Waraqah ibn Nawfal and the First Revelation

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Waraqah ibn Nawfal (وَرَقَةُ بْنُ نَوْفَلٍ), a cousin of Khadījah, was among the four men of Makkah who set out to seek the religion of Ibrāhīm. He chose Christianity, studied its scriptures, and learned Hebrew and Aramaic, rejecting the idolatry of Quraysh. By the measure of Makkah he was a rare and learned scholar; a man who could read and write when scarcely anyone could was, in that city, an eccentric academic, a tenured professor and a great figure. He had grown old and blind by the time the revelation came.

❧The one who knew

When the first words descended upon the Prophet ﷺ in the cave of Ḥirāʾ, ٱقْرَأْ بِٱسْمِ رَبِّكَ ٱلَّذِي خَلَقَ, "Read, in the name of your Lord who created", he returned home trembling, and Khadījah took him straight to Waraqah, for this was outside the whole experience of Makkah and Waraqah alone might understand it. When Waraqah heard, he said: "This is the Nāmūs (ٱلنَّامُوس) whom Allah sent down to Mūsā, the very one who came to Mūsā and to ʿĪsā. This is Jibrīl."

❧The first shock

Then he said, "Would that I were a young man; would that I could be alive when your people drive you out." The Prophet ﷺ was startled: "Will they drive me out?" And this was his first warning of what was to come. Waraqah answered, "Yes. Never has a man come with the like of what you have brought but that he was opposed; and if I live to see that day, I will support you with all my strength."

But Khadījah relates, فَمَا لَبِثَ, it was only a little while, and Waraqah died. He was the first to affirm the message and the first Muslim to die in Makkah. People often say the first to accept Islam was Abū Bakr; yet before him, after Khadījah, it was Waraqah ibn Nawfal who knew and affirmed the truth, even before the call had begun, for a lifetime of seeking had prepared him to recognise it in an instant.