Scholars
the first revelation
Around 610 CE Muhammad was worshipping in the cave of Hira above Mecca when revelation came down with the word 'Read'. The call began secretly among his household and a few close friends, rising after years into open declaration. Revelation kept descending on the Prophet for twenty-three years, in Mecca and in Medina, memorized and written down, until the Qur'an was complete. The Mount of Light had been a place of retreat before that; afterwards it became the name of the greatest beginning. From that night came an ummah: a hidden call for its first years, then a widening community in Mecca, then a city built, then a world changed. 'Read' remains the ummah's first word, making reading and knowledge a religion. So everything began: a small cave on the mountain, a single word — and an ummah carried it in its chest and books for fourteen hundred years.