‘Fatihat al-Kitab’

(Consists of 7 Verses including Bismi-Llah)

(Revealed both at Mecca and also at Madina. Hence Makki and also Madani)

‘Al-Fatiha’ (Opening) - Summary

God alone is the Lord Cherisher of the whole Universe. All Praise is due only to Him. He alone is the Master of the Day of Judgment or Reckoning. Worship is due only to God and to none else. Help to be sought only from Him for He alone can help. To pray always to be guided on the straight or the Right Path. To love always the righteous and always be with them. To hate the wicked and always be away from them.

Surah al-Fatiha (The Opening)

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

“In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful” (1:1).

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

“(all) praise is (only) God’s, the of the worlds” (1:2).

الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

“The Beneficent, The Merciful” (1:3).

مَالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّينِ

“Master of the Day of Judgement” (1:4).

إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ

“Thee (alone) worship we and of Thee (only) we seek help” (1:5).

اهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيمَ

“Guide us (O’ Lord) on the right path” (1:6).

صِرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ غَيْرِ الْمَغْضُوبِ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا الضَّالِّينَ

“The path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed Thy bounties, not (the path) of those inflicted with Thy wrath, nor (of those) gone astray” (1:7).

This Surah contains the Quintessence of Qur’an. Hence it is also called the ‘Umm al-Qur’an’ i.e. the Mother (or the Essence) of the Holy Qur’an. As no prayer can be complete without reciting this Surah, it can be called the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ of the Muslims.

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

In the name of God the Beneficent, the Merciful

We praise Him (God), and we invoke blessings (of God) on His Apostle (Muhammad) and his (godly) descendants the Ahl Al-Bayt Holy and Purified.

Fatihat al-Kitab - The Opening Revealed both al Mecca and also at Madina hence Makki and also Madani and is called ‘Sabe Mathani,’ i.e. The Seven Oft-repeated ones (Consists of 7 verses including Bismi-Llah).

A Brief Note

Every verse of this Surah is so comprehensive in its meaning that it is said that the meaning of the Holy Qur’an as a whole has been synthesised in this Surah.

About the knowledge needed for man on earth, which has been accommodated in the Holy Qur’an, the announcement from the Lord is:

وَلَا رَطْبٍ وَلَا يَابِسٍ إِلَّا فِي كِتَابٍ مُبِي

“There is nothing wet or dry which is not [accommodated] in [this] Open Book [the Holy Qur’an]” (6:59).

This Surah is the quintessence of the whole of the Qur’an. Before attempting to explain the Qur’an as a whole, with the satisfaction of having done justice to the venture, one must remember what is said in the following verses of the Holy Book:

هُوَ الَّذِي أَنْزَلَ عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ مِنْهُ آيَاتٌ مُحْكَمَاتٌ هُنَّ أُمُّ الْكِتَابِ وَأُخَرُ مُتَشَابِهَاتٌ فَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ زَيْغٌ فَيَتَّبِعُونَ مَا تَشَابَهَ مِنْهُ ابْتِغَاءَ الْفِتْنَةِ وَابْتِغَاءَ تَأْوِيلِهِ وَمَا يَعْلَمُ تَأْوِيلَهُ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَالرَّاسِخُونَ فِي الْعِلْمِ يَقُولُونَ آمَنَّا بِهِ كُلٌّ مِنْ عِنْدِ رَبِّنَا وَمَا يَذَّكَّرُ إِلَّا أُولُو الْأَلْبَابِ

“He (God) is it Who has revealed the Book (Qur’an) to you; some of its verses are decisive, they are the essence of the Book and others are ambiguous; so as for those in whose hearts is perversity, they follow the part of it which is ambiguous, seeking to mislead (people) and seeking to give it (their own) interpretation, but none knows its interpretation save God and those who are firmly established in knowledge” (3:7).

بَلْ هُوَ آيَاتٌ بَيِّنَاتٌ فِي صُدُورِ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْعِلْمَ

“Nay these are verses (of the Qur’an) in the breast of those who are gifted with knowledge” (29:49).

As to those divinely endowed with the knowledge of everything, let the reader read the following verse:

وَكُلَّ شَيْءٍ أَحْصَيْنَاهُ فِي إِمَامٍ مُبِينٍ

“Everything have been accommodated in the manifest Imam (Guide)” (36:12).

Thus, under the above divine, declarations, man is definitely directed to have the knowledge of the Qur’an from the Holy Prophet and in his absence from the divinely commissioned deputies of his, called the Imams of his Holy House (the Ahl Al-Bayt).

The similitude of the Holy Prophet and the Book of God (the Holy Qur’an) is that of a doctor and the medicine chest, and the followers of the Holy Prophet (the Muslims) are comparable to the patients of the doctor. As the patients receive whatever the doctor dispenses with, and act upon the directions given by the doctor with all the care and strictness in the use of the drugs, so also the followers of the Prophet (the Muslims), have to receive whatever the Holy Prophet offers and act upon the guidance given to them, with implicit obedience and faith, and the same thing has been enjoined in the following verse:

وَمَا آتَاكُمُ الرَّسُولُ فَخُذُوهُ وَمَا نَهَاكُمْ عَنْهُ فَانْتَهُوا

“And whatever the Prophet giveth you, accept it and from whatever he forbideth you, keep ye away from it” (59:7).

فَلَا وَرَبِّكَ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ حَتَّىٰ يُحَكِّمُوكَ فِيمَا شَجَرَ بَيْنَهُمْ ثُمَّ لَا يَجِدُوا فِي أَنْفُسِهِمْ حَرَجًا مِمَّا قَضَيْتَ وَيُسَلِّمُوا تَسْلِيمًا

“But nay! by thy Lord! They believe not (in fact) until they make thee a judge in whatever they dispute about among themselves and then find not straitness in their hearts as to that thou decideth and submit (themselves) (to it) with perfect submission” (4:65).

Therefore, none can at any time have the right or the choice of using his own will, desire, or discretion against the declared guidance or the given orders of the Holy Prophet.

Surah al-Fatiha being the essence of the Qur’an, covers in its meaning the entire field of the fundamentals of the religious knowledge which mankind naturally needs to possess and practice. The importance of this Surah is quite evident from its being repeatedly revealed, once at Mecca and again at Madina, and its compulsory use in every prayer, and no prayer being perfect without it.

The excellence of the artistic arrangement of the verses in the order of ‘Luff Nashr Murattab’ of the highest poetic order, using not only the sounds of the words but containing in it the glory of the inimitable beauty and the unfathomable depth or the extent of the meaning of each word employed in it, has been proved enchanting even to the enemies of Islam.

The spirit or the essence or the only object of Islam is to awaken the conscience in man with the correct belief and faith in the One and Only True Creator Lord of the universe, make him subservient to the Divine Will in his life on earth and thus, enable him to rise from his earthly abode to the glorious heights of the heavenly bliss. Any intelligent reader of the Surah al-Fatiha can easily conceive the wonderful effect the passage creates on the mind of the one who repeats it several times in each of the several daily prayers, if it is done with the necessary concentration on the matter.

Through this one single Surah man is educated with the essential knowledge of the basic fundamentals of his life in this world and the life hereafter. By reciting it repeatedly with concentration on the matter, man gets conditioned with sublimity and gradually becomes godly in his life on earth. And when his personality gets duly integrated with the divine attributes of God, divinity gets reflected from his conduct and character. Through this Surah man is educated with the following factors:

1. The Creator and the Nourisher Lord of the universe is One, and only One, and besides Him there is none even equal to Him.

2. The Pre - eminent attributes of God are Beneficence and Mercy.

3. The one who is Merciful must necessarily be the Almighty Master of His own Independent Will, rather Himself be the Will - Supreme.

4. The one who is Merciful to one and all, can never be unjust or cruel. He will Himself be the force of Justice Absolute.

5. The one Merciful to every life must essentially be the Ever - Living Creator of life, Himself being the Life Real.

6. The One who creates life can never do it without knowledge; He must be the All-Knowing, Knowledge and Wisdom being His essence.

7. The one who is Beneficent and Merciful must naturally and essentially love one and all.

8. When one loves one and all, the love of one and all. will also naturally revert only to Him and to none else.

9. The One who loves all, and is essentially Beneficent and Merciful to everyone, He and none else will respond to prayer, and prayer if it is to be heard, should be only to Him and to none else, for it will be in vain and effectless.

10. When God is the Only Lord of Beneficence and Mercy, i.e. when His Mercy envelops everything in the universe, He and none else will be bountiful and His bounties will be unlimited.

11. When the Beneficent and the Most Merciful One is also the Only Lord of the universe, all praise, all thanks, and all gratitude will only be His and exclusively His, and of none else.

12. Man is assured that God is the Lord - Nourisher, Cherisher, Sustainer and Protector of not any particular tribe, community, or nation but of the worlds i.e. the universe as a whole.

13. When there is only One Lord of the universe and besides Him there is no one else, man with his faith in the one True God, is once for all liberated from the worry of his allegiance to the host of imaginary deities. In other words, man is liberated from the curses of polytheistic belief and its meaningless and wasteful practices.

14. When it is established that God is the Lord of Mercy and the Lord Supreme of the universe as a whole, it naturally suggests that He would never like or allow or tolerate the least cruelty done by anyone of His own creation, to the other members of it. With this conviction man gets conditioned with the feeling of his fellowship with the other creatures of God and thus, naturally becomes kind, merciful and charitable to his other fellow beings, to earn the favour of God by practising His divine attributes. This condition of his mind becomes the generative force for every kind of righteousness, and he remains ever mindful to avoid the least possible displeasure to His Beneficent, All-Merciful and All-Just Lord, as well as to qualify himself in fairness to his own goodness, to be goodly recompensed.

