also important to note why the completion of the Qur’an
outweighed all other devotions and acts of worship in the
month of Ramadan.
Long before any form of dhikr of Allah, any type of
devotion, litany, or method of worship made its way
into the vocabulary of the faithful, long before the first
revelation of Qur’an on Mount Hira, the Qur’an had a
special connection with the month of Ramadan. Allah says,
“The month of Ramadan is that in which was revealed
the Qur’an, a guidance
for the people and clear
proofs of guidance and
criterion…” (2:185). This
ayah informs us that the
aggregate of the Qur’an
was first moved from the
divine realm, the Lauh
Mahfuz or the Preserved
Tablet, to the human
realm, a celestial sphere
known as Bayt al-Izza from whence it was to slowly be
revealed as required in a period of 23 years. This move
from the Lauh Mahfuz to the Bayt al-Izza took place in
Laylat al-Qadr of Ramadan, as stated by Ibn Kathir and
others, and it happened long before the first revelation,
even before the advent of Islam, during a time of complete
darkness. No one knew truth from falsehood; all forms of
falsehood contained remnants of truth and absolute truth
had disintegrated into many falsehoods. There was no
criterion to distinguish light from darkness because the
criterion itself, the previous scriptures, had succumbed
to the forces of darkness. There was no one to relay the
guidance of Allah because those who could were so few and
far between, and they too had retreated from society out
of fear of being defiled by the darkness. During this dismal
time, the Qur’an had already been moved into the human
realm, and now only the stage needed to be set to prepare
the Qur’an for its advent into the terrestrial world and to
inject light into the mass of darkness that had permeated
the human condition. After the blessed Prophet’s a chest
was cut open and washed with Zamzam on more than one
occasion, he started seeing the dreams that materialized
in real life the next day; solitude became beloved to him
(Tirmidhi) and he took a liking towards 40 day retreats
in the cave of Hira. Only then did Allah reveal the first
ayahs from the Bayt al-Izza, the distribution center, from
which Jibril e would receive the relevant ayahs and reveal
them upon the blessed Prophet a for the next 23 years.
What is absolutely crucial for us to understand is that the
23 years of revelation was only possible because the stage
had been set for it, and that stage could only be set because
the Qur’an had already been shifted to a place where it
could be accessed and revealed in portions according to
contingency. The prophethood of the blessed Prophet a
and the Qur’an being a criterion and guidance for mankind
was all contingent upon the Qur’an being first drawn out
of the divine and into the human sphere in which the
blessed Prophet a could serve his purpose as a prophet
and the Qur’an its function as a criterion and guidance
for mankind. Allah says to the blessed Prophet a that his
prophethood was made possible by the Qur’an. He says,
“You did not know what is the book or what is faith,
but We have made it a
light by which We guide
whom We will of Our
servants. And indeed, O
Muhammad (a), you
guide to a straight path
(42:52).
The Quranic debut in the
human realm (though
it was not evident to
If a person does not have
a set goal at any given
moment, that time is wasted.
mankind until the first revelation), which warranted the
prophethood, forestalled the self-destruction of mankind,
and the coming of the Hour, took place in Ramadan. In
essence, the Qur’an covered the multi-realm journey to this
world in two stages. The first stage of this ethereal journey
was from the divine to the human realm and the second
was when Jibril e revealed the first ayahs in the cave of
Hira and thereafter for the next 23 years. The first stage, the
most momentous occasion in human history, transpired
in Ramadan. Ramadan became sacred for no other reason
than this. Prior to Islam, Ramadan was as ordinary as any
other passing month. Arabs did not confer any honors
or distinction on it unlike the four sacred months of
Muharram, Rajab, Dhul Qa‘da, and Dhul Hijja. Then
Islam came and suddenly Ramadan was decorated with
the highest honor as the month in which the Qur’an was
revealed from the divine to the human realm. Thereafter,
the Qur’an and recitation of the Qur’an became the locus
of everything Ramadan. The blessed Prophet a rehearsed
the Qur’an with Jibril e once every Ramadan and twice in
the last year of his life (Ahmad; 5/473); he also recited the
Qur’an throughout the night. Hudhayfa bin al-Yaman g
narrates that he once came upon the blessed Prophet a
in a night of Ramadan. He says that he recited the Baqara,
Nisa’, Al Imran, and would not pass any ayah that inspired
fear of Allah without halting and delving into it… (Musnad
Ahmad; 38/406).
Then, during the khilafat of Umar g people would gather
in clusters in Ramadan to pray in the masjid behind
various imams. Umar g gathered everyone behind Ubay
bin Ka‘b g and the recitation of Qur’an was officially
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