Terynso El-amin: As Salaam Alaikum and Ramadan Mubarak, Imam Abdulmalik Mohammed. My question is regarding Lailat ul-Qadr. How are we to perceive that night and what benefits are we to derive or look for regarding this special time? As Imam W. Deen Mohammed’s foremost representative your thoughts and commentary would be greatly appreciated. May Allah continue to protect you and allow you to continue to bring light of correct emphasis on this questions and others, thank you.
Imam Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed: As-Salaam Alaikum Imam Terynso El-Amin. Your question allows us to help many to understand these important religious principles. We will be overlooking the seriousness of these principles as they enrich our Islamic understanding and as they apply to our Islamic life and our human lives, without questions like this one. Thank you for your question, and we thank Allah for Imam W. Deen Mohammed who taught us how we should think and understand these matters and these principles.
We are given a description of the 'Night of Power' as the Qur'an-Arabic expression is translated, in the Holy Qur'an itself. The Holy Qur'an says "What explains to you the Night of Power?" And the answer comes "The Night of Power is better than a thousand months," which we understand 'a thousand months' to be the duration of a human lifetime. So, the connection is made here clearly and directly to human life and human existence. And I would like to say that it is speaking to G'd's authority in human life, because G'd has revealed this. These are G'd's Words. It is His determination that this night registers on human consciousness as taking its value in the full and complete history of man's existence. And that this night has a special value which is determining the value of man's existence. So, Allah is saying that He has valued the human existence firstly, and secondly that the meaning of this particular night is a determining factor in that value. It is a stable and firm and absolute factor in determining man's true value as a living, enduring creation of G'd.
The word 'qadr' is broad in its scope as an Islamic term. As an Arabic term it means 'to determine' or 'to decide' but as an Islamic term it means 'the plan, the determination, the estimation, and the destination.' It is the term in Islamic teaching that says G'd has planned our existence, and that He has determined a destiny for us as a human life. So, this is the 'night' of that determination. This is not the 'day' of that determination. The night is for reflection, and the day is for work. The night is for the activity of the deepest parts of man's consciousness to reveal to man what is functioning in him to 'empower' him for the 'day' of his activity. So, this 'Night' is speaking of that 'power' which evolves man upon his nature, that is hidden to him in his 'day' awareness, so that he will be prepared to address the issues of building his world in the way that G'd has planned, so that all of his potential will be realized in that world. So, all of that potential will be active and dutiful in the 'day' of his existence.
What happened on this Night? The Holy Qur'an as a system and message of Guidance was initiated and introduced into man's existence. It was introduced into man's pure, beautiful, excellent nature as Guidance. Prophet Muhammed was not the Prophet or the Messenger before that 'Night.' That 'Night' and what occurred brought his nature to embrace that role. And for the first time in the history of man -a thousand months, man is shown what G'd has 'planned' for him to bring him as a species to his 'power' and that which 'determines' his worth and his aim. G'd showed man, in Muhammed, this is what you have been created for, this is what you have been created to do, this is how you have been constructed, and this how that construction is to perform in order to achieve its highest and optimum efficiency and function. G'd ignited Muhammed's nature on that 'Night'. He ignited his human consciousness. The properties to receive that ignition were already present. They were latent in the nature, but they had to be ignited by G'd, 'empowered' by G'd. With what? How is the nature empowered? Allah says "qaddara fahada." The nature is empowered by Guidance so as to reveal the 'determination' of what the nature was created for in the first place. And so on that night the Guidance came by way of the Command. G'd's Speech is the Command. The Creation and the Command is for G'd, according to the Qur'an. The Guidance enters upon His Creation AS the Command to tell the nature "Be!" Be what you are supposed to be nature! Stand up nature! Be what you were fashioned to be! Be what you were planned and determined to be!
Allah said to Muhammed through the agent of Revelation on that 'Night': "Read..." Read what? "Read in the name of your Lord that Creates." Read what has been given you as natural properties within your own existence, by that one Who 'empowered' those natural properties. Read, and be taught the 'power' in the nature of man that has been created to grow into a destiny, especially fashioned for that destiny from the strengthening clot of blood relations. Be empowered Muhammed, upon the knowledge that your searching questions of the importance or value of your existence and of man's existence, has an answer. Be taught Muhammed, that which you did not know by teaching, but sensed in your own nature, is real and alive with great 'power' to carry you to your 'determined' destiny. Read Muhammed, from your Lord Who gives and gives generously and lovingly, and take this knowledge as a gift to mankind to free them from the oppression of the world's misguidance.
There is the warning here also that the world can lead us astray. So, the verse says "Peace, this until the rising of the dawn." When the world is engaged, when you go into the 'day' of the world's light then know that this 'peace' you have been given in the 'night' with this new consciousness as to your human design, potential, and destiny as G'd determined it, is going to get challenged. It is going to get discredited. The world is going to tell lies on your human nature. Man's systems as influenced by man's enemy will want to interfere with G'd's rule in you. But, this message, this Holy Qur'an, this Generous Recital, which has been placed upon and within the reach of your inherent, highly-estimated, human nature, will humble the greatest, most imposing mountains. It will 'empower' you to push away the influence that wants to lie and cheat your 'planned' human life. And, this Generous Recital has benefits to you that none of the oppressive systems will ever be able to exhaust.
Speaking for some of you, and encouragement to those of you who are doubting, if I were one who said 10 years ago, and 20 years ago, and 33 years ago - a lifetime of leadership, that I am one that was with Imam W. Deen Mohammed, then now I would be saying "Hmmm.... it looks like the crypt is empty. He has risen from the grave these leaders buried him in."
Praise be to Allah. I pray for you and your family a blessed Ramadan.