Laylat al-Qadr and Its Place in Ramadan

Islamic tradition identifies the first revelation with Laylat al-Qadr, the Night of Power or Night of Decree, described in its own short chapter of the Quran as better than a thousand months, and situates that night within the last ten nights of Ramadan, though its exact date is not fixed and is traditionally sought rather than known. This identification is the reason the fasting month of Ramadan centers as much on the Quran's revelation as on the fast itself, with increased recitation and nightly prayer, particularly in the final third of the month, treated as ways of seeking the night's blessing.

The single event in the cave was, by Islamic tradition, the first of revelations that continued intermittently over the following twenty three years until shortly before Muhammad's death, so this entry describes the inaugural moment specifically and does not extend to the fuller history of the Quran's revelation as a whole, which belongs on the Quran's own entry. A three-year gap between this first revelation and the next is reported in some accounts, a period Islamic tradition calls the fatra, during which Muhammad is described as anxious that the contact had ceased, before further revelations resumed and continued at intervals for the rest of his life.