Read!

Forty Years Old

Muhammad ﷺ was forty years old when he began to receive revelation. He would spend thirteen more years in Makkah, then ten in Madinah, and he died at sixty-three. Bukhari 3902

By now, his habit of worship in the cave of Hira had become part of his life. He would take food and water up the mountain, stay for many nights worshipping Allah, then come down to Khadijah, collect more provisions and go back up. Bukhari 3

The Qur'an tells us when it all began: it was revealed in the month of Ramadan. Qur'an 2:185 And the Prophet ﷺ later said that the day the revelation first came to him was a Monday. Muslim 1162

“I Am Not a Reader”

While he was in the cave, the angel came to him and said, “Read!”

“I am not a reader,” he replied. He could not read or write.

The angel took hold of him and pressed him tightly until he could hardly bear it, then let him go and said again, “Read!”

“I am not a reader.”

The angel pressed him a second time, let him go and said, “Read!” For a third time he answered, “I am not a reader.” The angel pressed him a third time, then released him and said: Bukhari 3Bukhari 4953

Read in the name of your Lord who created: created the human being from a clinging clot. Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by the pen, taught the human being what he did not know.

These were the first verses of the Qur'an to come down. The angel was Jibril, the same angel who had brought revelation to earlier prophets. Wahy had begun.

Notice what the very first word was. Not “pray”, not “fight”, not “obey”, but read. And the first verses speak of the pen and of knowledge. A religion that began with “Read!” is a religion of learning.