najm 13). ¹ The sixth is what God revealed to him above the heavens on the night of the Ascension, such as the obligation of prayer and other things. ¹ The seventh is God's speech to him without an angel as intermediary, as He spoke to Moses. This is established for Moses by the text of the Qur'an, and its establishment for our Prophet is in the hadith of the Night Journey. ^{1 2}

Some added an eighth degree, that God spoke to him face to face without a veil. This is a matter of dispute between the earlier and later scholars, and the author holds that it is not established. ¹

• The division is Ibn al-Qayyim's. The author states that he summarised the first and the eighth degrees; the ruling on the eighth is his own opinion.
• This entry is doctrinal in its subject; the museum presents it as the book sets it out, without expansion.