Al-Tabari, Volume VI, p. 68—He (Muhammad) said: I had been thinking of hurling myself down from a mountain crag, but he appeared to me, as I was thinking about this, and said, “Muhammad, I am Gabriel and you are the Messenger of God.” Then he said, “Recite!” I said, “What shall I recite?” He took me and pressed me three times tightly until I was nearly stifled and was utterly exhausted; then he said: “Recite in the name of your Lord who created,” and I recited it. Then I went to Khadijah and said, “I have been in fear for my life.”

The great Hadith scholar Bukhari places Muhammad’s suicide attempts after the death of Khadijah’s cousin Waraqa. The motive is also different. In this version, Muhammad tries to kill himself multiple times because Gabriel was no longer bringing revelations.

Sahih al-Bukhari 6982— . . . But after a few days Waraqa died and the Divine Revelation was also paused for a while and the Prophet became so sad as we have heard that he intended several times to throw himself from the tops of high mountains and everytime he went up to the top of a mountain in order to throw himself down, Jibril would appear before him and say, “O Muhammad! You are indeed Allah’s Messenger in truth”, whereupon his heart would become quiet and he would calm down and would return home. And whenever the period of the coming of the Revelation used to become long, he would do as before, but when he used to reach the top of a mountain, Jibril would appear before him and say to him what he had said before.

Why did Muhammad attempt suicide? It’s certainly possible that all three accounts are correct, and that Muhammad simply had an extremely bad habit of deciding to kill himself whenever he was upset. It’s also possible that only one of the above versions is correct, and that Muhammad’s followers modified the story in different narrations in order to reduce the embarrassment. If we follow this path, we would have to conclude that Ibn Ishaq’s version (which happens to be the earliest) is the correct account, and that the version quoted from al-Tabari was watered down by having Muhammad merely contemplate suicide (though not actually attempting it), while Bukhari’s version was watered down by portraying Muhammad as depressed due to Gabriel’s absence (rather than the fear of demonic possession).

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The PERFECT example of a Muslim ???

So-called moderate Muzzlims like to cherry pick the Koran to avoid the nasty bits. But they are as delusional as real Muzzlims. The fixation with messages from God is all just Jonestown Kool-Aid in one form or another. The possibility of a God-Freak committing suicide should not be surprising. Keep the scissors away from them.

Perhaps the greatest hoax every played is the one that ascribes a more special awareness of reality or spirituality to any one individual, but many people want to believe it. They seem to need heroes. There could be more than one cause of this gullibility.