In
Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
, the exact date of Muhammad's first revelation is disputed, but it is generally believed by
Muslims
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
to have occurred in 610 CE. According to Islamic belief, during this time,
Muhammad
Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
sought solitude after repeatedly experiencing transcendental dreams in which he was told of his upcoming responsibility as a
messenger of God, prompting him to retreat to
Jabal al-Nour
Jabal al-Nour ( or 'Hill of the Illumination') is a mountain near Mecca in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia. The mountain houses the Cave#Talus cave, grotto or cave of Hira (), which holds tremendous significance for Muslims throughout the world, ...
near
Mecca
Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...
, where, while isolating at the
Cave of Hira
Jabal al-Nour ( or 'Hill of the Illumination') is a mountain near Mecca in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia. The mountain houses the grotto or cave of Hira (), which holds tremendous significance for Muslims throughout the world, as it is here w ...
, he was visited by the angel
Gabriel
In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), Gabriel ( ) is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to mankind, as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran. Many Chris ...
, who revealed to him the beginnings of what would become known as the
Quran
The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...
.
Thus, at the age of 40,
Muhammad's religious career as the "
Seal of the Prophets
Seal of the Prophets (; or ) is a title used in the Qur'an and by Muslims to designate the Islamic prophet Muhammad as the last of the prophets sent by God.
The title is applied to Muhammad in verse 33:40 of the Qur'an, with the popular Yu ...
" had begun.
Date of the revelation
The exact date and time of the revelation is not mentioned anywhere. As a result, the exact date is disputed.
The calendar's state during the first revelation
To stop the calendar months from rotating through the seasons,
intercalation was employed. This involved the occasional insertion of an extra month (announced at the pilgrimage), ideally seven times in nineteen years. Intercalation was said to have been introduced in 412 CE, and it was borrowed from the
Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
; the Jewish official controlling the practice was known as the ''
Nasīʾ''.
When the
Arabs
Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world.
Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...
adopted the procedure, they used the word ''nasīʾ'' to denote the whole system. It was operated in a similar fashion to the Jewish practice, in that the beginning of the year (
Muharram
Al-Muharram () is the first month of the Islamic calendar. It is one of the four sacred months of the year when warfare is banned. It precedes the month of Safar. The tenth of Muharram is known as Ashura, an important day of commemoration in ...
) was tied to the spring season.
Identifying the date of the first revelation
According to the Islamic scholar
Mubarak Puri, the exact date of this event was a Monday on the 21st of
Ramadan
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting (''Fasting in Islam, sawm''), communal prayer (salah), reflection, and community. It is also the month in which the Quran is believed ...
and just before sunrise (10 August 610), when Muhammad was 40 lunar years, 6 months and 12 days of age (39 solar years, 3 months and 22 days).
Others establish the day by projecting the fixed (i.e., non-intercalated) calendar backwards, providing a date of the night of Sunday to Monday, 13 to 14 December 610.
Summary
According to
biographies of Muhammad, while on retreat in a mountain cave near Mecca (the cave of Hira), where Muhammad used to go and ponder upon
the evil deeds of his community. Gabriel appears before him and commands him to "Read!". He responded, "I cannot read!". Then the angel Gabriel caught him tightly (forcefully) and pressed him so hard that he could not bear it any more (this happens two more times). Gabriel then revealed to him the first lines of
chapter 96 of the Qur'an, "Read: In the name of
your Lord Who created, (1) Created man from a clot. (2) Read: And
Allah
Allah ( ; , ) is an Arabic term for God, specifically the God in Abrahamic religions, God of Abraham. Outside of the Middle East, it is principally associated with God in Islam, Islam (in which it is also considered the proper name), althoug ...
is the Most Generous, (3) Who taught by the pen, (4) Taught man that which he knew not.(5)" (
Bukhari 4953).
Before the revelation
Muhammad was born and raised in Mecca. When he was nearly 40, he used to spend many hours alone in prayer and speculating over the aspects of
creation.
Shibli Nomani
Shibli Nomani (4 June 1857 – 18 November 1914) was an Indian Islamic scholar, poet, philosopher, historian, educational thinker, author, orator, reformer and critic of orientalists during the British Raj. He is regarded as the father of Urdu ...
. Sirat-un-Nabi. Vol 1 Lahore
Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...
