The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

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Introduction
The Revelation of the Quran
Muhammad’s own account survives of the extraordinary circumstances
of the revelation, of being approached by an angel who
commanded him: ‘Read in the name of your Lord.’ 2 When he
explained that he could not read, 3 the angel squeezed him strongly,
repeating the request twice, and then recited to him the first two
lines of the Quran. 4 For the first experience of revelation Muhammad
was alone in the cave, but after that the circumstances in which
he received revelations were witnessed by others and recorded.
When he experienced the ‘state of revelation’, those around him
were able to observe his visible, audible, and sensory reactions. His
face would become flushed and he would fall silent and appear as if
his thoughts were far away, his body would become limp as if he were
asleep, a humming sound would be heard about him, and sweat
would appear on his face, even on winter days. This state would last
for a brief period and as it passed the Prophet would immediately
recite new verses of the Quran. The revelation could descend on
him as he was walking, sitting, riding, or giving a sermon, and there
were occasions when he waited anxiously for it for over a month in
answer to a question he was asked, or in comment on an event: the
state was clearly not the Prophet’s to command. The Prophet and his
followers understood these signs as the experience accompanying
the communication of Quranic verses by the Angel of Revelation
(Gabriel), while the Prophet’s adversaries explained them as magic
or as a sign of his ‘being possessed’.
It is worth noting that the Quran has itself recorded all claims and
attacks made against it and against the Prophet in his lifetime, but
for many of Muhammad’s contemporaries the fact that the first word
of the Quran was an imperative addressed to the Prophet (‘Read’)
2 These words appear at the beginning of Sura 96 of the Quran.
3 Moreover, until the first revelation came to him in the cave, Muhammad was not
known to have composed any poem or given any speech. The Quran employs this fact in
arguing with the unbelievers: ‘If God had so willed, I would not have recited it to you,
nor would He have made it known to you. I lived a whole lifetime among you before it
came to me. How can you not use your reason?’ (10: 16). Among other things this is
taken by Muslims as proof of the Quran’s divine source.
4 The concepts of ‘reading’, ‘learning/knowing’, and ‘the pen’ occur six times in
these two lines. As Muslim writers on education point out (e.g. S. Qutb, Fi Dhilal
al-Quran (Cairo, 1985), vi. 3939), the revelation of the Quran began by talking about
reading, teaching, knowing, and writing.