Abbās.” It is also related from Ibn Abbās that it is the twenty-seventh night, and that he counted the surah word by word: the twenty-seventh word was “it,” and the remainder of the surah was “until the break of dawn.”

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The third view is that it does not fall on one particular night, but shifts from year to year. This was the view of Mālik—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—al-Shāfi‘ī, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and most scholars. It is the soundest view and the most likely to be correct, and Allah knows best, because it allows all the hadiths to be applied. Applying them all is preferable to applying some while discarding the rest, especially since they are all authentic, firmly established hadiths that no one can impugn.

Accordingly, the hadith of Abū Sa‘īd al-Khudrī is understood to concern that particular year, as is the hadith of Abd Allāh ibn Unays. The Prophet’s instruction, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, to seek it during the last ten nights of Ramadan likewise concerns that particular year, as indicated by the reports that it may fall during the middle ten nights. His instruction to seek it during the last seven nights also concerns that particular year, not every other year, since it may fall during the remaining nights of the last ten, as established by his authentic instruction to seek it during the last ten nights. It may also fall during the middle ten nights, as the reports concerning this likewise indicate.

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Taking all the reports on this subject into account, we say that, as the Night of Decree shifts from year to year, it generally falls within the middle ten nights or the last ten. Within the middle ten, it most often falls on the seventeenth or nineteenth night; within the last ten, it most often falls on an odd-numbered night. Whoever wishes to seek the Night of Decree should therefore seek it during the middle ten nights and the last ten. Whoever lacks the strength to do so should seek it on the odd-numbered nights of the last ten.

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Scholars differed over the Prophet’s words, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: “Seek it on the ninth, seventh, and fifth.” Some held that these nights are counted from the beginning of the ten, and that what is meant is the fifth, seventh, and ninth, since the conjunction “and” does not necessarily indicate sequence. Thus, the ninth is the twenty-ninth night, and the seventh is night seven-