The Night of Al-Qadr [Archives:2000/51/Culture]

Mohammad
Al-Hakeemi
Yemen Times, Taiz
Fasting was prescribed to Muslims in the first year of Hijra in the month of Ramadan in which the Holy Qur’an was revealed. In the Holy Qur’an, it is mentioned that it was sent down at the night of Al-Qadr and this indicated that the night of Al-Qadr is in the month of Ramadan. It is a blessed night in which worshipping God equals a thousand months (about 83 years). What is meant by Al-Qadr is honor and of great importance. It is said that it was called so because the earth becomes full of angels and at every span there is an angel who praises God. The value of the night of Al-Qadr is great for if a person succeeded in worshipping God in it, all his sins would be forgiven. This is because in that night Gods mercy prevails. It is said that it is on the 27 th night of Ramadan. There are many evidences for that like the number of words in Surat Al-Qadr is thirty and the word Hya (it) in the same Surat is three letters and the number of the letters of the Sura is 114 which is the same number of Suras of the Holy Qur’an. Although Al-Qadr is a night in Ramadan, it is not known which night it is exactly for fear that people would only worship God at that night. The best thing to be done in it is to make a Muslim happy by relieving him from a distress or to invoke God for a need to be fulfilled (so that one believes in God).
Since the Prophet Mohammed (Peace and Prayers be Upon Him) used to seclude himself in the mosque during the last ten days of Ramadan, Muslims do the same. To seclude oneself means to stay in the mosque and not go out of it during the ten days of Ramadan except for doing something important close to the mosque. One must not go home until the seclusion period he specified for himself is over so that he may come across that holy night.
Some religious men say that this night can be recognized by some signs. It is said that the sun in the morning of that night is warm, the evening is cold, dogs do not bark, and that the sky is clear and bright and so on. What happens is that some people feel that a heavenly light enters their hearts or houses as a person mentioned that this happened to him twice in the presence of his wife and little daughter last Ramadan. Whatever the case, people should not care about the signs of that night. They should care more about how to worship God to the utmost during that night and invoke Him for their needs and mercy. Sheik Mohammed Bin Yahya Abdul-Muti said that all those above-mentioned signs of Al-Qadr night are not true for they were not mentioned in the Holy Qur’an.
In the villages of Taiz and most mosques in Yemen people usually wear white clothes and put on perfumes and hold session for reading the Holy Qur’an or reciting Mawaled, religious hymns praising the Prophet. Sessions over, the people go out reciting poems by Sophist religious men.
Other Economic Institutions
Zakaat is only the minimum contribution to social welfare in a community. There are other economic institutions that a society would need to develop to preserve its strength and integrity.
A Muslim community needs to have its own institutions for banking and finance, for thrift and insurance, its own investment and consumer priorities that would be in conformity with the moral and legal code of Islam. This requires new thinking and new initiatives. This is within the reach of any community beginning with small-scale projects and starting from the bottom up.
Muslim communities and societies need to have economic policies that would meet the basic needs of the people, change consumer tastes and levels so that people can live within their means especially considering the saying of the Prophet that the little but sufficient is better than the abundant but alluring. Muslim communities need to be wary of the debt trap through which the energies and resources of a people are mortgaged to international banking institutions. The level of debt from loans and interest remains one of the major sources of impoverishment of many societies.
Educational Institutions
Education institutions in many existing Muslim communities often produce timid and imitative people who are not able to contribute to the welfare and strength of society.
Muslims of today need educational institutions that would produce courageous, enterprising, and creative men and women who aim at ihsaan or excellence in all things, and who are able to contribute to the welfare and strength of society. Muslim communities need an education and an outlook that will not make them accept humiliation and oppression. This was the type of education and training that the Sahabah (companions of the Prophet) received in the continuous education school of the noble Prophet. The focus of this education was not fine buildings and expensive equipment but the human mind, heart and body.
Collective Obligations
While the individual Muslim has the duty to acquire such knowledge as to enable him or her to perform personal obligations such as knowledge of Salaat (prayer) and the rules of fasting, the community has the collective obligation to ensure that it has the knowledge and skills to meet its essential needs and supplies.
The Islamic community needs for example to promote the industry of certain individuals in faring, weaving and building for people cannot go without food to eat, clothes to wear and dwellings to live in. It is amazing how this simple rule is neglected by many societies who have abandoned agriculture for large-scale industrial development. This has resulted in dependency on outside sources for food. In crisis situations, this has led to starvation, suffering and death and the ransoming of large populations to outside forces.
The study of the Shariah is a collective duty, and each community needs to train and equip itself to defend itself against aggression and to protect the freedom of mankind.
The concept of fard kifayah (collective duty) thus imposes on the community the need to assess its essential needs, plan for the fulfillment of these needs through training of individuals and the allocation of resources to encourage agriculture, industries and institutions to cater for these needs.
These are some of the aspects of community formation and concerns in an Islamic system. It would be seen that the Islamic system does not encourage selfish and destructive individualism. Neither does it stand for rigid collectivization and control from above. It is a society of the middle way where individual freedoms are enjoyed within a guided and disciplined, caring and creative society.

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