15. Having invoked the Beneficence and the Mercy of the Lord - Nourisher, Cherisher, Sustainer and the Protector of everyone in the universe and having paid the sincerest allegiance to Him, man need not and should not bow before anyone else and shall no longer fear anyone but the displeasure of his True Lord, and need not stretch his hand for anybody else’s favour. Thus, man becomes independent of everyone else besides God, with his faith and conviction in the help and protection from Him.

16. That there is surely a day of Requital when justice in its fullness will be meted out, when none shall bear the burden of the other, when every atom of good shall be rewarded and every atom of evil shall be punished. Everyone is assured of the return for his good and evil. The conviction in this, makes a man work to have a desirable recompense from the All-Just Lord of the Awful Day.

    So that any unintentional sinner may not be dejected against the divine justice, the All-Merciful Lord has kept the door of pardon to the sincerely repentant ones in this life, to give a chance to the sinners to be hopeful of the pardon and amend their conduct and character for future.

17. True guidance can be had only from God. Hence man should always be prayerful to be guided aright or to be kept firm on the Right Path without being beguiled and tempted by the forces of evil, which are ever active in this world.

18. With the knowledge of the effective nature of environment and personal attachment, man while praying for guidance from the Lord, should also express his love for virtue and the virtuous ones and this is called the doctrine of ‘Tawalla’ which is prescribed by Islam as a compulsory article of the practice of the faith.

19. And while praying to the Lord to keep him away from evil, man has also to declare his hatred against evil and the evil ones and this is called the doctrine of ‘Tabarra’ which is prescribed by Islam as one of the compulsory articles of its practice.

The one unique property which is the exclusive characteristic of this passage of the Qur’an is the grace endowed in the matter, and the comprehensive nature of the prayer which entitles the praying soul, not only for any particular kind of bounty or favour of the Lord but everything the All-Merciful Lord - Nourisher of the universe, Who is the Lord of all bounties and of Infinite Grace, can bestow upon His supplicant devotee.

Unlike the prayer taught by the Christian Church, the Quranic prayer taught by Islam:

1. Does not address God as mere father who cannot by nature have the motherly love for his issues.

2. Calling God and addressing Him as father, cultivates the idea of the creation having been issued out of Him. Whereas the Islamic conception of God is that nothing can be subtracted from His Being, and also nothing can be added to Him.

A glance over the wording used as their Lord’s Prayer by our Christian brethren supplied to them by their Bible, helps us to assess the composite nature and the comparative merit or glory of the wording of the prayer that the Qur’an gives to the Muslims:

The Biblical Prayer

The Biblical ‘Lord’s Prayer’ of our Christian brethren. Math. 6th Chap. Verse	The reasonable questions that arise out of the matter
Our Father which art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy name.	Has God only the fatherly love without the motherly attachment? Is God only in Heaven and not on earth?
Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.	Is earth now out of God’s Kingdom i.e. out of His hold or authority? If it is not God’s authority that prevails on the earth, who is then the present owner and ruler of the earth? If it is not God’s will that is always fulfilled on the earth and elsewhere in the universe, whose will is it that is being done on the earth now?
Give us this day our daily bread.	Is bread the all that man needs for his life in this world? What about clothes and the other amenities, essential for man’s stay on earth? Is there anyone else besides God to provide man with what he needs? If man has to ask the Lord only for bread for the day, is it that man does not need God’s help for the future?
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.	Can the one or two petty debts of no real worth or significance at all, which might be due to us from others, be ever compared to the innumerable and invaluable bounties we continuously receive from God? Can the worthless and insignificant debts of ours imaginably be worthy to ransom against our indebtedness to the infinite benevolence of the All-Merciful Almighty Lord?
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.	It is Satan who leads man to temptation ana it is God Who can and Who does protect man against it. Does God also lead his creatures to sin? Then who is Satan and what is his quality and work? The very second article of this prayer says, ‘Thy Kingdom come’ and now in this article it is asserted saying ‘Thine is the Kingdom, the power the glory for ever,’ is it not a self-contradicting statement?

The fact is that any prayer composed by man for his use will naturally be imperfect, and even defective having in it the aspects of the acknowledged limitations of the human knowledge about God, and the conceptive limitation, to fully comprehend the incomprehensible infinite divine attributes. Man, when he asks for himself without any guidance from God to do it, will naturally ask for his own immediate demand in this material life in his earthly abode, and this has been proved true in the wording of the above prayer.

Besides the prayers formulated by man in the days when he was yet to be educated with the fundamental knowledge in its fullness, about his individual self and the Universal One, about the vanity of this life and the reality of the Hereafter, can never be expected to be perfect, neither in wording nor in the concept. When progressive awakening dawned on man with the advent of Muhammad, the Last Apostle of God, the Final Warner, the Final Reformer and the Final Bearer of the glad tidings to man about the everlasting blissful life in store for him, the infinite mercy of the All-Merciful Lord revealed for man through His Final Word the Qur’an, the appropriate words and the proper method he should use to invoke the Divine Mercy for him and the things he needs to ask for his life here and hereafter.

Any impartial and intelligent observer can easily note that while the other religions invite mankind to separate Father-gods, Mother-gods, Son-gods, Daughter-gods, besides the other demon-gods of land and sea, some residing in heaven, some on earth and some inside it, some living on certain mountains, some taking the forms of rivers and huge trees and plants, some gods good in nature and some troublesome and wicked, some of them ever in conflict and quarrel with each other, the awesome ones among such imaginary deities demanding the offer of human blood for their food or to appease their fury-gods of seasons and the gods of diseases demanding wasteful sacrifices and meaningless rituals, Islam introduces mankind to the One, the Only True, All-Supreme, Absolute Being Who is the All-Merciful, the Eternal, the All-Knowing, the Almighty, the All-Wise Independent Master of His Ever - Fulfilling Will.

In short, Islam educates man with the fact that all goodness put together is the essence of the Only True God Lord Creator of Universe Who is the only Nourisher, Cherisher, Sustainer and Protector of everything in the universe as a whole. He is not the one Whose Kingdom is to be awaited as that of the god of the Christian Church, whose kingdom to come, needs the blessings of the prayers from man every day and night. Islam invites mankind with the imperative assertion that the kingdom of the heavens and the earth is exclusively God’s and of none else.

The Will or the Authority which is ever active in the heavens and the earth, is only of God, the Only True God Lord of the heavens and the earth and everything in between them, and of none else besides Him.

Man, with his conviction in the above divine attributes of the Lord, and with the fullest possible consciousness of the bounties and the favours he enjoys, should always be acknowledging his indebtedness and gratitude to Him.

For his needs in this world and the next, man has only to invoke the mercy of God for His guidance on the right path, which prayer comprehends everything right and good which man needs for his life here and hereafter.

The concluding words of this Surah give out the secret of the success of human life on earth, that is to be always good and to remain with the good ones, and to shun evil and be away from the evil ones.

Detailed Summary - Al-Fatiha Or The Opening

This Surah or Chapter i.e. Fatiha, contains the fundamentals of the faith ‘Islam’. Hence it is also called ‘Umm Al-Qur’an’ i.e. the Mother or the Essence of Qur’an.

As no prayer (i.e. the prescribed ‘Salat’) (in Persian or Urdu called Namaz) cannot be complete without reciting this Surah, it can be called the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ of the Muslims.

This Chapter guides towards the following important factors governing one’s individual belief:

1. To begin every work in God’s Holy name.

2. That God is Rahman, the Beneficent and Rahim, the Merciful.

These two attributes of God the Creator Lord of the Universe are first presented to man to make him know that his Master, is in the first place and by Himself the Beneficent and also the Merciful, which two qualities automatically draw man near to his real Master and to love Him. Man runs away from objects dreadful, and when he yields to such objects, he is compelled by his belief that he can appease them by his service, to escape the imaginary affliction or hurt from them. Man, by nature, loves one who benefits him and who would be merciful to him against his shortcomings. The yielding of man to a beneficent and merciful being will undoubtedly be out of love rather than the caution to be safe from risks of any tyrannical afflictions, against which he is assured of safety by the Being’s qualities of Beneficence and Mercy.

The several other religions and creeds in the world have tried their best to bring down God to man to reform man and to make him God-minded. But Islam offers guidance to man to rise unto God and get nearer and as nearer to Him as his individual efforts, strengthened by his personal sincerity, can take him.

Qur’an starts with educating man with the truth that his Lord is the most Lovable One Whose primary quality is Beneficence and Mercy. Rahman and Rahim are two different words depicting the two subtle different aspects of the main quality ‘Rahm’ i.e. Mercy.

Islam teaches man to start every good effort with the Holy name of God Who is Beneficent and Merciful, invoking His Mercy to bless his efforts with the success he aims at.

The goal of Islam is to make man god minded. Islam wants man to believe, (and to act upon it faithfully, that he is nothing, can do nothing and can achieve nothing by himself, for himself or for anybody else, and there is none other besides the One Who alone exists and Who alone can cause anything to be or not to be. If man achieves the conviction that it is God’s Will that is done, and only He and none else can get realized anything and there is none who can resist His Will, that will be his greatest achievement, attainment, and success.

Hence it is said that the Chapter ‘Fatiha’ is the quintessence of the Qur’an, and the letter ‘Ba’ of ‘Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim’ is the quintessence of ‘Bismi-Llah’, the dot below the first letter ‘Ba’ which identifies the letter from the other letters of the language, is the quintessence of the first letter ‘Ba’ and Ali, son of Abu Talib, the First of the Holy Imams is said to have said “I am the dot which is below the ‘Ba’ of ‘Bismi-Llah’ “ which means that in Ali has been secured the whole of the Holy Book and the fullest expansion of it i.e., Ali has been endowed with the knowledge of the Qur’an with its external meaning and internal interpretation. The statement of Ali is testified by the famous, well-known and universally accepted declaration (Hadith) of the Holy Prophet:

‘Ana - Madinat al-Ilm wa Ali yun Babuha’

‘I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate.’

