Surah 97 · Makki
القَدْر
Al-Qadr
The Night of Decree
Five ayahs and thirty words that announce the night the Quran descended — a night that outweighs a human lifetime, when the angels have not stopped descending, and the whole of it is peace until dawn.
The Unveiling
Three movements: declaration → question-and-answer → atmosphere
We sent it down. The pronoun 'it' has no antecedent in the surah — the Quran assumes you know what 'it' refers to, because what else could warrant a surah about the night of its descent. The word al-qadr carries decree, power, and precise measure all at once.
The rhetorical formula wa ma adraka ma — 'what will make you know what it is?' — pauses the listener before they can absorb the first claim. The answer: a single night set against eighty-three years of human life. The comparison has no ceiling — 'better than,' not 'equal to.'
The angels do not simply descend — the intensive verb tanazzalu means they keep descending, in waves, continuously. Jibreel among them. Every decreed matter carried from unseen to seen. And the whole of it is salam — peace — until dawn emerges over the horizon.