The name of this surah is AL-QADR ie something of utmost value or worth, which is the God sent book the Quran for this age or that which is benchmark or yardstick or criterion or standard or scale by which things are supposed to be measured or judged. Word lailah not only means the night but also a period of darkness of ignorance when human beings had no guidance from God because they had not yet learned to be able to decode messages of God, so God had not yet started sending his messages to people for their guidance. Lailatulqadr is a period of time in human history when at least some of the people from among human beings became sensible enough to be able to decode messages of God therefore God started sending them his messages in order to guide them. This guidance from God for humanity was and is of utmost value. This situation is like that of a baby who is born knowing nothing at all and then as he grows he learns things and becomes sensible and then he starts understanding message of God. Humanity also came through a similar situation. It underwent a total period of darkness of ignorance but after gradually becoming sensible it was given guidance from God and since then it has been struggling to meet God set standard. There will come a time period when it will meet God set standard. When that will happen? That depends upon how quickly or slowly people will become enlightened. Till now people have not yet managed to decode the message in the Quran properly as it ought to be decoded. Then there will come a time period when people will willingly act upon the Quranic message or guidance. That is when all human beings will start having a blissful, dignified and secure existence as a proper human community in the kingdom of God. This is a very long process spread over many human generations. As explained already, teaching reduces time of learning things drastically in comparison to learning each and everything by way of direct experiences. For example, if we leave a human baby on his own after birth to learn things, he will not be able to make an aeroplane all his life but if we teach him then he will be able to do so. Likewise when human beings came about they were just like other animals but over so many generations they are what we see today, so learning through teachings cuts down a lot of time and energy as well as painful suffering fro humanity. This is what this surah is explaining.

This surah is named AL-QADR because it too is an attribute of the Quran itself just like some other surahs in the Quran eg the very next surah called albaiyinah meaning clear and brilliant guidance like no other that is obvious from a very long distance or far away for those who have the sense of sight to see it ie those who have enabled themselves by learning sense of making proper sense of things. The reason why these like surahs are not named as the Quran is because God did not send just the Quran alone for humanity but he has been sending his revelations for mankind for a very long period of time. The Quran is the final revelation from God for mankind ie the very last one through the very last messenger. The reason the Quran is attributed by word AL-QADR is because the revelation of God is a most valuable thing God has ever given to mankind. The Quran is valuable for mankind because it tells them program of God about mankind themselves and how that program can be carried out or executed successfully by people in order to fulfil the purpose for which God has created people as well as all other things which people needed for fulfilling this purpose. It provides people with solid ideological foundation on basis of which they can and they should come together and form a proper human community in the kingdom of God. For this purpose it contains for people goals to accomplish and guidelines to accomplish those goals by and to create a proper constitution to organise and base themselves upon as a proper human community and to create laws in that light in order to regulate their proper human community properly. This is what deen of Islam is all about and that is why deen of Islam is a way of life which if understood properly by human beings and acted upon faithfully will lead them to unity, peace, progress and prosperity so people will end up in a blissful, dignified and secure existence in this very world after all this hard work once it has been carried out by them. Moreover they will be rewarded in hereafter as well for doing all this. To begin with one must learn about real world realities and then learn about revelation of God and once one understands things about them as they ought to be understood then one must help others do the same for themselves. This is of vital importance because otherwise people cannot come together to form a proper human community in the kingdom of God which is necessary for ensuring their well being through help and full support of each other so that then they could carry out God given program for fulfilling his assigned purpose for which he has created all things including human beings. The question one needs to ask oneself is, what will happen if people do not come together and remain individuals thinking and doing their own things? The world will remain as it is or get worse over a period of time and human condition will not improve but deteriorate and as a result a lot of people will keep on dying after prolonged painful suffering as is happening already in this world before our very eyes.

