Kinlore
c. 610

The First Revelation

In a cave on Mount Hira, Muhammad receives the first words of the Qur'an through the angel Gabriel.

  • Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources — Martin Lings, George Allen & Unwin (1983)
  • Muhammad — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • Islam: The Straight Path — John L. Esposito, Oxford University Press
  • The Qur'an: A New Translation — M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (trans.), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics) (2004)

Traditional account faithprophetscripture

The world he was born into

Seventh-century Mecca was a trading town in a dry valley of western Arabia. Its wealth came from caravans and from pilgrims who came to the Kaaba, a cube-shaped shrine that, by Muslim tradition, Abraham and his son Ishmael had built for the worship of the one God. By Muhammad’s time it held the idols of many tribal gods.

  • Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources — Martin Lings, George Allen & Unwin (1983)
  • Islam: The Straight Path — John L. Esposito, Oxford University Press
  • A History of the Arab Peoples — Albert Hourani, Faber and Faber (1991)
Arabia was not cut off from the wider world: Jewish tribes lived in Yathrib (later Medina) and elsewhere, Christians lived in Yemen, Syria and Ethiopia, and there were also hanifs, people who, the tradition says, rejected the idols and sought the religion of Abraham.
  • Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam — Fred M. Donner, Harvard University Press (2010)
  • A History of the Arab Peoples — Albert Hourani, Faber and Faber (1991)
  • Islam: A Short History — Karen Armstrong, Modern Library (2000)

The night on Mount Hira

By around 610 Muhammad, now about forty and comfortably married to Khadija, had taken to retreating to a cave on Mount Hira outside Mecca to pray and reflect. According to the tradition, one night during the month of Ramadan the angel Gabriel appeared and commanded him: Iqra’, “Read!” or “Recite!” Muhammad answered that he could not read. After the command was repeated, he received the first verses of what became Sura 96 of the Qur’an, which call on him to recite in the name of the Lord who created humankind and taught by the pen.

  • Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources — Martin Lings, George Allen & Unwin (1983)
  • Muhammad — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • The Qur'an: A New Translation — M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (trans.), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics) (2004)

He came down the mountain terrified, unsure whether he was losing his mind. Khadija wrapped him in a cloak, reassured him, and took him to her Christian cousin Waraqa ibn Nawfal, who told him that this was the same divine messenger who had come to Moses. Khadija became the first person to believe. Muslims remember the night as Laylat al-Qadr, the Night of Power, which the Qur’an calls “better than a thousand months”.

  • Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources — Martin Lings, George Allen & Unwin (1983)
  • Islam: A Short History — Karen Armstrong, Modern Library (2000)
  • The Qur'an: A New Translation — M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (trans.), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics) (2004)

A message in a commercial town

Revelations continued, at first privately. Early believers included Ali, his young cousin; Abu Bakr, a friend and merchant; and Zayd, a freed slave. When Muhammad began preaching publicly, around 613, the message was simple and challenging: there is one God; the idols are powerless; all will be judged; and the rich owe a duty to orphans, widows and the poor.

  • Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources — Martin Lings, George Allen & Unwin (1983)
  • Islam: The Straight Path — John L. Esposito, Oxford University Press
  • Islam: A Short History — Karen Armstrong, Modern Library (2000)
Many of the early converts were young, poor or slaves, and the Quraysh elite felt both their gods and their trade threatened. Converts were mocked, boycotted and, in some cases, tortured. Tradition remembers Bilal, an Ethiopian slave, being left in the sun with a rock on his chest, repeating “One, One”. In about 615 a group of Muslims sought refuge with the Christian king of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).
  • Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources — Martin Lings, George Allen & Unwin (1983)
  • Muhammad — Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Qur’an

The revelations, which continued for about 23 years, came to make up the Qur’an, a word meaning “recitation”. Muslims understand it as God’s speech in Arabic, not Muhammad’s own words. Its 114 chapters (suras) are arranged roughly by length, not by date, and its rhythmic Arabic is recited aloud in prayer. Most Muslims learn at least parts of it by heart, and someone who has memorised all of it is honoured as a hafiz.

  • Islam: The Straight Path — John L. Esposito, Oxford University Press
  • The Qur'an: A New Translation — M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (trans.), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics) (2004)
  • Islam — Encyclopaedia Britannica
Muslim tradition says the text was gathered into a single standard copy under the third caliph, Uthman, around 650.
  • Islam — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam — Fred M. Donner, Harvard University Press (2010)

Historians cannot verify a revelation, and they approach the tradition’s detailed stories, written down more than a century later, with caution. But most accept that the Qur’an itself goes back to Muhammad’s time, and some very early manuscript fragments have been carbon-dated to the seventh century.

  • Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam — Fred M. Donner, Harvard University Press (2010)
  • Muhammad — Encyclopaedia Britannica
For Muslims, the question is not one of dating at all. The Qur’an’s beauty and power, which many say translation cannot convey, is its own proof.
  • The Qur'an: A New Translation — M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (trans.), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics) (2004)
  • Islam: The Straight Path — John L. Esposito, Oxford University Press

How it's seen
The Muslim account

God spoke to humanity through the angel Gabriel (Jibril), who brought the Qur'an to Muhammad in stages over about 23 years. The Qur'an is God's own speech, preserved letter for letter, and its beauty is itself a sign of its divine origin.

  • The Qur'an: A New Translation — M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (trans.), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics) (2004)
  • Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources — Martin Lings, George Allen & Unwin (1983)
  • Islam: The Straight Path — John L. Esposito, Oxford University Press

Historians

Historians cannot test claims of revelation, but most accept that the Qur'an goes back to Muhammad's lifetime and was collected soon after his death; early manuscript fragments support an early date. They read the sira's detailed stories of the call as tradition written down later.

  • Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam — Fred M. Donner, Harvard University Press (2010)
  • Muhammad — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • Islam — Encyclopaedia Britannica

Why it matters today

Islam

This is the moment Islam begins. For Muslims the Qur'an is the literal word of God, which is why it is recited in Arabic everywhere from Jakarta to Chicago, memorised whole by millions, and handled with great respect. The night of the first revelation, Laylat al-Qadr, is still sought in prayer during the last ten nights of Ramadan.