Cheatsheet

Sūrah Al-QadrThe Decree / The Night of Power · Makkah · 5 āyāt · 5 movements

A short, luminous Makkan surah announcing that the Qurʾān was sent down on Laylat al-Qadr — a single night whose worth outweighs a thousand months. It moves from the fact of the revelation's descent, to a rhetorical question raising its immense value, to a description of angels and the Spirit descending with every decree, and closes with the night's defining quality: peace, until the break of dawn.

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At a glance

Āyāt	Movement	In one line
1	The descent: a Book sent down on a single night	The Qurʾān's arrival in history is tied to a specific, named night, not a vague span of time.
2	The question: what do you know of this night?	Some realities are announced first as unknowable in scale, then explained — teaching humility before divine value.
3	Better than a thousand months	Allah's mercy compresses immense reward into a single accessible night rather than demanding a lifetime.
4	The angels and the Spirit descend	The descent of angels signals mercy and attention, not merely a symbolic label for a special night.
5	Peace until the rise of dawn	The surah ends not on power or awe but on peace — the emotional register the whole night carries.

Occasion & setting

The surah speaks of the night in which the Qurʾān began to be sent down — understood by the majority of commentators as the night in Ramaḍān when revelation started in the Cave of Ḥirāʾ, though the surah itself does not narrate a specific incident tied to a cause of revelation.

— Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm on Sūrat al-Qadr; al-Wāḥidī, Asbāb al-Nuzūl (no authenticated sabab given for this surah)

Key messages

· The Qurʾān's descent is anchored to a real, specific night, not an abstract idea.
· A single night of sincere worship can outweigh what would take a lifetime to otherwise accumulate.
· Allah's mercy to this ummah compresses immense reward into an accessible act, not an impossible one.
· Angels descending signals divine attention and mercy converging on the believer, not mere symbolism.
· Nothing occurs — not even the angels' movement — outside Allah's permission and decree.
· The night's defining quality is peace, not merely power or awe.
· Every blessing, however immense, is bound by time — the night's grace ends at dawn.
· Seeking this night (in the last ten nights of Ramaḍān) is a Prophetic practice grounded directly in this surah's meaning.

Root vocabulary

ق د ر

to measure, decree, or determine with precision and power

1, 2, 3

قَدْر (measure, decree, worth) · قَدَّرَ (he decreed, ordained) · قَادِر (one who is capable, able) · مِقْدَار (an amount, extent)

ن ز ل

to descend, come down

1, 4

أَنزَلَ (he sent down) · تَنَزَّلُ (descend (repeatedly, gradually)) · مَنزِل (a dwelling, stage) · نُزُول (descent)

ل ي ل

night, the period of darkness

1, 2, 3

لَيْل (night) · لَيْلَة (a night (single instance)) · لَيَالٍ (nights (plural))

خ ي ر

goodness, that which is preferable or superior

خَيْر (good, better) · خِيَار (the choicest, the best) · خَيِّر (one who is good, generous)

ر و ح

spirit, breath of life

رُوح (spirit) · رَيْحَان (fragrant plants, comfort) · رَاحَة (rest, ease)

أ م ر

command, matter, affair

أَمْر (matter, command) · أَمَرَ (he commanded) · إِمَام (leader, one followed in a matter)

س ل م

safety, soundness, peace

سَلَام (peace) · سَلِمَ (he was safe, sound) · إِسْلَام (submission (to Allah)) · مُسْلِم (one who submits)

ف ج ر

to split open, burst forth — hence dawn's first light breaking through darkness

فَجْر (dawn) · فَجَّرَ (he caused to gush forth) · تَفْجِير (a bursting, explosion)

Flip cards

22 cards over the roots, movements, takeaways and seerah events of this surah. Anything you mark “still learning” comes back before the deck ends.

Sūrah Al-Qadr deck

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Concept map

The surah at the centre, its movements in sequence around it, and the roots, seerah moments and messages that hang off each one. Tap a node to focus its connections — the same way a linked notebook shows you what a single idea touches.

Tap any node to focus it and dim everything it is not connected to — the movement it sits in, the roots that carry it, and the moment of the seerah it answers.