Muhammad's first revelation

According to the Islamic narrative, Muhammad sought solitude after repeatedly experiencing transcendental dreams in which he was told of his upcoming responsibility as a messenger of God, and thus retreated to Jabal al-Nour near Mecca.

While isolating at the Cave of Hira within Jabal al-Nour, he was visited by the angel Gabriel, who revealed to him the beginnings of what would become known as the Quran.

This involved the occasional insertion of an extra month (announced at the pilgrimage), ideally seven times in nineteen years.

[4] Others establish the day by projecting the fixed (i.e. non-intercalated) calendar backwards, providing a date of the night of Sunday to Monday, 13 to 14 December 610.

[5][page needed] He was concerned with the ignorance of divine guidance (Jahiliyyah), social unrest, injustice, widespread discrimination, fighting among tribes and abuse of tribal authorities prevalent in pre-Islamic Arabia.

[6] The moral degeneration of his fellow people, and his own quest for a true religion further lent fuel to this, with the result that he now began to withdraw periodically to a cave named Mount Hira, three miles north of Mecca, for contemplation and reflection.

[7] Islamic tradition holds that Muhammad during this period began to have dreams replete with spiritual significance which were fulfilled according to their true import; and this was the commencement of his divine revelation.

I raised my head towards heaven to see who was speaking, and Gabriel in the form of a man with feet astride the horizon, saying, "O Muhammad!

I stood gazing at him moving neither forward nor backward, then I began to turn my face away from him, but towards whatever region of the sky I looked, I saw him as before.

Ibn Ishaq writes that three years elapsed from the time that Muhammad received the first revelation until he started to preach publicly.