It is one of the unique features and distinguishing factors about the originality of Islam against the corruption and adulteration ruling over the other creeds that this term ‘Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim’ was never before used or known to any of the other creeds of the world. Rodwell, wrongly informed, states that Bismi-Llah in its Qur’anic form, was taught to the Quraish for the first time by the poet Omyya (of Taif). This claim of Rodwell is thrown out by the unimpeachable evidence of historic authenticity that the term was totally unknown to the Quraish to such an extent that they even resented the use of it1.

Besides, even till late as in the 6th year of Hijra, the Quraish did not allow the term ‘Bismi-Llah’ as used in the Qur’an, to be used in the treaty drawn between the Muslims and the Meccans at Hodaibiyah. At the use of the term ‘Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim’ Sohail bin Amru, the Deputy of the Quraish, objected saying that he did not know what it meant. Ultimately the term used was ‘Bismika - Allahumma’, which was then current among the Quraish. There is nothing in the usage by the people of any other creed to show that this term was borrowed by the Holy Prophet. Besides, Islam does not claim to be a new religion preached for the first time to mankind. Islam’s claim is that the Truth was revealed to one and all of the human race in various stages in the respective languages of the different people; the difference is in language and the presentation of the Truth in its fullness in all its details:

وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِنْ رَسُولٍ إِلَّا بِلِسَانِ قَوْمِهِ

“We sent not a prophet save with the language of the people” (14:4).

The merit anti the beauty of a religion lies in its perfection, in its contents and the comprehension of its presentation and Qur’an in this regard is singularly unique. The various different creeds of the world might have been using some term or the other but the clarity and perfection with which the Qur’anic term Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim brings home to one, that God, the Lord of the Universe is not an awful, dreadful, cruel being, void of love and compassion, but His prime attributes are His boundless love and all - enveloping mercy which invites, attracts, encourages and even forces every sensible human being to rush to Him for the fulfilment of his demands and for succour in his helplessness.

The very act of anyone starting his work in the name of God Whom he believes as the Beneficent and the Merciful, eloquently speaks of the individual’s obedience to the Great Being, who in return would naturally be reciprocal to the devotee’s expectation in seeking His pleasure and mercy. In this one act of starting a work in the name of God. several points of cardinal importance are realized viz:

1. The individual’s acknowledging of the Great Being as his Lord Master.

2. The individual’s acknowledging his own helplessness.

3. The individual’s believing in God as the Ever - Living, Omnipotent and All-Knowing.

4. The individual’s supplication to the Great Being, seeking His pleasure, mercy, calling Him with His mercy invoking attributes.

5. The individual’s conviction at heart and his confidence that if called, the Beneficent and the Merciful God will certainly not deny him His Mercy.

Bismi-Llah’

The words of ‘Bismi-Llah’ i.e. in the name of God, have wide and comprehending implications. The words may mean not only ‘in the name of’ but also:

1. For the sake of

2. To the service of

These and the many other implications will go only to invoke the Mercy of God for the supplicant who so sincerely resorts to Him to be blessed.

It is our common experience that when a mother beats her child, while punishing him to correct his conduct, the child even while being beaten, rushes towards the bosom of his mother. Why? Is it not because the young human soul is sure, and in his own heart is convinced of his mother’s love and her being full of mercy for him and there is none else better than her in giving him the required protection even against her own self being offended with him.

It is also seen many a time that when a child in a family is threatened by the parents enraged at any of his offences, he seeks protection with those of the members of the family who, he knows, love him, and would surely give him the required protection. This same phenomenon works with the maximum force in it. according to the pressure of the need of a human individual for help in his daily life.

Who is there in the human race totally exempted from needs? The needs of one are only greater than the other. It is the inseparable natural need and the native helplessness of human beings that makes them resort to believing in some Supreme Protector. Islam, employing the native urge in man to attach himself to some supreme protecting providence at the very outset of its efforts to guide mankind, has assured mankind in the very first step towards the desired reformation, of the unbounded love and all - enveloping mercy as the prime attributes of God, the Lord of the universe.

Here, mere common sense in the ordinary man, convinces him of God’s love and Mercy saying, “What! when an ordinary man knows that his friend depending upon him and totally relying on him for help does not disappoint him, will not the Divine Beneficence and Mercy be moved to respond to grant the prayer of the crying devotee?’ Islam, at the very outset, creates in man love and attachment for God and dependence upon the Divine Mercy and conviction of the surety of the achievement by invoking the prime attributes of Beneficence and Mercy of the Lord.

It is reported that once the Holy Prophet, while passing a graveyard hastened his companions from the place and on his return while passing through the same graveyard directed his companions to walk slowly. The companions enquired, “O’ Prophet of God! while passing this very same place a little while ago, you wanted us to make haste from this place and now you ask us to walk slowly” The Holy Prophet answered, “There is a being in one of the graves here who on account of his wickedness was being chastised and I being one of God’s apostles called the ‘Rahmatun lil-‘Alamin’ (i.e. the Mercy unto the worlds’) found it unbecoming of me to stay at a place where one of God’s creatures was being tormented. But the same sufferer has left a child in this world and the child has been taken to a scholar to start his education. The master first made the innocent, utter Bismillah, Al-Rahman, Al-Rahim. The All-Merciful God commanded the angels chastising the soul of the wicked one in the grave, to immediately withhold the chastisement saying, “It is not becoming of My Mercy to chastise the parent whose issue calls Me the Merciful One”

The divinely chosen members of the family of the Holy Prophet and all the scholars attached to the ‘Holy Ahl Al-Bayt’ are unanimous in their statement that ‘Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim’ is a separate individual verse by itself and is undoubtedly a part of Chapter I (i.e. Surah al-Fatiha) and hence the Surah al-Fatiha must be recited with Bismi-Llah, and any prayer (Salat or Namaz) offered reciting the Surah al-Fatiha without Bismi-Llah, the prayer being defective will be null and void.

Bismi-Llah: Bismi-Llah is a part of this chapter and also of every other chapter of the Qur’an except Surah al-Bar’at. This is the view’ of the school of Holy Ahl Al-Bayt and is supported by the most authentic sayings of the Holy Prophet, narrated by the other schools also: “La Salat illa bi Fatihat al-Kitab, wa Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim Min Ayatiha” i.e. There can be no prayer but with the Surah al-Fatiha and Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim as one of its verses. It is surprising that some of the founders of the other schools used their own views against this well-known tradition of the Holy Prophet, to drop away Bismi-Llah when the Surah al-Fatiha is recited in prayers. (A.P.)

The details about the doubts against the original and actual position of the verse Bismi-Llah, created by other schools need not be accommodated here for they are all personal conjectures against the doubtless evidence which establishes Bismi-Llah as a separate verse of the Qur’an and a part of the Surah al-Fatiha. Abu - Hanifa the leader of the Hanafi School of Sunnism, though he did not hold Bismi-Llah as a part of the Fatiha yet had permitted the recitation of Bismi-Llah along with the Surah al-Fatiha while using it in any prayer; but not aloud, for he says that it had been established that the Holy Prophet always recited the Surah al-Fatiha with Bismi-Llah, while he used the Surah in any prayer2. This decision of Abu Hanifa is sufficient proof that he could not openly refute the unimpeachable evidence establishing the position of Bismi-Llah as a separate verse.

However, to be brief within the limits of necessity, it will definitely be sufficient to convince anyone if anything is proved with the authority of the Holy Prophet and the divinely chosen members of the Holy Prophet’s family to whom the Prophet bequeathed the Qur’an while departing from our midst. It is a tragedy that people forget that the Holy Prophet left the Qur’an along with the Ahl Al-Bayt for its correct and authentic interpretation.

إني تارك فيكم الثقلين كتاب الله وعترتي أهل بيتي فإنهما لن يفترقا حتى يردا علي الحوض.

‘Verily, I leave behind (me), amidst you, the Two Weighty (important) things, the Book of God (the Qur’an) and my Itrat, Ahl Al-Bayt. If ye hold fast to these Two, never will ye get astray’, never will these Two be separated from each other, until they both return unto me at the Cistern (of’ Kawthar’)’3

It is a declared fact that the Surah al-Fatiha consist of seven verses and the verses, including Bismi-Llah are seven. But just to hold their own misconceived notion, some scholars omit Bismi-Llah and make up the number seven by splitting the last verse of the Surah into two separate verses though the meaning and the construction of the verse does not warrant it.

The Recitation of Bismi-Llah before the Surah is compulsory. Even dissenters including Abu - Hanifa acknowledge that the Holy Prophet always recited the Surah starting it with Bismi-Llah4.

The Holy Prophet has declared that any work started without Bismi-Llah is bad and incomplete. The best work of man is prayer (Salat or Namaz) which is called ‘Khair al-Amal’. the Best Work) and the Prophet had always recited Bismi-Llah in every prayer.

Once in Madina, Mu’awiyah led the prayers and while reciting the Surah al-Fatiha gave up Bismi-Llah. At the end of the prayer a hue and cry arose from all those who had participated in the prayer and shouted at Mu’awiyah saying:

“What! You forgot reciting Bismi-Llah before Fatiha”

Mu’awiyah repeated the prayer reciting Fatiha following Bismi-Llah. It is clearly established that the people prior to these later innovations, those who had seen and heard the Holy Prophet, were unanimous about Bismi-Llah being an inseparable part of Fatiha, and they knew that Fatiha recited in any prayer without Bismi-Llah rendered the prayer null and void5.

Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim at one place forms a part of another Chapter of the Qur’an, used in the course of it used as the starting passage of the letter which Solomon sent to the Queen of Sheba. In the Surah al-Fatiha it has been used as the starting part of the Surah. When the Surah al-Fatiha has to be compulsorily used in every prayer there cannot be any meaning in reciting the compulsory Surah of a prayer excluding some part of its text and mere common sense is sufficient to say that any defective or incomplete prayer can never be acceptable. Hence the prayer in which Fatiha is recited without Bismi-Llah leading the Surah is null and void.

Once when the Holy Prophet was in the Mosque at Madina, a man came and offered prayers reciting Fatiha immediately following ‘‘A’udhu bi-Llah’ omitting Bismi-Llah. The Holy Prophet called him and said, “O man! You have rendered your prayer null and void by omitting Bismi-Llah from Fatiha. Do you not know that Bismi-Llah is a part of the Surah al-Fatiha”6. One’s common sense tells him that doubts created by a number of the followers of the Prophet need not at all be considered in the light of clear decisions and the evidence of the practical life of the Leader himself (i.e. the Holy Prophet). Whatever be the argument of the dissenting scholars, it has been unanimously established that the Holy Prophet always recited the Fatiha as it is in the Qur’an today and we all should, therefore, follow the Holy Prophet.

There is irrevocable evidence establishing Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim as a part of the Surah al-Fatiha, anyone who sincerely desires to follow the Holy Prophet need not at all worry about the straying of any dissenters.

The actual meaning of Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim being ‘I begin in the name of God, the Beneficent and the Merciful’ has a significance in its effect. Firstly, it means the supplication of one who thus, starts any good work. It means that the supplicant does the work in the name of or on behalf of God, and not for himself though his personal interest in the work exists but it is with the intention to serve the goodness in the work. Such an action on the part of the individual also means that he has dedicated his life and his interest therein to God. centring his own selfish interest also in service to goodness. It also implies the individual’s belief in the truth that all strength to do any work whatsoever, lies only with God and with none else and he believes himself to be helpless. By invoking the Divine pleasure in calling to God in the name of His Beneficence and Mercy, the individual is praying to the All-Merciful to come to his aid in completing his undertaking successfully.

It appeals to common sense that when the individual starts a good work to serve goodness in the name or on behalf of the Lord of Might and calls Him to his aid, invoking His Beneficence and Mercy, it is quite natural that the Divine Beneficence and Mercy would rush to bless such a faithful one who starts the work expressing his own helplessness and crying for aid to achieve success. Should the individual start the work without Bismi-Llah, the reverse argument will hold good i.e., the work may be completed but with the Divine pleasure having nothing to do with it. It is an undoubted fact that nothing can ever have effect or ever exist unless God wills it. Anything merely happening or existing will suggest the Divine Will but not the Divine Grace and the Divine Pleasure.

The Divine Will does not interfere with the individual desires of any being but the question of anything being acceptable to the Lord or earning His Pleasure, depends upon the individual’s desire being itself, depending upon the Divine Will and surrendering itself to the Divine Pleasure. The Holy Prophet has made it known to mankind that anything done without invoking the Divine Grace by the recitation of Bismi-Llah at its start, is not complete enough to earn the approval of the Lord.

Otherwise, it does not mean that nothing without the recitation of Bismi-Llah can ever be done by anyone on earth. There is the world history before us that evils planned by the worst of men have been executed but they were works without the Divine approval. Hence those who planned the work were allowed by the Divine Will to execute it, not to earn the Divine Pleasure but to entitle themselves to chastisement according to the degree of the evil, the intention of the individual and the nature and the effect the work contained. Thus, if any work is not started with Bismi-Llah, it has the negative force also in it. The work, even if it is not evil in its nature, will at least invoke the Divine Authority to chastise the individual for his being self-centred and forgetting the Lord of Strength and Grace through Whose help alone anything could ever be done. Avoiding to invoke the Divine Grace in starting any work undoubtedly implies the individual’s belief in his own individuality and relying upon it which is nothing but the individual’s setting himself against the One and Only Supreme Might, the Will of the Lord.

The starting of every chapter of the Qur’an with the verse ‘Bismi-Llah’ evidently is to first make the reader of the Word of God, get conscious of his helplessness and dependence upon God and to realize his duty of obedience to the Lord. Besides, the Holy Name of God has wonderful efficacy which every religious - minded one knows.

‘Allah’: Though the English word ‘God’ is used in translating this Holy Name but here again is a great handicap for a faithful or a correct translation of the Arabic word Allah’, for there is no proper word in the English language or even in any of the other languages of the world, to be suitably used in the place of ‘Allah’ to convey the meaning which it comprehends in it. The conception of a supreme being, was already given to mankind by the various apostles of God but none of them, to be strictly in conformity with the intellectual development of the people of the earlier times, could give a single word for them to realize all comprehensive sense of the meaning of the word used as the name of the Supreme Universal and the Absolute Being. Hence most of the earlier apostles of God had used the word, Father. But the word father can never convey the meaning of the Originator of the Universe.

By introducing God to man as his father, man can never without further explanation, mean God to be the Father of heavens and the earth. Even if, by the word we mean the Creator of the whole Universe, the word father can never by itself imply the great attribute of Benevolence, Beneficence, Mercy of the Almighty. The first implication of the word will be that the father of the Universe must also have had a father and a mother for him to give birth, for the word father does not at all indicate that the father of the heavens and the earth had no father or mother to bring him into being. The word father does not all imply the self-existent aspect and the eternity of his existence unless one adds explanation to the word. The word ‘Allah’ is a compound word with the definite article ‘Al’ with ‘Ilah’ meaning ‘That God’. Regarding the meaning of ‘Ilah’ whether the word is taken from ‘Waleha’ or ‘Aleha’ meaning puzzling, referred to, the word has been used in both the senses, and its use for a deity is justified in either sense. Hence it is used for any object of worship to which man can submit or surrender or devote his sacrifices. (A.P.)

Of the objects of human worship or devotion there is one which is known to everyone and common to all, and all are conscious of it, which is the ultimate object of reliance and dependence, which, beyond the limits of conception or the reach of human knowledge or intelligence of any degree, is known to all and yet undefinable in any language, and which is realised by everyone but could not be conceived by anyone. The subtle sense of the word Allah is presented by the sixth Holy Imam Ja’far Ibn Muhammad As-Sadiq, in his discourse with an atheist. He asked the atheist if he had ever been on a boat and been in the middle of the sea and had faced a storm and given up all hopes of any conceivable means of rescue and still tried for the rescue hoping to get it, and that unknown means of hope is God, and the Qur’an puts it as given in7. Even when all means are exhausted, still there remains the glimpse of hope in the ultimate source.

Allah

The word Allah is the pointing towards of something which is already in the mind or the realisation of everyone beyond any concept or definition, and not limited or arrested by the concept of any. Thus, it is universal and hence it is All-Merciful since it is universally connected with the whole as well as with the part. Therefore, the controversy among the commentators as to whether the word Allah is a proper noun or a common noun with the article ‘al’, can be reconciled in this way that ‘ilah.’ as common noun assumes definite sense with the definite article, which refers to something universally known and realised by every conscious being and that known being not confined to any form or concept, and that can never be two but one and hence it automatically becomes proper.

Thus, it is shortened in the form of ‘Allah’ denoting the unique unity of the sense of a proper noun. It has been said that ‘Allah’ is ‘Ism adh-Dhat’ or the name of the person in his essence. It should be borne in mind that the Absolute in His essence can never be grasped by the limitations of consciousness and hence cannot be defined by any name. We can refer to Him only by personal pronouns of which the most appropriate is HE. But the sense which the word ‘Allah’ signifies stands for the Absolute in His essence as can universally be known in relation to our consciousness and it is called ‘Ism al-Adham’ i.e. the Greatest Name, the name for the being whose Unity implies the perfect total of all excellence with no defect.

It also may be noted that some of the modern commentators thought of the possibility of the derivation of the word ‘Allah’ from the word ‘Olooheem’ of the Hebrew language. Even if that be so, it does not disallow what has been said before for it takes the argument one step further to prove the etymological development of the word and its significance. Taking the resemblance into consideration ‘Allahumma’ is closer to the Hebrew word ‘Olooheem’ than ‘Allah’ and that was the reason that ‘Allahumma’ was more familiar to the infidels who were in contact with the Jews, than Allah which was a new development. (A.P.)

The word ‘Ilah.’ for naming God had already gained currency among the people. The word has been divinely chosen for its being more suitable than the other words.

The awakening of the intellect of man also developed gradually. There was a time when man bowed in adoration to the great and the powerful manifestation of nature which gradually led him to idolize his imaginary deities. As the pantheon of man - made gods grew vast, the bewilderment of man also wanted to seek shelter of a supreme being as the chief of all the other domestic tribal and the other national gods. Each of the other imaginary subordinate gods was supposed to represent some particular quality and a different kind of authority over the destinies of men. The people’s mind was seeking a supreme being with all comprehensive authority. The fact is that God needs no praise, for a person likes to be praised for something extraordinary, novel, or very important which he has acquired with a great endeavour which might not be possible for others. There is nothing of good in God which He had not in Him and which He has now acquired. He is goodness itself in its fullness or perfection. The praise in a prayer to Him is only to condition the praying individual with the love of the great attributes which are praised, for whatever a man prays, naturally covets to have it for himself.

Secondly God needs no petition expressing the needs of anyone, for He is the All-Knowing Lord - Nourisher and the Sustainer. He knows the needs of each and every one of His creatures more than the creatures themselves know. He bestows His favours unasked for, His bounties are bestowed without asking. But the prayer is to discipline, educate and train mankind in their remaining attached to their All-Merciful Creator so that they may avail of the Divine Bounties conscious of the Universe being ruled by the One, the only All-Merciful, All-Just, Almighty, the Lord of Bounties and Grace.

