Al-Qadr

A man is in a cave called Hira, at his devotions. It is the month of Ramadan. That night, on one of the two readings Ma'ariful Qur'an gives, the first words of the Qur'an come to him: the opening lines of surah 96. The rest follows a little at a time, as events call for it, over twenty-three years.

Surah al-Qadr looks back at that night. It is five lines long and it starts with no introduction: We sent it down on the Night of Decree. "It" is never named. Both bundled translations add the Qur'an in brackets, because the Arabic does not stop to say.

Two other passages fill in the picture, and Ibn Kathir sets them side by side. One says the Qur'an was sent down in the month of Ramadan. The other says it was sent down on a blessed night. Put together: one night, in Ramadan.

This surah gives that night its name: Laylat al-Qadr. Layla is night. Qadr is the harder word, and the surah seems to know it. Its next line is a question.

The Qur'an's arrival is tied to one night in Ramadan, and the night has a name.

The second line asks: and what can make you know what the Night of Decree is? Al-Jalalayn says the question is there to raise the night's standing and to make the listener marvel.

The answer does not define the night. It weighs it. Better than a thousand months. Ma'ariful Qur'an does the sum: eighty-three years and four months. One night is set against a lifetime.

Better in what way? The commentators mostly answer in terms of what a person does with it. Al-Jalalayn: a good deed on that night is better than the same deed done for a thousand months that have no such night in them.

Ibn Kathir quotes two sayings of the Prophet ﷺ here. One, which he says is in both al-Bukhari and Muslim: whoever stands in prayer on the Night of Decree, with faith and hoping for reward, is forgiven his past sins. The other, recorded by Ahmad and al-Nasa'i, was said as Ramadan arrived: in it is a night better than a thousand months, and whoever is deprived of its good has truly been deprived.

The surah does not define the night. It weighs it against a lifetime.

The fourth line says what happens on this night. The angels descend, and the Spirit with them, by their Lord's permission. The commentaries read for this page take the Spirit to be Jibril (Gabriel), the angel who brought the Qur'an to the Prophet ﷺ.

Ibn Kathir says they come in great numbers because the night's blessing is great. One report he quotes says that on that night there are more angels on the earth than there are pebbles.

What do they come with? The line ends on a short phrase, "every matter", and the commentators read it two ways. One of the closer looks below takes that up.

Then the last line: peace it is, until the rise of dawn. Ma'ariful Qur'an notes that this covers the whole night, from nightfall to daybreak, and no part of it is left out. A surah that began with something coming down in the dark ends at first light.

A night full of angels, and one word for all of it: peace.

The surah gives the night a name, a weight and a company of angels. It does not give it a date.

The Prophet ﷺ did not fix one either. In a report that Ibn Kathir says is in both al-Bukhari and Muslim, he tells his Companions that he was shown the night and then made to forget which it was. What he left them was a place to look: the odd nights of the last ten nights of Ramadan.

One Companion, Ubayy ibn Ka'b, swore it was the 27th. But the reports point to more than one night, and scholars differ. Ma'ariful Qur'an says about forty opinions have been recorded.

The result can be seen in any Ramadan. In those last ten nights, mosques fill late. Some people stay in the mosque for the whole ten days in i'tikaf, a retreat for worship. A night with no fixed date is looked for on all of them.

Its hidden date keeps people praying every night.