It is quite possible that there may have been various...

It is quite possible that there may have been various revelations of the Qur'an and numerous Shi'ah and Sunni narrations confirm this possibility. One of those revelations is the gradual revelation of the Qur'an to the Prophet and the other is its revelation in installments from the Lauhul Mehfuz [^1] to Baytul Ma'mu'r.

^2 Hence there should be nothing wrong in a few verses of Surah al-Alaq being revealed to the Holy Prophet on the 27th of Rajab and the entire Qur'an, in one compact form, being revealed in the month of Ramadan from a place named by the Qur'an as 'Lauhul Mehfuz' to another place 'Baytul Ma'mur.' This view is confirmed by the very verse of Surah al-Dukhan which says: We swear by the glorious Book that We revealed the Qur'an on a blessed night.

It is evident from this verse (on the strength of the pronoun which turns towards the word 'Book') that it was revealed in its entirety during the Glorious Night (falling in the month of Ramadan), and it is only proper that this revelation should be other than the revelation which took place at the time of the appointment of the Prophet to the prophetic mission, because at that time only a few verses were revealed.

In short the verses which indicate that the Qur'an was revealed in the month of Ramadan during the 'Night of Glory' cannot be a proof of the fact that the day of the Holy Prophet's appointment to the prophetic mission, on which only a few verses were revealed, also coincided in the same month, because the aforesaid verses show that the entire Book (the Qur'an) was revealed in that month, whereas, on the day of the Holy Prophet's appointment to the prophetic mission only five or six verses were revealed.

Hence, the two schools, while explaining the meanings of the above-mentioned verses in their narrations, say that the entire Qur'an was sent down from the 'Lahhul Mehfuz' to 'Baytul Ma'mur in that very month. The Shi'ah and Sunni scholars have quoted the said narrations and in particular Professor Muhammad Abdul Azim Zarqani of 'Al-Azhar' university has mentioned them in his book in detail.[^3] The Second Reply The most sound reply, which has so far been given by the scholars, is the second one.