Lailat-ul-Qadr
Abu Sa'id al-Khudri said: "God's Messenger spent the first ten nights of Ramadan in devotion, and spent the middle ten nights in devotion in a round Turkish tent, after which he raised his head and said, "I have spent the first ten nights in seeking this Night, then I spent the middle ten nights in devotion and after that I had a heavenly visitant and was told that it is in the last ten: so he who was engaged in devotion along with me should do so during the last ten nights, for I was shown this Night, then was caused to forget it, but I have seen myself prostrating in water and clay on the morning following, so seek it among the last ten and seek it in every night with an odd number".
It was on the auspicious Lailat-ul-Qadr, the Night of Power or Honour or Majesty that the holy Quran, the most blessed and perfect of all revelations, was vouchsafed to the benighted world. By revelation, of course, is meant the first revelation because the holy Quran was revealed in portions during twenty-three years. The real merit of this blessed Night has been expounded in the holy Quran.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Lailat-ul-Qadr occupies a unique position in the Islamic calendar. It was this blessed Night of Majesty which first witnessed the shining of the divine light which was destined to illumine the whole world. This night of grandeur or greatness, better than a thousand months, is indeed a night of great wonders and divine blessings.
It is not perhaps necessary to pinpoint this particular night by the calendar. The night on which a Message descends from Allah is indeed a blessed night, like a day of rain for a parched land. It is for this that the I'tikaf, the adhering to the mosques or retiring for contemplation during Ramadan as a form of devotion is fixed for the last ten days of the month of Ramadan.
"Peace" indeed is the chief distinction of Lailat-ul-Qadr. This "Peace" comes to the hearts of the devotees in the form of a tranquillity of mind which makes them fit to receive Divine Blessings. When the Night of spiritual darkness is dissipated by the Glory of Benign Providence, a wonderful peace and a sense of security arise in the soul. All jars are stilled in the reign supreme of peace. "And this lasts on", in the words of Maulana Yusuf Ali, "until this life closes, and the Glorious Day of the new spiritual world dawns, when everything will be on a different plane, and the chequered nights and days of the world will be even less than a dream".
Lailat-ul-Qadr, the blessed Night in the Great Revelation of the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful Allah "broke through the darkness of the human soul" and the holy Quran, the perfect code of human life, reached mankind as message of "Mercy from the Lord".
Blessed indeed is this Night of Power. The divine importance of this Night of Grandeur is so great that the holy Prophet (peace be upon him) himself declared, "He who spends the Lailat-ul-Qadr through prayers, in full faith, shall have all his previous sins and guilt forgiven".
It is not, however, the worldly pleasures and physical comforts that one should ask for on this holy Night. What a man should pray for in this blessed Night is forgiveness and Allah's forgiveness alone. Nothing can be more pleasant, nothing can be more beneficial, nothing can be sweeter that the Glorious Mercy of the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful Allah.
Hazrat Ayesha Siddiqua (RA) said, "I asked the holy Prophet (peace be upon him) what to say during the Night on the assumption that I knew it was the Night."
The holy Prophet (peace be upon him) replied, One should say: "Lord! You love forgiveness, so forgive me."