A CHRONOLOGICAL QUR'AN: 25th: Sura 97

AL-QADR (POWER, FATE)

Total Verses: 5 Ibn Kathir on Sura 97
Given in Mecca Robert Spencer on Sura 97

097.001
YUSUFALI: We have indeed revealed this (Message) in the Night of Power:
PICKTHAL: Lo! We revealed it on the Night of Predestination.
SHAKIR: Surely We revealed it on the grand night.

097.002
YUSUFALI: And what will explain to thee what the night of power is?
PICKTHAL: Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Night of Power is!
SHAKIR: And what will make you comprehend what the grand night

097.003
YUSUFALI: The Night of Power is better than a thousand months.
PICKTHAL: The Night of Power is better than a thousand months.
SHAKIR: The grand night is better than a thousand months.

097.004
YUSUFALI: Therein come down the angels and the Spirit by Allah's permission, on every errand:
PICKTHAL: The angels and the Spirit descend therein, by the permission of their Lord, with all decrees.
SHAKIR: The angels and Gibreel descend in it by the permission of their Lord for every affair,

097.005
YUSUFALI: Peace!...This until the rise of morn!
PICKTHAL: (The night is) Peace until the rising of the dawn.
SHAKIR: Peace! it is till the break of the morning.

NOTES

The University of Southern California Qur'an database is the source of the three translations used here. There, of course, the chapters are arranged in the standard order, not chronologically.

The chronological order used here is adopted from a webpage at the Oxford Islamic Studies website. That webpage connects the same chonological order to the Al-Azhar scholars who prepared the authoritative Arabic Cairo edition of the Qur'an. Although the Oxford webpage in question is no longer available except by subscription, you can see an overview of the same chronological order at many other sites on the web. For example, click on this link and scroll down until you see a chart. Or see this. Or this.

The chronological order shown at those sites, and at the Oxford site, and used here, has its source in traditional, scholarly Muslim opinion. That said, there are some disputes among traditional Muslim scholars about the chronology of a few of the chapters and verses. I have not focused on those somewhat marginal disputes. My purpose is only to present a chronological Qur'an whose sequence is accurate in broad outline, in the sense that it conforms to the views of most traditional Islamic scholars.

When I seem to indicate on this site that a chapter or verse has an indubitable position in the time sequence, it's not because I'm under any illusion that such conclusions are really without doubt. I'm merely presenting what seem to be the most widely accepted opinions among Islam's scholarly authorities.

Occasionally in the ordering here you may find apparent or actual contradictions. Those contradictions are present in the sources used, but are too few to cause traditional scholars to abandon the broad general lines of the chronological sequence they've established.

The Oxford webpage (as well as this webpage), besides showing the chronological order of Qur'an chapters, also lists a number of individual verses that traditional scholars often think are not from the same period as the Qur'an chapters in which they are found. I have flagged each of those "wayward" verses, when they appear here within any Qur'an chapter, so the reader will easily see them when coming upon them, and know if they were given in the Mecca period, Medina period, or in other circumstances.

If you are reading the Qur'an here for the first time, it may be best to read just one of the translations, and ignore the other two, so you can move more quickly through the text.

A CHRONOLOGICAL QUR'AN

25th: Sura 97

NOTES

Followers

Home

LINKS TO QUR'AN CHAPTERS