Ismaili Ta'wil of al-Layl wa-l-Nahar — Night and Day: How 91:3-4 ('By the Day When It Displays [the Sun] — By the Night When It Covers It'), 92:1-2 ('By the Night When It Covers — By the Day When It Manifests'), and 93:1-2 ('By the Morning Brightness — And by the Night When It Is Still') Are Read in Ismaili Ta'wil as Night and Day Being the Cosmological Pair Encoding the Zahir-Batin Structure — and Why the Imam's Da'wa Operates in the 'Night' of the Batin

In Ismaili ta'wil, al-Layl wa-l-Nahar (اللَّيلُ وَالنَّهَار — Night and Day; *layl*: from *l-y-l*: the night, darkness; al-layl = the night; *nahar*: from *n-h-r*: the day, the daytime; al-nahar = the day [daytime]; the paired oaths in the Quran: the Quran opens multiple surahs with oaths swearing by the night and day as cosmic signs; [1] 91:1-4: 'wa-l-shams wa-duhaha wa-l-qamar idha talaha wa-l-nahar idha jallaha wa-l-layl idha yaghshaha' [By the sun and its morning brightness — by the moon when it follows it — by the day when it displays [the sun] — by the night when it covers it]; [2] 92:1-4: 'wa-l-layl idha yaghsha wa-l-nahar idha tajalla wa-ma khalaqa al-dhakara wa-l-untha' [By the night when it covers — by the day when it manifests — by what created the male and the female]; [3] 93:1-2: 'wa-l-duha wa-l-layl idha saja' [By the morning brightness — and by the night when it is still]; [4] 89:1-4: 'wa-l-fajr wa-layalin 'ashr wa-l-shaf'i wa-l-watr wa-l-layl idha yasr' [By the dawn — and by ten nights — and by the even and the odd — and by the night when it passes]; the cosmological significance of the pair: in the Quran, light/darkness, day/night function as a fundamental cosmological pair: God created the contrast between night and day [6:96]; He is the one who made the night as covering and the day for livelihood [78:10-11]; the night covers/conceals, the day reveals/manifests; night = hiddenness, rest, interiority; day = visibility, activity, exteriority; Ismaili ta'wil of al-Layl wa-l-Nahar: [1] night as batin, day as zahir: in Ismaili cosmological symbolism, the night [layl] represents the batin — the hidden, interior, concealed dimension of reality; the day [nahar] represents the zahir — the visible, exterior, manifest dimension; the night covers the sun [91:4 'when it covers it'] just as the batin of a Quranic verse is 'covered' by its zahir; [2] the da'wa's operation in the 'night' of the batin: the da'wa operates in the 'night' — the hidden realm of batin-knowledge accessible only to those with bay'ah; the zahiri world of shari'a, fiqh, and public religious practice is the 'day'; the da'wa's ta'wil-transmission is the 'night'; [3] 92:1-4 and the male/female cosmic principle: the pairing 'By the night when it covers — by the day when it manifests — by what created the male and the female [al-dhakara wa-l-untha]' in 92:1-4 connects the night-day pair to the masculine-feminine cosmic principle; in Ismaili cosmology: night-female-receptive-nafs vs day-male-active-'aql; the cosmos is structured by these complementary pairs; [4] 'by the morning brightness and by the night when it is still' [93:1-2]: this surah [al-Duha] was revealed to console the Prophet during a period when revelation paused; the morning brightness [al-duha] = the return of the Imam's active ta'lim after a period of satr [concealment]; the still night [al-layl idha saja] = the dawr al-satr [the period of concealment] that precedes the return; [5] the night's blessing over the day: in multiple hadith, the last third of the night is described as the most blessed time for prayer and supplication; the night is not inferior to the day but a different and complementary mode — the mode in which the batin is most accessible) is Ismaili cosmology's fundamental binary encoded in cosmic rhythm.