He was concerned with the ignorance of divine guidance, social unrest, injustice, widespread discrimination, fighting among
tribes
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...
and abuse of tribal authorities prevalent in
pre-Islamic Arabia
Pre-Islamic Arabia is the Arabian Peninsula and its northern extension in the Syrian Desert before the rise of Islam. This is consistent with how contemporaries used the term ''Arabia'' or where they said Arabs lived, which was not limited to the ...
. The moral degeneration of his fellow people, and his own quest for a true religion further lent fuel to this, with the result that he now began to withdraw periodically to a cave named Hira, three miles north of Mecca, for contemplation and reflection. Islamic tradition holds that Muhammad during this period began to have dreams replete with spiritual significance which were fulfilled according to their true import; and this was the commencement of his divine revelation.
The first revelation

According to Islamic tradition, during one such occasion while he was in contemplation, the angel
Gabriel
In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), Gabriel ( ) is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to mankind, as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran. Many Chris ...
appeared before him in the year 610 CE and said, "Read", upon which he replied, "I am unable to read". Thereupon the angel caught him (forcefully) and pressed him so hard that he could not bear it any more. This happened two more times after which the angel commanded Muhammad to recite the following verses:
[ Muhammad Mustafa Al-A'zami (2003), ''The History of The Qur'anic Text: From Revelation to Compilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments'', pp. 25, 47–8. UK Islamic Academy. .]
:
After the revelation
Perplexed by this new experience, Muhammad made his way to home where he was consoled by his wife
Khadijah, because he thought it might have been a jinn (demon) who possessed him. He said: "Woe is me - poet or possessed!", to which his wife reassured him: "No, by Allah, Allah would never disgrace you." Khadijah also took him to her
Nestorian Christian
Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinarily distinct sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian theologian ...
cousin
Waraqah ibn Nawfal
Waraqah ibn Nawfal ibn Asad ibn Abd-al-Uzza ibn Qusayy Al-Qurashi (Arabic ) was a Christian Arabian ascetic who was the paternal first cousin of Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, the first wife of Muhammad. He was considered to be a ''hanif'', who practi ...
. Islamic tradition holds that Waraqah, upon hearing the description, testified to Muhammad's prophethood,
and convinced Muhammad that the revelation was from God. Waraqah said: "O my nephew! What did you see?" When Muhammad told him what had happened to him, Waraqah replied: "This is
Namus (meaning Gabriel) that Allah sent to
Moses
In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...
. I wish I were younger. I wish I could live up to the time when your people would turn you out." Muhammad asked: "Will they drive me out?" Waraqah answered in the affirmative and said: "Anyone who came with something similar to what you have brought was treated with hostility; and if I should be alive until that day, then I would support you strongly." A few days later Waraqah died.
[
The initial revelation was followed by a pause and a second encounter with Gabriel when Muhammad became so sad that he climbed a mountain with the intention of throwing himself off the mountain and heard a voice from the sky and saw the same angel "sitting between the sky and the earth" and the revelations resumed with the first verses of chapter 74.
]Al-Tabari
Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr ibn Yazīd al-Ṭabarī (; 839–923 CE / 224–310 AH), commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Sunni Muslim scholar, polymath, historian, exegete, jurist, and theologian from Amol, Tabaristan, present- ...
and Ibn Hisham
Abu Muhammad Abd al-Malik ibn Hisham ibn Ayyub al-Himyari (; died 7 May 833), known simply as Ibn Hisham, was a 9th-century Abbasid historian and scholar. He grew up in Basra, in modern-day Iraq and later moved to Egypt.
Life
Ibn Hisham has ...
reported that Muhammad left the cave of Hira after being surprised by the revelation, but later on, returned to the cave and continued his solitude, though subsequently he returned to Mecca. Tabari and Ibn Ishaq write that Muhammad told Zubayr:[
Biographers disagree about the period of time between Muhammad's first and second experiences of revelation. Ibn Ishaq writes that three years elapsed from the time that Muhammad received the first revelation until he started to preach publicly. Bukhari takes chapter 74 as the second revelation however chapter 68 has strong claims to be the second revelation.
]
Christian influence
Paul Neuenkirchen, said the first revelation of Muhammad
Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
is based on isaiah 40:6: suggesting that this is more a reflection of the way Muslims imagined their prophet's life over a century after his death rather than a historical account.
''The voice said: "Proclaim!"''
''And he said: "What shall I proclaim?"''
References
{{commons category
Life of Muhammad
Gabriel
Angelic apparitions
Revelation