Ismaili Ta'wil of Laylat al-Qadr — The Night of Power: How Surah 97 ('Indeed We Sent It Down on the Night of Qadr — and What Will Make You Know What the Night of Qadr Is? The Night of Qadr Is Better Than a Thousand Months') Is Read in Ismaili Ta'wil as Laylat al-Qadr Being the Moment of the Imam's Designation/Nass — the Cosmic Investiture That Is Worth More Than a Thousand Ordinary Months of Zahiri Religious Practice, Repeated in Each Cycle as the Eternal Pattern of Walayah-Transmission

In Ismaili ta'wil, Laylat al-Qadr (لَيلَةُ القَدر — The Night of Power/Decree; qadr: from *q-d-r*: to measure, to determine, to have power/capacity; al-qadr = measure, decree, power, value; Laylat al-Qadr = the Night of Decree [God's decrees for the year are set on this night] OR the Night of Power/Honor [qadr also means dignity/status]; the Surah: Surah 97 [al-Qadr]: 'inna anzalnahu fi laylati al-qadr — wa-ma adraka ma laylatu al-qadr — laylatu al-qadr khayrun min alfi shahr — tanazzalu al-mala'ikatu wa-l-ruhu fiha bi-idhni rabbihim min kulli amr — salamun hiya hatta matla'i al-fajr' [Indeed We sent it [the Quran] down on the Night of Qadr — and what will make you know what the Night of Qadr is? — The Night of Qadr is better than a thousand months — The angels and the Spirit descend in it by the permission of their Lord with every matter — Peace it is until the rising of the dawn]; the traditional reading: [1] the 'it' sent down [anzalnahu] = the Quran; [2] the Night of Qadr falls in the last ten nights of Ramadan [with the 27th night being the most commonly observed]; [3] 'better than a thousand months' = one night of worship on this night outweighs over 83 years of worship; [4] the angels and the Spirit [Jibril] descend with divine decrees; [5] the night is characterized by peace until dawn; the ambiguity of 'anzalnahu' in tafsir: classical tafsir debate: was the Quran sent down entirely on this night [to the lowest heaven], or only the first revelation [Iqra']? Both interpretations have classical support; Ismaili ta'wil of Laylat al-Qadr: [1] Laylat al-Qadr as the moment of nass [Imam's designation]: in Ismaili ta'wil, Laylat al-Qadr is the cosmic prototype of nass — the Imam's designation of his successor; nass is not merely a legal act but a cosmic act in which divine qadr [decree/measure] is transmitted from one Imam to the next; every nass enacted by a living Imam repeats the pattern of Laylat al-Qadr — the night in which God's cosmic qadr descends into history; [2] 'better than a thousand months' — walayah transcends zahiri practice: 'a thousand months' = more than 83 years of zahiri religious practice [salah, sawm, zakat, hajj]; the batin-moment of receiving the Imam's walayah through genuine bay'ah is 'better than a thousand months' of zahiri worship without batin; one moment of genuine walayah-awakening transcends years of zahiri practice; [3] the descending angels and the Spirit as the da'wa hierarchy: 'the angels and the Spirit descend by the permission of their Lord with every matter' = the da'wa hierarchy activates on the moment of nass; the Imam's designation of his successor mobilizes the entire da'wa from the highest hujjas down through the da'is; the angels descending = the hudud of the da'wa acknowledging the new Imam's authority; [4] 'every matter' [min kulli amr] — comprehensive ta'wil: 'every matter' descending on Laylat al-Qadr = the Imam's ta'wil is comprehensive; the Quran's batin is not partial or selective but covers every matter [kullu amr]; [5] 'Peace until the rising of the dawn' — the walayah state: the peace [salam] of Laylat al-Qadr until dawn = the peace and spiritual security of the mu'min who has genuine walayah; the darkness of the night = the batin realm of ta'wil; the 'dawn' [matla' al-fajr] = the dawr al-zuhur [the era of manifestation] when the batin will be fully revealed; [6] 'We sent IT down' — the Imam as the living Quran: 'anzalnahu' [We sent IT down] — what is 'it'? In Ismaili ta'wil: the batin of the Quran, the living ta'wil embodied in the Imam; the Imam is 'sent down' on the Night of Qadr — the moment of nass in which the divine qadr is vested in a new Imam) is the most temporally concentrated moment of walayah-transmission.