The consciousness of the necessity of his praying to a supreme authority for his personal needs creates in man the consciousness of his dependency upon the supreme authority and this awakening consequently sublimates him to live necessarily submissive which condition among the members of a society or a race is essential for the establishment and the maintenance of peace and harmony among them.

The word ‘Ilah’ is derived from the word ‘Alaha’ which means astonishment or wonder. When ‘Ilah’ is derived from ‘Walah’ even then it means almost the same. If we add the letter ‘Al’ of the definite article in Arabic the word ‘Allah’ is coined which means the one who is ever beyond the approach of any conception, or even imagination, out of the range of the knowledge or intellect. This ever - incomprehensive aspect of the divine existence of God is very well brought out in the opening verses of the ‘Dua al-Mashlool’ edited by Ali, son of Abu Talib, the first of the Holy Imams or the divinely chosen guides immediately succeeding the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S):

“O’ He! O’ the one He! O’ the one, none knoweth what is He! and how is He, and where is He and in what state is He, save knoweth Himself He!”

The more one attempts to understand that Absolute Being, the greater one gets the bewilderment. The quest which begins for knowledge about ‘Allah’ ends in increased astonishment and wonder and the seeker has to helplessly surrender all his native endowments of intellect and insight, openly and unreservedly confessing that with all his endeavour with the maximum amount of sincerity and effort at his command, he ultimately came only to know that he cannot know Him for He is the same as the Immediate, as He is found in the Ultimate. The name Allah stands to mean the Supreme One Who encompasses everything in the Universe and Whom nothing can encompass, Who alone is the Every - Living, the All-Knowing and Almighty - without any match or partner and Whose alone are all the Divine Attributes, and all goodly names are only His, and His is whatsoever is in the heavens and the earth and whatever is in between them. The Kingdom of the Universe is His, His alone is the Will that is done. None is there besides Him to be His associate or partner. He is the All -Seeing, the All-Hearing, the All-Just, the All-Merciful, the Almighty. He is the only Eternal, the only Infinite, the Essential. He alone is the First, the Immediate and the Ultimate.

The name Allah is called the ‘Ism adh - Dhat’ or the name of the Absolute Self. Here again one fails to get an appropriate English word to convey correctly the meaning of the Arabic word ‘Dhat’. The word ‘Self’ is used for the only Essential Being with all the Divine Attributes comprehended in it. The other names called the ‘Asma’ al-Husna’8 are appellative and descriptive, relating to various attributes, taking them separately in accordance with their respective application in God’s dealing with His creation.

Allah is the nearest to every being from the point of realisation and the furthest one from the point of view of conception. (A.P.)

Rabb Al-’Alamin 1

Rabb al-’Alamin: (Lord of the Worlds). ‘Rabb’ in Arabic stands for Nourisher, Cherisher and Sustainer for which there is no single equivalent word in the English language. The word Lord is generally adopted but there is a world of difference between the mere word Lord, and the actual meaning of the Arabic word ‘Rabb’. However, the commonly used word Lord is adopted for the word ‘Rabb.’ But ‘Rabb’ actually means one who nourishes, cherishes, sustains, and protects.

It is noteworthy that unlike the Christian way of addressing God, Islam did not use the word father. A father is endowed with a particular aspect of love towards the children. Whereas God called ‘Rabb’ is the one Whose Love and Mercy towards his creatures excels the love of both the father and mother together, of any individual. Even from the birth of everything in the Universe, as long as it lasts in its existence, it depends upon the ‘Rububiyah’ or the nourishing, cherishing, sustaining and the protecting aspect of the Mercy of the Lord of the Universe.

According to Raghib, an Arab lexicologist, the word Rabb signifies ‘the fostering of a thing in such a manner as co make it attain one condition after another until it reaches its goal of completion’.

Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim

‘Rahman’ and ‘Rahim’: The words, ‘Rahman’ and ‘Rahim’ both point out to the one and the same essence of the Divine Attribute, ‘Rahmat’ meaning Mercy. The two words though relate only to one and the same prime attribute of God, give the two different aspects of the Divine Mercy. Mercy unreserved shown to one and all of His creatures, be they obedient or disobedient to their Lord, is known as ‘Rahmaniat’ and Mercy done specially to those faithful to their Lord, as a reward or in appreciation of the goodness of the souls, is called ‘Rahimiat.’ (A.P.)

‘Rahmat’ i.e. Grace, which is the root of both the words ‘Rahman’ and ‘Rahim’ is the most comprehensive attribute implied in the name of Allah as here stated before. This attribute stands as the source responsible for all His activities i.e. His creation, sustaining the creatures, guidance, and legislation; all are the outcome of His Universal Grace. Grace means to give willingly without any expectation of any return. It is in this sense that God is Gracious in exercising His Creative and Legislative Authority. Whatever He does, He does it for no return but to benefit His loved creatures. No being is out of His Grace. ‘Rahman’ signifies the All-Penetrating, All-Enveloping Universal Grace of God. But in spite of the All-Pervadingness of His Grace, every one of His creatures does not and should not receive His Grace less or, more than its individual merit or capacity. To give more than what one deserves would mean to waste the grace and spoil the individual.

Therefore, the merit, deservability and reception on the part of the creature itself restricts or limits the measure of grace to be bestowed on each, and that implies the principle of justice which is as universal as grace itself. In short, as He gives to each and all with no expectation of return, His gift is grace. And as He gives each according to its merit and reception, His gift is justice, and this grace as restricted by merit is implied in the attribute ‘Rahim’. Both ‘Rahman ‘and ‘Rahim’ represent the fact that grace and justice in divine activity are not two separate attributes which can be conceived one without the other but they are the two different aspects or the phases of one and the same universal attribute responsible for all the activities in the realm of creation and legislation. Every being in any stage and condition in the order of existence, represents His Grace as well as His Justice. This refutes and blows away the Christian conception of divine justice and grace as two separate attributes of conflicting nature. (A.P.)

One of the exclusive features of Islam is that its mission is to reform humanity not only through warning the wrong doers against their sins and crimes in which they had become practically naturalized, but also by creating the love for God and attachment to Him, making man know that He is the true Benefactor of everyone and the Only Lord of the Universe. Humanity under the grip of the self-cultivated notions and misleading conceptions was practically lost in the belief in imaginary deities who were held as the most despotic, mercilessly cruel, and unreasonably arbitrary against their offenders. Man worshipped his imaginary awful gods, to appease them as he believed them to be the dreadful rulers of the destinies of the people.

To reform the sceptic minds of the people and to reclaim them from the clutches of the fantasies of their faith in the demons and the devils and their own fanciful deities, Islam did not present any clumsy or complicated formula. It struck a death blow to all superstitions by introducing man to the True God as the Only Supreme, the Beneficent and the Merciful Lord of the Universe. It introduced man first to these attributes of God, which every human being sees, experiences, and feels and which qualities surround everyone in their manifestation at all times since the birth of this world. The truer and simpler a statement, the more convincing it becomes to have an impact on the human mind. The Holy Prophet Muhammad though termed as ‘Nazir’ or a Warner but at the same time has been titled as ‘Basheer’ i.e. the bearer of glad tidings. The Holy Prophet was introduced to mankind as “the Mercy unto the worlds”.

وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِلْعَالَمِينَ

“We sent thee not (O’ Our Apostle Muhammad’) but Mercy unto the worlds” (21:107).

The religion which had been sent for mankind i.e. Islam, means peace and the Prophet deputed by God to enforce the religion has been called the ‘Mercy unto the worlds’. Islam began its mission with removing the terror against the false conception of an awesome ruler of the destinies of mankind, for fear takes one away from the dreaded object and even if anyone ventures to get near it, it will not be with any attachment of love but by the force of fear against the wrath of the dreaded one. Qur’an makes one love God with all possible sincerity at One’s command by starting One’s approach to God, invoking the Divine Beneficence and Mercy, assuring of the grant of it even to the sinners, for He is at the very outset spoken of as the Beneficent and the Merciful Lord of the Universe. Man, if he knows that God is the Lord of Beneficence and Mercy, would naturally love Him and readily and voluntarily submit to His will and pleasure, to earn more of the Divine Grace and Bounties. Qur’an convinces man of the two great attributes of God viz. the Beneficence and the Mercy.

Mercy of God is very easy to be seen or realised for even a man of ordinary common sense and average intelligence is aware of the innumerable and the invaluable bounties he enjoys in the very working of the natural phenomenon in himself and everywhere around him in the world. Thus, with the average knowledge of the grace and beneficence which man undeniably enjoys, and when he is also informed that the Great Benefactor cannot be an awesome being but a Lord of unlimited love and all - enveloping Mercy, he automatically begins to seek the pleasure of such a Lord to earn furthermore Grace and Bounties from Him. Conditioned with the love of the Ruler of his destiny, man naturally and voluntarily surrenders himself to such a Lord with ever-increasing sincerity.

It has already been said that the Surah al-Fatiha is the quintessence of the Qur’an. Therefore, to deal with this Surah is to deal with the whole of the Qur’an, for what is contained at length in the Holy Book has been concentrated in a nutshell in this chapter.

For its comprehensiveness or being the essence of the Book as a whole, this chapter is known with several different names. Besides its being called the ‘Al-Fatiha’ or the ‘Opening’ it is called the ‘Fatihat al-Kitab’ the Starter or Inaugurator of the Book. The ‘Sab min al-Mathani’ or the Seven Oft-repeated verses, for this Surah is recited in every part or Rak’at of a prayer.

As the Surah al-Fatiha forms the essential part of the Muslim prayer, it is evident that it was revealed shortly after the start of the Apostolic Mission of the Holy Prophet in Mecca. It is a fact of history that the Meccans troubled, ridiculed, disturbed, and interrupted the early Muslims while they prayed, and the Holy Prophet had to take shelter in the house of Arqam, which incident dates back to the fourth year of his Apostolic Mission.

