Lailat al-Qadr
As Lailat al-Qadr ( Arabic ليلة القدر 'The night of determination, the night of omnipotence') in Islam is the night in Ramadan when the Koran was first revealed according to Islamic belief.
date
The exact date of the night of determination is uncertain and can only be fixed to the odd ones of the last ten nights of Ramadan. The Islamic day begins in accordance with the biblical creation story with sunset, which is why it is the night that either ushers in the 21st, 23rd, 25th, 27th, or 29th Ramadan.
At the Turkish-Islamic Union of the Institute for Religion (DITIB), the night of determination is on the 27th Ramadan.
Lailat al-Qadr in the Koran
The Koran dedicates its own sura to this special night : Surat al-Qadr (“The Determination”). In this sura it says:
“In the name of the merciful and gracious God. We revealed it (ie the Koran) on the night of the destiny. But how do you know what the night of determination is? The night of determination is better than a thousand months. The angels and the Spirit descend in her with the permission of their Lord, all Logos (beings). It is (full) salvation (and blessings) until the dawn is visible (w. Rises). "
What the “spirit” refers to, whether to the Archangel Gabriel or to other spiritual presence, is not entirely clear. On the one hand, the word “holy spirit” or “spirit” in the Koran repeatedly refers to Gabriel. On the other hand, the last verse of the sura points to a spiritual presence, which is expressed in the aforementioned peace (Arabic: Salām).
Another reference to the night of destiny can be found in sura 44 ad-Duchan ("The Smoke"):
“With the clear book! We sent it down on a blessed night ... "
According to Islamic belief, the Archangel Gabriel dictated the following words to the Prophet Mohammed that night :
“In the name of the merciful and gracious God.
Carry forward in the name of your Lord who created, created
man from an embryo.
Read (words of scripture)! It is your most noble master (or: your master, generous like no one in the world)
who taught the use of the pen (or: who taught through the pen),
taught people what he (before) did not knew."
However, this revelation is not decisive for the date of the night, so it does not set it. The Laylat al-Qadr, according to Islamic belief, existed before the Revelation, and the Revelation coincided with it.
Lailat al-Qadr in the Islamic tradition
In the traditional Islamic literature there are numerous hadiths that emphasize the sanctity of the Lailat al-Qadr. This is a prophetic word that the Eastern Iranian traditionarian al-Chuttalī († 896) narrates with reference to ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās : “When the Lailat al-Qadr comes, God orders Gabriel to descend in a train of angels, with 500 wings, two of which he only unfolds that night. If he spreads them out that night, they will extend over the entire east and west. "
literature
- Rudi Paret: The Koran. Commentary and concordance ; Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1977; Pp. 515-517
- Rudi Paret: Mohammed and the Koran ; Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001 8 . P. 48.
- Nicolai Sinai: “Christmas in the Koran” or “Night of Determination”? An interpretation of Sura 97 ; in: Der Islam 88 (2012), pp. 11–32.
- Franz Taeschner: A prayer at the end of the celebration of the “Night of Determination” (Lailat ul-qadr, Kadir gecesi) ; in: Die Welt des Islams 4 (1955), pp. 202–216.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ditib Ramadan Calendar
- ↑ Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḫuttalī: Kitāb ad-Dībāǧ . Ed. Ibrāhīm Ḥālim. Damascus 1994. p. 90.