Read in the Name of Your Lord

The experience was basically this. It has come down in the tradition that at the age of forty he was in the cave, and a being came to him. It was in the form of a man, and he said: iqraʾ. This was the first word: iqraʾ. Now, iqraʾ can be interpreted in two ways. It can be interpreted as "recite" or as "read". The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was neither a reciter of poetry, nor could he read. And he said at that point: mā anā bi-qāriʾ — I do not know how to recite, or I do not know how to read. It could be interpreted both ways; generally it is interpreted that he did not know how to read.

Iqraʾ, a second time. Iqraʾ, a third time. And then, in the tradition, it says that he was actually squeezed until he thought that his sides would burst. And then he said:

Rendered directly from the Arabic, and roughly: read in the name of your Lord, who created the human being from a clinging tissue; read in the name of your Lord, the most generous, who taught the human being with the pen, and taught the human being that which he did not know. And this is the beginning of the phenomenon that will take place for the next twenty-three years of his life, before he dies.