Al-Alaq ('The Clot'), 19 Meccan verses, contains what the tradition holds to be the very first revelation to the Prophet: 'Read in the name of your Lord who created, created the human from a clinging clot... taught by the pen' (96:1-5). Its later verses rebuke the tyrant who forbids the servant to pray, and it ends with a verse of prostration.
Occasion-of-revelation accounts, preserved by al-Bukhari through the report of the Prophet's wife Aisha, place the first five verses in the cave of Hira during the month later identified with Ramadan, describing Muhammad's fright at the encounter and Khadija's reassurance afterward, before he was taken to her cousin Waraqa ibn Nawfal, who recognised the experience as matching earlier prophetic revelation. Exegetes debate whether the whole nineteen verses were revealed together or, more commonly held, whether only the opening five verses came at Hira with the remainder, addressed to Abu Jahl's opposition and ending in a verse of prostration, revealed later once Muhammad had begun to pray publicly. The surah's title, 'The Clot,' names the stage of embryonic development mentioned in verse 2, part of a small set of Quranic verses on human formation in the womb that later commentary connected to observational as well as scriptural knowledge.