With the onset of the last ten days of Ramadan begins the search for the holiest of the holy nights, Laitat-ul-Qadr (the night of destiny and value). According to the most authentic traditions of the Prophet (SAW), this blessed night falls on one of the five odd nights of the last ten days of Ramadan. The Quran devotes a whole surah (surat al-Qadr) to a description of this night and makes another reference to it in the opening verses of surah al-Dukhan.
Lailat-ul-Qadr is a significant, though from the human angle, mysterious time in the Divine calendar. We, the denizens of the earth, compute our time according to the earth’s rotation on its axis and its revolution around the sun. But this is not the reality of time; this is not the Divine time. Had we been the denizens of a different galaxy, for instance, our computation of time would have been different. Even on our closest neighbour, the moon, the time-scale is not the same as on the earth.
Therefore if the holy night does not fall at the same time in different parts of the world, that should not disturb us in any manner. God transcends time and space and subsists in what our mystics call the Eternal Now. Our scholastic and mystical traditions both distinguish between the human time and the Divine time. If Lailat-ul-Qadr is spoken of as a night, it is spoken of so in relation to us, the human beings. For every believer, regardless of where he belongs, the night falls in the last five odd nights of Ramadan. The value and the expected reward of observing the night depends on the intention (niyyah) of the believer and the intensity of his devotion to Allah.
Qadr can be translated both as ‘Destiny’ and ‘Value’. Time and any of its fractions can be measured either in terms of its quantity or in terms of its value. Sometimes a single moment can be far greater in value than a thousand or even a million years. Such a moment determines the course of history and the destiny of the nations. On such a decisive night the last manifesto of Divine guidance (the Quran) began to be revealed to mankind through Muhammad (SAW). After that moment of moments, the destiny of mankind has been linked for ever with this book.

Lastupdate on : Thu, 18 Aug 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:00 IST