Lesson: The First Revelation

A quiet place to think

When Muhammad ﷺ grew into a man, he often felt sad about the way people were living. Many of them worshipped idols and were unkind to the poor. So he liked to go somewhere quiet to think about Allah and about the world. He would climb up to a small cave called the cave of Hira, in a mountain outside Makkah. There he would sit alone for many days, thinking and worshipping the One who made everything. It was calm and peaceful, far away from all the noise of the town.

“Read!” — the first words

One night, while Muhammad ﷺ was in the cave, something wonderful happened. An angel came to him. This was Jibril, the greatest of the angels, sent by Allah. The angel said one word: “Read!” Muhammad ﷺ was surprised, and he answered gently, “I cannot read.” The angel held him and said “Read!” again — and then he taught him the very first words of the Qur'an:

“Read in the name of your Lord who created — created the human being from a clinging drop. 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 words of the Qur'an ever to come down to earth. They came from Allah, the One who made us and teaches us everything we know.

Allah's Prophet and Messenger

That special night, Allah chose Muhammad ﷺ for the most important job in the world. He was now Allah's Prophet and Messenger. A prophet is someone Allah picks to receive His words and to guide people back to Him. From this night on, Allah would keep sending more and more of the Qur'an to Muhammad ﷺ, a little at a time, to share with everyone. The long wait that began in our very first story was over — Allah had sent the special guide the world had been waiting for.

Khadijah comforts him

Meeting the angel was so big and so amazing that Muhammad ﷺ felt his heart racing. He hurried home and asked his family to cover him with a blanket while he calmed down. His wife Khadijah was there. She was kind and wise, and she loved him dearly. She wrapped him warmly and listened carefully to everything he told her. Then she comforted him with beautiful words. She said that Allah would never let him down, because he was always so good: he was kind to his family, he helped the poor, and he looked after anyone in need. Khadijah believed in him straight away. She became the very first person to believe that Muhammad ﷺ was Allah's Prophet. What a gift — to have someone who loved him and believed in him from the very first moment.