So people who wish to have a better world cannot afford to ignore or neglect the information in the Quran for ensuring best possible existence for humanity in this world and in hereafter. It is therefore up to people how they respond to call of their Creator and Sustainer. It is better for humanity to respond quicker and in great numbers so that the Quranic program could be implemented sooner in order to cut down human suffering in sense of time and in respect of numbers as well as its seriousness. The Quran however does give hope to humanity that their struggle for implementation of the Quranic rule of law will bear fruits in time to come as humanity gradually wakes up to dawn of enlightenment. The Quran keeps on emphasising the vital importance of right way of life for mankind for living in this world because wrong ways of life have serious consequences for humanity as a whole. Random baseless beliefs and useless or harmful and destructive practices in the name of religion and secularism lead mankind nowhere other than terribly troublesome life. Short surahs are only emphasising points already explained in long surahs dealing with the raised points in detail. Therefore study of complete Quranic text is necessary to realise the overall context and the sub-contexts that are dependent upon each other. This surah explains to people, doing things methodically and systematically in an organised and regulated way cuts down time and effort as well as the painful suffering involved which in turn saves time and energy which then could be put to some other better use. The Quranic teaching is all about sufficiency, efficiency, proficiency and competence. It is a God advised way of life that ought to ensure proper management of human population and resources as well as production and distribution by people for the growth and prosperity of mankind. In short God has put measures in place and has set up everything in such a way that all things are geared up and working full well towards fulfilling program of God save human beings who are supposed to carry out his given program for them to fulfil plan and purpose of God. They are doing so anyway, be it unknowingly but if they do it after knowing things it will be much better. People are circumstance driven ie they are forced by dynamic world to move with it anyway or die away aimlessly but if they learned things then they could use the natural world to their advantage by planning things ahead of time and that way they could save themselves from lots of troubles and painful suffering but that is entirely up to mankind themselves. So far they have not done that well but future may be much better for humanity if people learn from their mistakes.

No matter what people think of themselves they have no idea at all how to live in this world properly. The Quran solves their this problem by helping them in this respect ie it tells them which is the right way of life to live by in this world properly. The problem is, people need to work very, very hard indeed to live in this world properly otherwise they cannot fit in with this world at the speed it is moving on because it is dynamic or constantly changing world not static or standing still. To live in this world is hard enough for mankind as it is but some people are so stupid that they are busy putting obstacles in each other’s way to make things yet much worse for humanity. They do not realise the fact that the world in which they live is not standing still for anyone rather you need to be at the right place and at the right time or you miss the chance. This is why people need to help each other the best they can rather than hindering each other by causing problems for each other in various ways. The Quran tells mankind how God has set up this world to work so it is to advantage of mankind to learn how it works so that they could fit in with it. It also tells the purpose of God for such a setup so that things and people together could carry out his program for which he created everything including people. By remaining ignorant about creation and revelation of God people are only being their own worst enemies. This is why there is no place for lazy and crazy people in this world and nature delivers to such people what they deserve for remaining ignorant and stupid or being arrogant and stubborn therefore awkward. There is no escape for anyone in this world or the next as all people are strictly held accountable by God through his setup systems and structures as well as his set up procedures and practices. People are only given a limited period of time to think and act and to receive results of their thoughts and actions. Some time gaps between causes and effects are very, very short and others very, very long. Some gaps are so long that many people make the mistake of thinking they have escaped the accountability altogether but in actual fact they do not. People who do wrong to each other know what they have done and for reaction or response of that they worry all the time which in itself is a punishment for those crimes if we come to think of it.

Proclaim! In the name of God, the provider of psychological, sociological and biological needs of mankind,

1] Surely We started to send for enlightenment of mankind Our utmost valuable guidance as the criterion to judge their thoughts and actions by during the period of darkness of ignorance to help them become aware of value of enlightenment,

In the Quran God tells mankind, they were to go through three different stages of their development. During the first stage they were utterly on their own ie in the beginning there was a period of time when human beings only had their own brains, senses, bodies and things to interact with to learn senses by way of direct and indirect experiences. They were not given any revelation by God yet for their guidance because they had no sense to make proper sense of it. This is a time period during which humanity was in its beginning stage ie humanity was on its own in utter darkness of ignorance. Then after that when some people had learned enough sense of making proper sense of things they entered the second stage of learning sense of making proper sense of things so they were sent revelations by God through those who were most learned from among them. This period of time is called lailatulqadr because during this stage God started giving people his guidance. Once they reached the third stage of learning God stopped sending his messages to humanity and from then on humanity had to learn and do things all by itself. This stage is called by God al-fajr ie when whole of mankind will become fully enlightened. First stage was called al-jaahiliah period of time ie a period of time when people had no guidance from God as to how they should live in this world or why. This is why all people go through these three stages always ie they are born as babies knowing nothing at all and they keep growing both mentally and physically and reach the stage as far as they want or as far as they can. The target set by God is full enlightenment ie al-fajr. This is why each and every human being goes through stage one of his or her development and those who are a bit lucky get through stage two as well and yet luckier get to stage three as well.