Al-Hamdu

Al-hamdu: means, not mere thanks as anyone of us gives to another as a routine in our life expressing our verbal gratitude for any act of obligation. Al-hamdu means that all praise, thanks, gratitude, indebtedness and obligation in the real meaning and in every sense of the word, from the beginning of the Universe up to its end, is due to none else but God and God alone, not by force or under any compulsion but because He alone and none else deserves it. The praise or gratitude due to Him is not only for His granting our own desires but for all the bounties and blessings which surround man in his existence. The love of the All-Merciful towards His creation is so abundant, and unbounded that He needs no compensation even in the form of gratitude from His creatures.

The Divine Mercy is so independent of anybody’s gratitude that it reaches one and all of the creation irrespective of anyone being grateful or not, for the unlimited favours and the invaluable bounties everyone freely enjoys in the life. The smallest bounty or favour from God is a huge boon to us. We do not at all deserve it, nor do we have any right to claim any favour from the Lord, but it is the All-Enveloping Mercy of the All-Merciful Lord that His favours reach one and all of the creation even if any creature asks for it or not, and even if the recipient of any Divine Grace acknowledges it or not.

Hamd

Hamd - Praise. Discussing the truth about the praise and the praising on the part of man, the question arises as to who praises whom. If man praises God, in the first - place man’s existence is established along with God’s and the question is asked as to who created man and who guided him to the praise. In fact, the praise as well as the praising both belong to none but God. God is the Haamid i.e. the praiser, and at the same time also the Mahmood i.e., the praised one. There is none else besides Him as He is the subject as well as the object of the praise, and in this sense, none can share His praise. This is implied in the preposition ‘li ‘l-’ i.e. ‘for’ which signifies the exclusive assignment. (A.P.)

Hamd or adoration through praise always goes after the acknowledgement of favours or bounties. By making man know and realize that praise in any form or meaning, is due only to God and to none else and God alone deserves every praise and adoration, the human mind gets freed from the clutches of the mental corruption and servitude of all kinds of false notions of his indebtedness to and the dread against the awesome nature of the Ruler of the destinies. Man, by nature, is always ready to submit himself to love even to the extent of complete and unconditional surrender of himself and everything his. This is because the feeling of dependency upon others co - operation and help, is inherent in the human nature and whosoever he finds attached to him with interest in his well-being, he is automatically drawn to him. The will to live and the desire for happiness, rules the human soul, and man by nature, feels indebted to whomsoever he thinks even in the least degree, helpful in his life interest, and similarly he dreads everything he imagines harmful to his existence and welfare. By introducing man to God as the Lord of Beneficence and Mercy and teaching him to approach the Divine Ruler of his destiny through praise, he is freed from the necessity to dread his Lord and is invited and encouraged to get as nearer to Him as he would like to earn furthermore grace and bounties from the All-Gracious and All-bountiful Benefactor, Who by Himself is ready to bestow any amount of favours and blessings to anyone who sincerely desires for himself and for those he is interested in.

There is no appropriate word in the English language to convey the correct meaning of the Arabic word Hamd i.e. praise. The English word, praise, permeated with the sense of gratitude and thankfulness related to the Arabic word ‘Shukr’ which implies gratitude for some particular favour shown to the self, whereas Hamd is quite an impersonal gratitude for all that is good and gracious to whomsoever, of profit and advantage, it may be involving the idea of free, unrestricted and unqualified admiration for it, but admiration refers to the Arabic word ‘Madh’ which unlike Hamd, used both for the animate as well as the inanimate objects without necessarily implying that the existence of the qualities admired depends on the conscious will of the object, in which case admiration will qualify the qualities and not the possessor of those attributes. The praise or the gratitude due to God is never in this sense.

The prefix ‘al’ denotes that praise or gratitude in any form, in any sense and to any extent is due to none but God, Who alone, not merely at the manifestation of the glory of those Divine Attributes but because He alone deserves as the sole Owner of those matchless qualities, identifying His Self-Existent Absolute Self. This is not as the addition to His Perfect Self, in any meaning or sense whatsoever but as identified with His Matchless Perfection. These qualities belong only to Him and Him alone and to none else besides Him and such was it for all times since the inception of time in the Universe.

Hamd or the praise, as we would call it, is God’s; it has no beginning and no ending what we the creatures offer, is merely an expression of that real Hamd according to our individual limitation.

As His Grace is unlimited, the Hamd or praise which is His is also continuous. None can praise the All Merciful Almighty even for a whole lifetime and say that he has done justice to offering the praise or paying his gratitude to God, for every time one gives thanks to God he inhales and also exhales and has breathed the good life - giving air and discharged the spoiled air from his body. For this one act itself he has to thank the Bountiful Lord twice, but he is called to do so only once. Besides, what is the amount of gratitude due to the All-Merciful for the innumerable bounties enjoyed by man simultaneously both within his own body and without it, in the world surrounding him. Even taking for granted the impossible as possible that one could thank the Lord successfully for all the bounties but even then, the question arises as to with whose guidance, he did it. It was God, his true Master under whose guidance did he offer his thanks or praise, to Him. Thus, every creature in the universe is ever under the indebtedness to the Bountiful Grace of God.

Rububiyah

أَعْطَىٰ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ خَلْقَهُ ثُمَّ هَدَىٰ

‘A’ta kulla shaiyin khalqahu thumma hada’

“He Who gave to everything its creation, then gave it guidance” (20:50).

He is the one who gave everything its shape and guided it to reach it, which is implied in ‘Rahmat’.

Rububiyah implies another attribute ‘Lutf’ i.e. tenderness and the subtlety in penetration in every one’s mind heart and body to know the needs to supply the necessary provision. This attribute is responsible to exercise the legislative authority which implies the establishment of the Apostolic Ministry. (A.P.)

By our approaching God and praising Him, we get at the very first step towards our Lord, in communion with the infinite goodness and divinity which purges out of us the taste for evil and creates in us the eagerness to get nearer and nearer to God to earn His Mercy, qualifying for it, by purifying ourselves and getting reflected in us the Divine Attributes.

By calling God ‘Rabb al-’Alamin’, Islam has brought home to mankind that God is not the God of mankind or the animate, or of only the visible objects in the world but He is the Lord of everything in the Universe, be that human, animal, vegetable or mineral, perceptive to man or imperceptive, visible to anyone or invisible, near or distant, in the earth or in the heavens or in between them. With infinite creative power or the ability of Almighty and the All-Wise Creator of matter and meaning Who is Absolutely Supreme in every aspect of His authority, and His independent will extends the vastness of all the kinds of the worlds of His creatures. However, the mystic division of the kinds of the worlds, classifies the innumerable number of the kinds into five:

1. ‘Nasoot’ (Material or physical)

2. ‘Malakoot’ (Metaphysical or Supernatural)

3. ‘Jabaroot’ (Spiritual)

4. ‘Lahoot’ (Divine)

5. Ghaibul Ghayoob’ (The State Imperceivable and absolutely unknowable)

By introducing to man ‘Rabb al-’Alamin’ as one of the names of God, Islam has alerted mankind against any kind of injustice not only to their own kind but to anyone in the creation of God, for, God being the All-Merciful Lord Who has nourished and cherished a being, if even in the least be hurt, will not be pleased, and Himself being the All-Just also, will not leave the unjust offender, unpunished.

The connection of the ‘Rububiyah’ of God extends as far, and as long as there is the Universe. The function of the ‘Rububiyah’ is not restricted to any place, time, length, or the kind of the creation. It extends to the worlds, known and unknown to us, to the past, the present, and the future of the Universe. The limits of the ‘Rububiyah’ of God go with the limits of the Universe in all aspects of its existence.

The role of ‘Rabb’ starts as early as the will to create a being and when the being is created, to nurture it with love, devotion, never ceasing vigilance and care, providing with everything the creature needs according to the changes it is evolved through. It is the self-imposed duty of the ‘Rabb’ to guide the creature with the awakening or conscience to avoid harm of hurt and only to profit it, to serve its needs. God the Rabb al-’Alamin has provided everything with all its needs, with every provision arranged in form, measure, and manner in which one needs them:

إِنَّا كُلَّ شَيْءٍ خَلَقْنَاهُ بِقَدَرٍ

“Verily We have created in (the right) proportion and measure” (54:49).

This one single name of God as the ‘Rabb al-’Alamin’ totally annihilates all beliefs in all the false imaginary deities. It automatically establishes the truth against all falsehood, that everything in the Universe depends upon the One Supreme Lord of the whole Universe, for its very existence, sustenance, and protection. It does not leave the least room for anyone in the universe to claim any position of a god or a goddess of any use to anyone who also is co - dependent upon the Same Supreme Authority. The unity and the perfect harmony found in the creation, necessarily and also eloquently implies the Unity of the Creator and His Supreme Authority over the creation as a whole.

Rabb Al-’Alamin 2

Rabb al-’Alamin - i.e. the Lord - Cherisher of the worlds9

Defining ‘Rabb al-’Alamin’ i.e. the Lord - Cherisher of the worlds, Aalameen means the heavens, the earth and what is in between. The heavens according to the Qur’an are Seven, the lowest of which is the starred space, ‘Sama ad-Dunya’ which means that the Qur’an considers the physical space as the lowest region above which are the six skies or heavens of non-physical nature controlling the physical region as the intermediary states or stages to the ultimate.

