The mission begins:
The Messenger of Allah was alone in the Cave of Hira on the day destined for the start of his prophetic mission. He was forty-one years old and it was the seventeenth day of Ramadan, the sixth of August 6~O C.E. Suddenly an angel appeared and said to him,
'Read!'
'I cannot read,' he replied.
Later, the Messenger of Allah, when recounting what had happened, said, 'He seized me and squeezed me as hard as I could bear and then let me go and said,
"Read !"
'I said, "I cannot read."
'Then he squeezed me as hard as I could bear a second time and let me go. Again he said, "Read."
'I cannot read.'
'Then he squeezed me a third time and let me go and said:
"Read in the name of your Lord' Who created, created man of a blood-clot. Read, and your Lord is the Most Generous, Who taught by the Pen, taught man what
he did not know."'
(96: 1-5)
This was the first day of his Prophet-hood and these were the first verses of the Qur'an to be revealed.