2] And what will help you the mankind realise what difference Our revelation makes during period of darkness of ignorance as regard enlightenment of humanity?

Here God is helping people realise the difference a proper teaching makes to human learning and development. None can learn things as quickly on one’s own by way of one’s direct experience alone as one who is constantly and consistently taught things and one learns them enthusiastically.

3] The period of darkness of ignorance when Our utmost valuable revelation was made available for mankind proved better than their lifetime they spent in their ignorance.

If each and every human being only depended upon his or her own direct life experiences for learning things then this will have taken mankind ages to reach where they have reached so far. It is only because people have been learning from each other by sharing their own direct life experiences with each other that they are where they are in process of learning. This is despite their putting hurdles in each other’s way in order to prevent each other from learning and doing things. One can therefore imagine that had people helped each other fully to learn and do things then where they could have reached by now in their learning process? This is why revelations from God have been making a huge difference in teaching people sense always. They could do it even more had people supported each other fully in learning messages of God properly instead of hindering each other.

4] Missionaries came to mankind with the authority of revelation of their Creator and Sustainer where in was information about everything they needed to know and do to fulfil His assigned purpose.

Here God is telling us human beings that he had a purpose in creating things including human beings and that is why he has been sending his messages for humanity to learn and do things according to them so that the purpose for which God has created people and things could become fulfilled.

5] Establishment of way of life called deen of Islam by mankind as a proper human community in the kingdom of their Creator and Sustainer is a set goal for mankind from their Creator and Sustainer henceforth to accomplish, wherefore is revealed the guidance so that thereby becomes fulfilled his purpose of creating things including mankind and thus breaks the dawn of enlightenment for humanity through its proper understanding and implementation of his program.

God is making it clear here that people can learn things in different ways. Some ways of learning things can take much longer time for people to learn very little and others ways of learning can take them much shorter time to learn a lot of things. To learn through direct experience with things takes much longer but if people who have already learned things explain things to others then that cuts time very short for them. By teaching things through his revelations God has helped humanity become learned quicker. Teaching is simply pointing out things to people to draw their attention to things so that they learn things about them. This helps a lot because otherwise people will have no idea what to learn and why or what not to learn and why not. By teaching important things to people God is directing their attention to right things and that in itself saves people a lot of time in learning the right things. Not only that God also points out important aspect of things as well which people ought to learn and again that is a big time saver for mankind. All this is a purpose based or purposeful learning and anything other than that is simply put a time wasting exercise which mankind cannot afford or consequences for doing that are very serious indeed as explained in the Quran already. People who are given message by God either directly or through his messengers are God’s missionaries who are supposed to deliver his message to rest of humanity within their reach. They prove their authorisation on basis of the God revealed message itself. Here God is telling people his revealed message contains all that is necessary for mankind to know and act upon. This is why it is of vital importance for people to learn God sent message properly so that they could have a great life in this world while it lasts. Failing to do so will only leave mankind in terrible painful suffering for as long as they live because they will not know how to live in this world properly and as a result they will think and do all sorts of wrong things to each other and suffer the consequences for thinking and doing so.

This surah explains the vital importance of revelation in general but in case of the Quran in particular. As explained already mankind can only learn through life experience and teachings. The self experience based way of learning is a very, very slow and very, very painful process. This way of learning is an evolutionary process and because evolution is a very slow process people need to bring about an education based learning revolution to makes things happen quickly in this regard for betterment of humanity. This is how guidance from God can cut down the time, the effort and the needless painful suffering whereby one can learn what one will learn in a thousand years in matter of hours. The Quran wants to see mankind reach a stage of learning where at mankind could bring about a properly self organised and self regulated human community that is free of all kind of problems and happy with its existence. In short God wants to see mankind a highly learned people who make God proud for being their creator and sustainer. It is because mankind are masterpiece of creativity of their creator and sustainer. No matter what God is certain that mankind will fulfil the purpose for which he has created them be it sooner or later. The only thing that is missing is the specified time. So when people will complete their God set task is anyone’s guess but only God knows it for sure. All we humans can say is, if we all thought and did what we are told then task could complete quickly but if we will leave it for longer for whatever reasons then time will extend according to what we are thinking and doing in this regard.