3. "Read!"

Picture the cave of Hira. It is Ramadan, around the year 610. Muhammad is sitting there alone. An angel appears and gives him a command: "Read!"

He answers that he is not a reader. The angel presses him tightly. Three times. Then the angel recites the first words of the Qur'an.

He comes down the mountain shaking. He goes home, and asks Khadijah to cover him with a cloak.

The first revelation began with a single command. Read.

What do you say to a husband who comes home shaking? Khadijah answers by listing his character. He keeps family ties. He carries the burdens of the weak. He helps the destitute, honours guests, stands by people in hardship. A man like that, she says, God will not disgrace.

Then she takes him to her cousin, Waraqah ibn Nawfal, a Christian who knows the earlier scriptures. This, Waraqah says, is the same messenger angel who came to Moses. Then he adds a warning. His people will drive him out.

Khadijah believed first. Her reason was his character.

Khadijah was the first to accept Islam. Who came next? The people closest to him. 'Ali, his young cousin, who lived in his house. Zayd ibn Harithah, a former slave he had freed and raised as a son. And his closest friend, Abu Bakr, a respected merchant who brought others with him.

For about three years the circle grew quietly. Among family and friends. Among the young. Among the poor and the enslaved.

Islam began among family, friends and the powerless.

Then the command comes to warn his closest kin. So he climbs the hill of Safa, and calls out to the clans of Quraysh.

They gather. He asks them a question. If he told them an army was behind the hill, would they believe him? They say they have never known him to lie. Then he warns them of a punishment to come.

His uncle Abu Lahab shouts: "May you perish! Is this why you gathered us?" A short surah follows, answering Abu Lahab. From that day the message is public. So is the opposition.

He opened by reminding Quraysh they had never known him to lie.