According to Qur’an the definition of the ups and downs, is not confined to the physical directions which are relative. The most Sublime Being encompassing and penetrating the whole of the Universe, is postulated as the Absolute Up, and the most finite and least encompassing and the least penetrating, is compared to the Down which is termed by the Qur’an as the water which void of all forms recipient of any form or shape, something between being and non-being that may be termed as matter of the Aristotelian philosophy or the Maya of the Indian School, i.e., this ‘Ma’a’ i.e. the water or the primitive matter. God is the Ultimate Up and ‘Ma’a’ in this sense of the Ultimate Down. The Lowest Up, in comparison to this, is the starred space i.e. the present world of which our Earth is a part.

Verses 79/42-4610 give the most beautiful explanation of the Anchorage of all strives to be in God, which has been termed as ‘Saa’at’ i.e. the ‘Qiyamat’ in the Qur’an. Taking the Absolute Ups and Downs in the order of existence as explained here will be a guidance for the solution of many theological problems of utmost importance such as ‘Mi’raj’ i.e. the Ascent or the ‘Qiyamat’ the angelical spheres and the other abstract realms. (A.P.)

Maliki Yawm Ad-Din

Maliki Yawm ad-Din: Maliki can mean Master or the Lord or the King of the ‘Yawm Ad-Din’ the Day of Faith. The Day is the Day of the Final Judgment, but it is termed in the Qur’anic language as the Day of Faith.

Firstly, the word ‘Malik’ meaning the Master or the Lord or the King, is used. He who sits at any judgment is commonly known and also called a judge and the Arabic word for it is ‘Qazi’ but the word ‘Qazi’ is not used, but the word used is ‘Malik’. The subtle point to understand here is that a ‘Qazi’ is not the Lawmaker or the Lawgiver but only an executor of the law, made and enforced by some other authority, and as such the ‘Qazi’ is bound to decide only in accordance with the law. But the Master, the Lord or the King is the law-making authority and can as well be the executor of His Own made Laws.

A ‘Qazi’ who sits to judge shall always be within the limits of the law given to him by some higher authority with powers only to strictly apply them in judging persons and matters. Whereas a master or a lord or a king may execute the law applying it in his dealing with the cases, with the unquestionable powers and the supreme authority of a lawmaker to use his discretion in judging cases according to their individual merits and to his own personal satisfaction about the acceptability of the excuses given by those alleged to be guilty by the law. When an accused is proved guilty by law, the Qazi who is there only to judge can never grant him pardon or any remission of the award of the punishment due to the convict but if he who sits is the Master, the Lord, or the King, at the Judgment, he can grant the Royal Mercy to any petitioner at his own independent and unquestionable discretion.

Addressing God as ‘Rabb’ implies that He Who nourishes, cherishes, and protects a creature of His Own must also necessarily be Beneficent and Merciful and when a Master, or a Lord or a King sits to judge his own created, nourished, cherished, and protected ones, he would naturally be Just and at the same time Merciful. The justice done by such a Master even though with the strict application of law to recompense everyone according to one’s own earning, will naturally be tempered with the mercy of a Creator to his creature, of a Lord to his subservient and of a King to his poor subject. Only those who could not receive the benefit of the Benevolence of the Royal Mercy for any reason unpardonable, will naturally receive the punishment.

This aspect of the nature of the Master of the Day of the Final Judgement has been revealed through the Holy Name ‘Rabb’ to keep man alert and careful against the strict justice, and at the same time keep him hopefully attached to his Nourisher, Cherisher, and the Protector Lord, expectant of the Divine Mercy. Islam invites mankind to flock to the All-Merciful God Whose Mercy is all-enveloping and is always ready to reach anyone who seeks it. Islam bans terrorizing God’s creatures and presenting God as a cruel, merciless despot. Islam wants first to reform and then to chastise. It is with this Merciful Will of God that the Holy Prophet was sent into this world as the Mercy unto the worlds11. The method or means to call mankind to the right path which Qur’an prescribes, is love and goodly exhortation:

ادْعُ إِلَىٰ سَبِيلِ رَبِّكَ بِالْحِكْمَةِ وَالْمَوْعِظَةِ الْحَسَنَةِ وَجَادِلْهُمْ بِالَّتِي هِيَ أَحْسَنُ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ هُوَ أَعْلَمُ بِمَنْ ضَلَّ عَنْ سَبِيلِهِ وَهُوَ أَعْلَمُ بِالْمُهْتَدِينَ

“Call unto the way of thy Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation, and have disputations with them in the best manner; surely thy Lord knoweth best those who go astray from His path, and He knoweth best those who follow the right path” (16:125).

And the Holy Prophet has been asked by God to announce to mankind the following divine declaration:

قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنْفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِنْ رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ

“Say O’ My servants! who have acted extravagantly against their own selves, despair not of the Mercy of God. Verily God forgiveth the sins altogether, verily He is the Oft - forgiving, the al-Merciful” (39:53).

Ali, the first Holy Imam, has given mankind, particularly to those who faithfully follow the Prophet, several masterly formulated prayers to be recited to earn the pardon of the All-Merciful Lord and His further bounties desired by any of the faithful ones. One of such masterpieces composed by Ali is the famous ‘Dua al-Kumail’ through which the supplicant to God, can surely rouse the Divine Mercy to be bestowed on him. This famous prayer has exploited the sources of getting nearer the Lord through invoking His Mercy, by crying to Him addressing Him by His various holy names given to mankind for the first time by the Holy Prophet through the Qur’an. In one of the verses of that prayer the supplicant cries:

ياإِلهِي وَسَيِّدِي وَرَبِّي، أَتُراكَ مُعَذِّبِي بِنارِكَ بَعْدَ تَوْحِيدِك وَبَعْدَما انْطَوى عَلَيْهِ قَلْبِي مِنْ مَعْرِفَتِكَ، وَلَهِجَ بِهِ لِسانِي مِنْ ذِكْرِكَ وَاعْتَقَدَهُ ضَمِيرِي مِنْ حُبِّكَ وَبَعْدَ صِدْقِ إِعْتِرافِي وَدُعائِي خاضِعاً لِرُبُوبِيَّتِكَ.

هَيْهاتَ! أَنْتَ أَكْرَمُ مِنْ أَنْ تُضَيِّعَ مَنْ رَبَّيْتَهُ!

“O’ my Sustainer Lord! Wilt Thou chastise me who crieth unto Thee with the conscience bound to Thy love with strong ties, and after my true confessions and plaintive prayers to Thee, O’ my Sustainer’’

“Oh! No! for Thou art too Generous to abandon the one whom Thou hast sustained! “12

In this famous and the most efficacious prayer, ‘Rabb’ the holy name of God has been used to invoke the Divine Mercy and the appeal endowed in calling God with that name is quite obvious.

The actual ‘Malik’ i.e. the Master is the one Who can exercise His authority on anything under His possession and to Whom everything owes its existence and that cannot be but the Absolute. Therefore, the use of the term ‘Master’ for the ‘Maalikiyat’ or the ‘Malakiyat’ or the ‘Mulookiyat’ in the case of God, is true and real and for others, it will be only figurative and unreal, and this is true about all the other attributive excellence, for it is real when used for God and unreal for others. (A.P.)

Yawm Ad-Din

The Day of Judgment has been termed in this chapter of the Qur’an as the Day of Faith, though it will actually be a Day of Accounting i.e. Requital, but it will pre - eminently be the Day of Faith, for what man today in this life believes and disbelieves, will on that day be laid bare before the eyes of the believers and the disbelievers. The believers in the truth, by their faith, will see the truth manifested before their own eyes and those who disbelieved in God, His reward to the righteous and His chastisement to the disbelievers and the wicked, will be made to witness those factors with their own eyes and experience the recompense for their own evils.

By saying that there is a Day of Judgment or Requital, it does not mean that God is not the Judge at present. There is no part of time when His Judgment does not take place and the reward and the punishment for the time being, is not meted out but it is also one of the aspects of the infinite mercy that the Judgment is continuous, and it is nothing but warning and admonition to keep the individuals on the right track or to get them to return to it if they have already left it and gone astray. But the Day of Judgment is the Day of the Final Requital at the end of the present world.

The present life is the life of earning good or evil and the life after death is the continuation of the present life. It will be the reaping of what one sows here in the present life until the Day of Final Judgment. At every stage of existence, the Divine Judgment is continued. Hence the Holy Prophet advised his followers, saying: “Reckon yourself before ye are taken to the Reckoning, and weigh your own deeds before they are weighed in Judgment”.

It behoves every wise man to reckon and weigh his own deeds in this life itself when there is time still to amend, to seek pardon before the Day which will be a Day of Judgment and Requital and not of amendment and seeking any pardon.

Yawm or Day mentioned in the Qur’an is not always in one and the same sense of the limited time from sunrise to sunset as is commonly taken on earth in this world. But it has been applied according to the context from one moment to any period or extent of time13 and a day extending even to a period of fifty thousand years14. Therefore, the word indicates according to the context in which it is used, an indefinitely small or an indefinitely huge span of time. (AP.)

A thorough study of the Qur’an shows that whenever reference is made to an evolutionary development, the downward course is referred to as ‘Night’ and the upward move is referred to as ‘Day’ i.e. things descending down from God to the terrestrial realm are termed as Night and then the things taking an ascending course towards Him, are termed as Day. The descending course is termed as revelation i.e. ‘Nuzool’ and that the period of descent is termed as Night and the Ascent has been termed as Day. The Day and the Night of the Qur’an may be of the ordinary duration and may also be of lengthy periods. To judge which of these meanings is meant in any particular case, it needs reference to the context. (A.P.)

Referring to the ‘Yawm Ad-Din’, Deen is a state when the creatures as a whole take their final shape or form i.e. when the last blow of forms takes place ‘Nafkh as-Soor ath-Thani’ and the distances of time and space which separate one creature from the other, are removed and all will be brought together, each taking its ultimate place and position in the order of existence by merit, thus, the things return to Him from Whom they had proceeded. Thus, the Rububiyah or the Mastership assumes complete manifestation. This is the Day when people stand for God the Lord Cherisher of the worlds15. This is the Day when no soul shall possess any things neither for itself nor for anyone else but the Command and Authority in all, will be His16.

