Al-Fatiha
As this sura is the foundation of Islamic prayer, most Islamic scholars hold that it was revealed in Mecca early in Muhammad's career. One tradition has Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad's son-in-law, one of his earliest followers and his rightful successor in the eyes of Shi'ite Muslims, saying: "The Opening of the Book was revealed in Mecca from a treasure beneath the divine throne." The eleventh-century Islamic scholar al-Wahidi relates a tradition in which the Fatiha constituted the first revelation of the Qur’an, rather than the famous demand from the angel that Muhammad "recite," which sura 96 currently enshrines as the first revelation of the Qur'an. Al-Awahidi adds, "This is also the opinion of Ali ibn Abi Talib." This belief persisted to the extent that the twelfth-century Persian Islamic Scholar and jurist Zamakhshari states that most Qur'an commentators at the time he was writing believed that the Fatiha was the first sura revealed. The idea is that the Fatiha was the beginning of the Qur'anic revelation. However, it is a minority view, with mainstream Islamic scholars today holding that sura 96, or at least the start of it, was the first revelation to come to Muhammad.