Surah Al-Qadr / Verse 2

The first verse told us that the Quran was sent down on the Night of Decree. Now, before describing the virtue of this night, the surah asks: “And what could make you realise what the Night of Decree is?”

This is not a question expecting the listener to supply information. It is a Quranic way of emphasising a subject's greatness and drawing our attention to it. The expression wa ma adraka is used for matters whose true importance may not be easy to grasp. It does not mean that the Prophet could never know anything about the Night of Decree. Rather, it prepares the listener for God Himself to disclose something of its significance.

Another subtlety is the repetition of the name “Night of Decree”. Having mentioned it in the first verse, the surah might have continued with “it”, but instead repeats the full expression here. The third verse also begins with this name. The repeated wording keeps drawing our attention back to the night and underlines its exceptional place.

Why is it called the Night of Qadr? One important meaning of the Arabic qadr is measure, determining or apportioning. According to an interpretation that gives this sense priority, the Night of Decree is when God determines matters for the year ahead, until the next Night of Decree: matters relating to life and death, provision, felicity and misery, and other events of human life and the world.

This view is linked to the passage in Surah Ad-Dukhan that says of the blessed night: “On that night every wise matter is distinguished” (Ad-Dukhan:4)فِيهَا يُفْرَقُ كُلُّ أَمْرٍ حَكِيمٍOn that night every wise and firmly determined matter is distinguished.. On this interpretation, the Night of Decree is not simply a night in the past connected with the Quran's first revelation. It recurs each lunar year in Ramadan, when matters for the coming year are determined.

Interpreters also consider the present-tense verbs yufraqu in Ad-Dukhan and tanazzalu in the fourth verse of Al-Qadr as possible indications that this activity continues. The annual determination of affairs and the recurrence of the Night of Decree follow from reading the verses together and weighing interpretive arguments; they are not stated explicitly in this second verse alone.

Alongside the meaning of determination, qadr is also connected with worth, dignity and exalted status. The following verse makes the night's extraordinary value even clearer: it is better than a thousand months.

The question in the second verse thus leads us towards a night whose greatness, on this interpretation, is not confined to an event long ago. It is connected with God's ongoing governance of creation and offers people a renewed opportunity each year to turn their attention towards their Lord.