What are we looking for on the Night of Power?

Because the Qur'an was revealed in it, the Night of Qadr, which has been made better than a thousand months, is also reported to be a night in which supplications are answered more; so everyone gives that night a quite distinct importance, and acts of worship and supplications are increased more on that night. Those who have not fasted the whole month fast specially on that day, and most people save their zakat and alms for that day.

Although its time is uncertain, because of certain preferred reports the likelihood of its being within the last ten days of Ramazan is considered higher, so it is recommended that the search be concentrated in the last ten days. It is better to try to catch that time within these ten days. That night could in fact be any night of the year, but the Messenger of God said that it is very likely to be within the last ten days of Ramazan. That is why he generally spent the last ten days of Ramazan in itikaf, trying to meet that night in a state of worship.

Think: even the Prophet of God was not given definite knowledge of that blessed night... As we mentioned above, according to some accepted reports, this time was made to be forgotten by the Messenger of God (peace be upon him). This is a matter whose wisdom we should dwell upon a great deal... How and why could such an important time have been made forgotten by the Messenger of God? As much as the Messenger of God told us, the wisdom of something made forgotten to him is also instructive for Muslims. Even he was left in longing and yearning for a time made forgotten. He had to search for it with great insistence, with yearning...

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi explains that the concealment of the Night of Qadr is a practice (sunnah) of the Exalted God manifested in many matters. In accordance with just this practice:

"Allah the Exalted has kept this hidden just as He has kept other things hidden. For the Truth, Glorified is He, concealed His pleasure within acts of obedience so that everyone would desire all acts of obedience; His wrath within acts of disobedience so that they would avoid everything that could be counted as sin; His friends (awliya) among people so that they would respect everyone and regard everyone with good eyes; His acceptance and response among all supplications so that they would strive to the utmost in all supplications; His Greatest Name so that they would revere all the names; the "middle prayer" so that they would persevere in every prayer to the utmost; the acceptance of repentance so that they would persist in every kind of repentance; and, so that every accountable person would be wary, the time of death; and in the same way He has kept this night hidden so that they would venerate all the nights of Ramazan" (Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Mafatih al-Ghayb, Vol. 23: 283-284).

We know that the making forgotten to the Messenger of God of such an important time does not make the knowledge or situation concerning it incomplete. On the contrary, its being made forgotten is a wisdom that the Exalted God has decreed for the nature of this time. The Muslim will be in constant search. He will not stop at some point, saying "I have found." The search is in itself something valuable. He will not regard his own position as guaranteed in any matter, saying "I have arrived." As long as he breathes, he continues in worship and in good, upright, correct deeds...

This is in fact a tremendous warning that being a Muslim is not an opportunity, a rank, a right and an acquisition achieved at one stroke, and that one must constantly deserve it anew.

Was it not always this that caused previous generations, the so-called "chosen nations," to lose? Nations that saw themselves in a position from which, whatever evil they might do, they would not cease to be God's beloved servants gradually began to behave like God's spoiled children and adopted airs of absolute superiority over other people. This feeling by itself is a sufficient reason for God to take back the trust.

So that the same would not happen to Muslims, God willed to subject them to a special training. Alongside a series of other trainings, this arrangement, which ensures that only the Night of Qadr is made forgotten and is sought, longed for and thereby realized within a certain span of time, is as if a part of that special curriculum that educates Muslims.

The God who made even His Prophet forget the definite knowledge of a blessed night, the Night of Qadr, better than a thousand months, the night in which the Qur'an was revealed, shows mercy to that ummah and intends to tell them that they cannot be saved by performing one or two good deeds or by performing certain deeds only on a particular day or night. Not only that, He trains them in this direction within an intense discipline, trains them practically.

Perhaps this reflects one of the most important features of Islam as a religion. Never being in complete security before God, relying on one's own deeds. Islam is a religion in which no one bears another's sin nor can save another. The sense of individual responsibility finds its magnificent expression in the words of the Prophet to his own daughter Fatima, "Be careful, I cannot save you even I." Performing good deeds is very important, but one must not rely sufficiently even on that. For one must continually try to be vigilant against the danger of ostentation (riya), hidden polytheism (shirk) or other motives that may seep into these deeds, which a person may not notice himself.

To repeat, even this vigilance has no guarantee; we have deeds of the heart that we are aware of or not aware of. One must be in a state of accounting toward them, constantly observing oneself, watching oneself, holding up a mirror to oneself. How aware of his own states can a person always be? From whichever side you look, this puts a person in a tension that can never be eliminated. A tension that cannot be eliminated by a few acts, a few dhikrs, a membership, a closeness. This tension leads a person to supplication.

Supplication directs a person to constantly check himself, to know himself, and meanwhile to know God, and to know his place. The state of never being in complete confidence of salvation, but of course never being in despair either, is hoped to bring about a perfect balance of fear and hope (khawf-raja). Without our supplications we truly have no value before God. Supplications, especially those the Prophet made, each of which is a separate lesson for all Muslims, magnificent supplications that make God known, that explain, show and make a person feel his own place before God...

Therefore, one should not wait for the 27th night. One should not hold back from searching for it and from clothing oneself in its consciousness, saying that any night of Ramazan could be the Night of Qadr.

May God the Exalted make us among those who appreciate the value, the truth, of the Night of Qadr.