6رَحمَةً مِن رَبِّكَ ۚ إِنَّهُ هُوَ السَّميعُ العَليمُAli UnalAs a mercy from your Lord – urely He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing1 –When we consider these verses together with Sūrāt al-Qadr (no. 97), we can conclude that they mention God’s unchanging practice from the beginning of the universe. This practice has two aspects: one for the life of all creatures; and the other for the guidance of humankind and jinn. Although we do not, and cannot, know their exact nature, all things and affairs or events have, in God’s Knowledge, an eternal existence. This is the existence of things and events in their totality or universality. God wills an individual thing to come into existence or an individual event to take place, and He decrees for it its own particular identity. We can describe this process as each thing and event being identified with its particular nature by the Divine Destiny—as referred to in verse 15: 21: There is not a thing but the stores (for its life and sustenance) are with Us, and We do not send it down except in due, determined measure. Destiny transfers this event or thing to the realm of Divine Power, and Divine Power creates it according to the measures determined by Destiny. This creation is called fatr – origination according to, or on, a certain system, and the totality of the attributes given to a particular thing or being is called its fitrah. As we can deduce from the verses discussed, each year has a particular identity and importance in the total history of the universe in general, and that of humankind in particular, and there is a special night during each year in which every thing or being that God has willed to come into existence, and every event to that take place during that year, is identified or particularized and transferred from Divine Knowledge to the disposal of the Divine Power. As can be understood from other relevant verses, such as 97: 1 and 2: 185, where it is stated that the Qur’ān was sent down on the Night of Destiny (or Power and Measure), and during the holy month of Ramadān, this night is the Night of Destiny (or Power and Measure). Since this night is in the Holy Month of Ramadān, according to the lunar year, which is 11 days shorter than the solar year, any night of the solar year will be this night once every 354 years. (We should always bear in mind that all of the explanations concerning God are in respect to us, or from our perspective, and according to our measures in our relation with Him. As for God Himself, He is beyond all restrictions and measures of time and space.) What the verses mean as far as the warning and guidance of human beings is concerned is that throughout history, God sent Messengers and sent down or revealed Scriptures. The Qur’ān was sent down in two ways, one in its totality, and the other in parts. Interpreters of the Qur’ān say that the Qur’ān was sent in its totality from the Supreme Preserved Tablet to the heaven of the world, or Bayt al-Ma’mūr. We do not know the nature of this Bayt (House), and how the Qur’ān was sent down to it or to the heaven of the world. However, in the light of the verses discussed here (1–6 in this sūrah), it can be said that as every Divine Book was identified with its particular nature in its totality, or transferred in its totality from God’s Knowledge or the Supreme Preserved Tablet or the Mother Book (see sūrah 43: 4; sūrah 6: 59, note 13; sūrah 13: 39, note 13; sūrah 17: 14, note 10; sūrah 85: 22), the Qur’ān was also identified in its totality in, or transferred from, the same original source on the Night of Destiny (or Power and Measure). As can be understood from verse 97: 4, the Messengers that are mentioned in verse 5 as being sent are both the angels responsible for the events that occur in the universe and those events that occur in the life of all beings, including those angels charged with bringing the Divine Book to the Prophets (namely Gabriel and his aides), and the human Messengers sent for the guidance of humankind. Verse 6 states that whatever God decrees is a mercy for beings, including humankind. It is a manifestation of His being either ar-Rahmān (the All-Merciful) or ar-Rahīm (the All-Compassionate). (For the meaning of these titles, and the difference between them, see sūrah 1, notes 4–5.)