The First Command Was Read
It could have been obey, submit, believe or worship. It was read, given to a man who could not, and repeated until he did. A civilisation founded on that word has a permanent reason to care about text.
In a cave outside Mecca, some time around 610, a middle-aged merchant on a retreat is seized by a presence he will later identify as the angel Jibril.
He is pressed until he cannot breathe, and given a command.
Iqra. Read.
The man answers: Ma ana bi-qari. I am not a reader. I cannot read.
The command comes again. Read. Again he says he cannot. A third time, and then the sentence completes: Read, in the name of your Lord who created.
Whatever you take to be happening in that cave, sit with the shape of it for a moment. The opening instruction of a world religion, delivered to a man who is unable to comply, and repeated until he does.
Consider what the first word could have been.
Obey would have been conventional. Submit, believe, worship, fear, follow. Every one of those is a normal opening for a revelation, and every one establishes a relationship of authority in which the appropriate posture is deference.
The word was read.