into four categories:
- Rejected: views that deny the Night altogether or claim that it has been withdrawn.
- Weak: such as saying it is the night of the fifteenth of Shaʿbān.
- Unsound: such as saying it falls in Ramadan but outside its last ten nights.
- Preponderant: that it lies in the last ten nights of Ramadan, with the odd nights more hopeful still, and the strongest of those odds being the twenty-seventh night.
The following proofs uphold this position:
First: Imam Aḥmad recorded (4577) from Ibn ʿUmar that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Whoever is seeking it out should look for it on the twenty-seventh night,” and the report has supporting chains.
Second: ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb—the inspired statesman—Hudhayfah ibn al-Yamān—the Prophet’s confidant—and other Companions harbored no doubt that it is the twenty-seventh night.
Third: Muslim transmitted (1999) from the chief of the reciters, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, that he would swear it is the twenty-seventh night.
Fourth: Affirming the twenty-seventh night was the view deliberately chosen by the Imam of Ahl al-Sunnah, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and by his fellow scholar-hadith jurists such as Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh.
Fifth: Ibn Rajab said: Among the evidence cited by those who prefer the twenty-seventh are the signs and portents that have been observed on it, both in earlier times and more recently.
Sixth: There is the broad, enduring conviction among Muslims across the globe, through many centuries, that this is the night, as seen in their fervor for worship and striving on it; and the community of Muhammad ﷺ does not agree upon misguidance.
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