The cave of Hira
For years before his mission Muhammad (s) had withdrawn to a cave on the Mountain of Light above Makkah to reflect and worship. On 27 Rajab, when he was forty, the angel Jibra'il came to him there with the first words of the Qur'an — "Read, in the name of your Lord who created" — and he was made a prophet. The Shia date the event to this day; Sunni tradition more often places the first revelation in Ramadan.
The beginning of Islam
From that night the Prophet (s) began to call his household and then his city to the worship of the one God. Khadija (a) was the first to believe and Ali (a) the first among men; for three years the call was private, then public, and for thirteen years in Makkah it was answered with persecution until the Hijrah. Within a generation idolatry had vanished from Arabia.
How it is observed
The Shia keep 27 Rajab as Eid al-Mab'ath, the feast of the sending of the Prophet, with congratulations, gatherings, fasting and the special supplications and prayers that the devotional manuals prescribe for the day and its eve. It is a public holiday in Iran.
Written for Shia Online Community. Dates and facts are checked against the references listed below; where the tradition records more than one date, all are given.
