العلق

The first word of the Quran was a command, and it was: **Read.**

*"Read in the name of your Lord who created — created man from a clinging substance. Read, and your Lord is the most Generous, who taught by the pen, taught man that which he knew not."*

The religion opens with reading, with a pen, and with the plain statement that everything you know was taught to you.

The second half of the surah was revealed later, about a man who used to threaten anyone he saw praying at the Ka'bah. And it is where the Quran diagnoses the root of all of it: *"No! Indeed, man transgresses — because he sees himself as self-sufficient."*

Thinking you do not need anyone. That is the whole disease.

And the last verse is a command to come closer: *"But prostrate and draw near."*