كيف بدأ الوحي؟

Revelation began for the Prophet with true dreams for six months. Then the angel came to him in the Cave of Hira in Ramadan, when he was forty years old, with the opening verses of Surat al-Alaq. Revelation then paused for some days, then the opening verses of al-Muddaththir were revealed, with the command to rise and warn, and revelation followed in succession ^{1 2 3 4}.

Seclusion in the Cave of Hira before the mission lasted one month each year for three years ⁵. Then came true dreams for six months after the completion of forty years ¹. Then came the beginning of revelation with the opening verses of al-Alaq, in the report of Aisha, and his return to Khadija and Waraqa ^{2 6}. Then came the pause in revelation, and then the revelation of al-Muddaththir ^{3 4}.

The month of the mission is given as Rabi al-Awwal, Ramadan or Rajab. Its day in Ramadan is given as the seventh, the seventeenth or the eighteenth, and the author, by his own judgement, favours the twenty-first ¹. The length of the pause is, in the author's view, a few days, and in the well-known account three years or two and a half years ³.

• The answer is taken from the presentation in Al-Raheeq al-Makhtum and its hadith sources. Academic readings of the beginning of revelation are not presented here.