Overview of the Transmission

There are several recensions of ʿUrwa's account of the beginning of the revelation and the first revelatory experience. The most important, best known, most detailed and best and most richly transmitted stems from al-Zuhrī. This recension has in turn come down to us in various versions (Maʿmar, al-Layṯ ← ʿUqayl, al-Nuʿmān b. Rāšid, Ibn Isḥāq, etc.). One long version, that of al-Nuʿmān b. Rāšid, is particularly different from all the other long versions. The most striking feature is that in the version according to al-Nuʿmān b. Rāšid Muḥammad says to the angel: mā aqraʾu (“What shall I read?” or “I do not read”), and not, as in the other versions, mā ana bi-qāriʾ (“I am not one who will/can read”). Without exception, all versions of the -Zuhrī recension begin with the formulation awwal mā budiʾa bihī rasūl Allāh min al-waḥy al-ruʾyā al- ṣādiqa, fa-kāna mā yarā ruʾyā illā ǧāʾat miṯl falaq al-ṣubḥ, “Revelation began with the Messenger of God with true dreams, and whenever he had dreams, he saw them coming like the brightness of daybreak” (though of course minor variants occur); this sentence is thus characteristic of the -Zuhrī recension. The character of the following narrative about Muḥammad's first revelatory experience is entirely determined by the uncanny vision in the cave.

In addition to the -Zuhrī recension, there are other transmissions about the revelatory experience that are attributed to ʿUrwa. The transmission “according to Hišām b. ʿUrwa from his father” is much less widespread and well attested; it is only available in two (or three) traditions – possibly fragments of a longer account – which have correspondences in the -Zuhrī recension with regard to content. The third, according to Ibn Lahīʿa ← Abū l-Aswad Yatīm ʿUrwa ← ʿUrwa, which differs significantly from the first two in content (a confidential encounter of the angel with the Prophet instead of the eerie vision in the cave) has come down to us only intermingled with the recension according to Mūsā b. ʿUqba. The fourth, according to Yazīd b. Rūmān ← ʿUrwa, is attested only by a single tradition, which is a conglomerate of several accounts; that is, in this tradition not only the revelatory experience is narrated, but in addition other stories that are only loosely connected with said experience.