[Sūrah xxxvii. 109]: “Peace be on Abraham.”
[Sūrah xxxvii. 120]: “Peace be on Moses and Aaron.”
[Sūrah xxxvii. 130]: “Peace be on Elias.”
[Sūrah xxxvii. 181]: “Peace be on His apostles.”
[Sūrah xcvii. 5]: “It is peace until the breaking of the morn.”
These verses are recited by the religious Muslim during sickness, or in seasons of danger or distress. In some parts of Islām it is customary to write these seven verses of the Qurʾān on paper and then to wash off the ink and drink it as a charm against evil.
SHAʿBĀN (شعبان). Lit. “The month of separation.” The eighth month of the Muḥammadan year. So-called because the Arabs used to separate themselves in search of water during this month.
SHAB-I-BARĀT (شب برات). The Persian title for the fifteenth day of the month Shaʿbān, which is called in Arabic Lailatu ʾn-niṣf min Shaʿbān, or “the night of the middle of Shaʿbān.”
On this night, Muḥammad said, God registers annually all the actions of mankind which they are to perform during the year; and that all the children of men, who are to be born and to die in the year, are recorded. Muḥammad, it is said, enjoined his followers to keep awake the whole night, to repeat one hundred rakʿah prayers, and to fast the next day; but there are generally great rejoicings instead of a fast, and large sums of money are spent in fireworks. It is the “Guy Fawkes Day” of India, being the night for display of fireworks.
The Shab-i-Barāt is said to be referred to in the XLIVth Sūrah of the Qurʾān, verse 2, as “the night on which all things are disposed in wisdom,” although the commentators are not agreed as to whether the verse alludes to this night or the Shab-i-Qadr, on the 27th of the month of Ramaẓān.