This Day cannot be taken as the day of any duration. This shall be a day which will not have any Night to follow it. This proves that the First and the Final cause of creation is One and the Same, from Whom the creation proceeded and to Whom it has to return by the agency of His grace and guidance of His Rububiyah. Thus, it proves that He is the Ultimate, Absolute and the Real Authority over the universe and its every part and particle. All the other authorities are nothing but unreal, relative, and imaginary. Having this in view the attention is naturally turned from the descriptive state to the normal course to be adopted by man. (A.P.)

Unless a man knows that he is to be judged by an All-Just Authority he would naturally be care - free about evils and would never think of any virtue, for he is not going to get any reward for his goodness from anybody. He would rather be the most immoral and the biggest tyrant committing the worst and the most heinous crimes, for there is none to question, judge or punish him and with such characters inhabiting the earth, it would never be possible for any kind of life to continue in it with the least peace and safety for the fellow creatures on the globe. Therefore, faith in the life after death and the Day of Judgment is an essential part of Islam17.

Things needed more are kept readily available in greater quantity. Take for instance, air and water which are indispensable for life of the animate objects. Hence such things are in immeasurable abundance. Things less needed are rare, and rarer still are those commodities the need for which is further less.

Besides, the different individual things, if one casts a thoughtful glance upon the wonderfully harmonious working of the Universe, it gets obvious that there is One single Owner, Leader or Master who has ordered everything in the Universe to allow life to be created in it and to enable it to realize the fulfilment of the object of its advent into existence.

Take for instance, the Sun serves as a lamp as well as an oven to lift water by evaporation, to be stored in the heavens in the clouds, to be sent down through rain, to serve the need for it on the earth. The wind has not only to conceal the vapour sent into the heavens, into rolling clouds, but also to distribute them by driving them over the various parts of the earth as the demand may be for it. The Sun again heats the clouds to allow the water stored in them to be melted to descend upon the earth. The earth receives the water and allows it to flow on its surface and in its bosom and by its help brings forth the treasures of the herbage and the cultivated corn to serve mankind. It seems that the Sun, the Moon, the Heavens, the winds, all are in attendance only to serve life on earth. Every being finds that even before its birth, everything necessary for it, is ready, duly arranged in the required quantity, form, and manner. Take for instance the milk for a baby prepared before - hand in its mother’s breast, sufficiently in advance of its birth.

One of the greatest marvels of the All-Merciful Almighty’s bounties provided for the life and happiness of the innumerable kinds of the incomprehensibly huge number of the members of each of the various species in His universe, is the wonderfully perfect harmony and the undisturbable control in the continuous working of the nature’s organization with the inherent capacity in each creature to utilize and be profited by the various means of sustenance provided for one and all of those in His creation. Every being in the Universe is so perfectly fashioned and so fully equipped that, it by itself and by its own individual fulfilment, is supplying its own needs which are quite different from each other, from one and the same environment. This wonderful adjustment is caused to be affected by two means which the Qur’an informs mankind viz. ‘Taqdeer’ or Destiny and ‘Hidayat’ or Guidance.

Taqdeer meaning the appropriate assignment of a prescribed or a certain fixed state or predetermined condition of life in the Universe, of each and every individual creature bound by the fixed laws of a kind of Community - life of all the members of each individual specie. The binding of the law of ‘Taqdeer’ or Destiny are hard and fast that none other than the Omnipotent God, Lord of the Universe, can ever move even an atom outside its destined course of owning its own individual or personal properties or changing the law controlling its movements or actions. For instance, none of the heavenly bodies can ever leave their respective orbits or positions. None can ever make any of the oceans leave their beds. The fish can never be made to live outside the water. The birds can never live underneath the sea. Mountains cannot be made to move from their respective places. The plants of one climate cannot be made to grow or even survive in any opposite climate. The animals of a tropical land can never be made to live in a polar region.

The various elements can never do Otherwise, than as they have been destined, as made inherent in their respective individual nature. The law of cause and effect can never be made to stop its inevitable functioning. In short, the whole Universe has been so mercifully planned and wisely made to function that every creature in it, is equally and fully served to realize by itself the completion, which the nature of its specie has destined for it. The whole wonderful organization of the immeasurable vast universe is so successfully worked with perfect harmony between the individuals inhabiting it and the environment provided for them that no one else, in spite of all his imaginary claims to false godhead can ever even think of an attempt to cause the least change in the predestined nature.

The whole universe, no doubt has been created and controlled by the laws of destiny, but the question arises as to how the various kinds of members inhabiting the Universe come to know their adjustment in their respective environments and how they know what is profitable to their individual selves and what is harmful, and how to acquire the profitable and avoid the harmful? Who teaches the just born baby to suck his mother’s breast, what makes the roots of the various trees and plants to suck from the one and the same earth, only those ingredients necessary and profitable to their respective produce and avoid the other matters which are also present in the same soil? Who teaches the young one of a fish just born to swim immediately as it is born?

There are innumerable such actions on the part of the creatures which function automatically without any external education, or training imparted by anyone. It is nothing but the Guidance from God bestowed upon each and every being from the ‘Rabb al-’Alamin’ The Lord Nourisher, Sustainer and Protector, with which there is life and without which it is naught. Thus, guidance, be that external or internal, be that through instinct or through any other means, all is through the Beneficence and the Mercy of the All-Merciful Lord. It is referring to this truth that Prophet Moses had declared18.

The universality and the perfect harmony in the organisation of the Universe being always equally ready and useful to one and all kinds of the creatures, be that belonging to the human, animal, vegetable or the mineral world, eloquently declares that the whole universe has been designed, created and made to function by One and the same single Authority, who is not only Eternal in its existence, Almighty in its strength, All-Knowing in its knowledge and Wisdom, All-Just in its perfect equity but also pre-eminently in love, benevolent and bounteous to its creation as a whole.

Iyyaka

Iyyaka i.e. None else but Thee All creatures be they of the highest or the lowest order, commissioned by God with any authority or not, are alike in being subservient to His Will, in obedience and worship to Him and in seeking His help in their activities. None is left to be out of His servitude as His partner. God’s relation to all, is the relation of the Absolute Creator and the Supreme Law - giver, and their relation to Him is the relation of the created being and the Law - abiders. Hence there is no room left for the deification of any finite being and there is no room for ‘Ta’addud’ i.e. the numeration of the Infinite. Thus, the Infinite can be, but one Absolute and the finite cannot be but a creature (a composite) (A.P.)

Iyyaka Na’budu

The world Iyyaka means ‘Unto Thee (O’ Lord) and Thee alone’, and ‘Na’budu’ means ‘We do worship’, By declaring the devoted service being only to God and God alone, is in itself a great commitment and at the same time the source of great satisfaction to the devotee. Firstly, the supplicant commits himself to serve only God and none else. By adopting this attitude of life, man gets a spirit of faithfulness to his Only Real Master and thus, there remains no need for him to fear anyone else. The individual who serves exclusively his master, depends also on him. On whomsoever one depends for all his needs he would never be inclined even to the least extent or in any sense to offend him in any way.

The faithful servant who serves one as his only master will also be always invoking his master’s pleasure to expect his own needs being provided for, for he cannot expect anything from anybody else as he does not serve anyone besides his only Master. ‘Na’budu’ The word Na’budu means we serve. Here it does not mean mere worship through performing some rituals, but service as it comprehends in its wide meaning, every thought and action on the part of the servant in faithfulness to his master. Man committing himself to the service of God. and of none else, directly vows to live and die as it would please Him. In short, man commits himself to execute the Will of his Lord through his thought, word, and action. In other words, man vows to live and die as God will and not as he himself wills.

This proves that man owes loyalty to none, but God and loyalty means to do nothing but to carry out His will and obey His order and represent His pleasure. Man should not be moved in his activity by any other motive than obedience to God’s Will, and that he should not seek help from any source other than God’s. To worship God, without His order is disloyalty to Him. To worship even a stone by His order is in conformity with the loyalty to Him. To seek help from the means which were not made by Him for that end, is disloyalty to Him. To seek help from the means made by Him for a particular end, is in conformity with the loyalty to Him.

Therefore, one can regulate his activities in such a way that every movement of his gets in perfect accordance with His Will and enjoys all the means of livelihood which have been made by Him for man to enjoy. If man worships the angels and the secondary authorities in the order of being, or seeks their intervention in the approach to Him, it is disloyalty amounting to idolatory. But if one pays respect or regard to such beings and seeks their intervention by His order in approach to Him it will be in conformity with the loyalty to Him.

From Rabb al-’Alamin to Maliki Yawm Ad-Din, the reference was to a third person and having completed the description, one feels that he is standing in the presence of the Absolute to address Him in the term of second person using the word Iyyaka which means unto Thee, and none else, which term includes both the negation of everything else other than Him and the assertion of the only One, addressed. Here the feeling of the individuality of the person is faded away and he realises himself as a part of a whole or as a member of the community of the fellow creatures. Here is the unique characteristic and the peculiarity of Islam to convert the individual value of religion to its widest universal value.

No social or collective service or worship can be performed without a lead and a leader, and none can be taken in the social obedience and worship but the person who represents His universal grace: “Wa ma arsalnaka illa Rahmatun li ‘l-‘Alamin” (21:107).

The extent of the Holy Prophet’s mission is as wide as is God’s Rububiyah and this explains the state of his ‘Khatamiyat’ i.e. the Finality, and the fact which has been asserted in some authentic traditions that the Holy Prophet in his ‘Mi’raj i.e. the Ascent, led the prayers which was attended by all his predecessor apostles of God and the angels and this shows the meaning of the Imamah al-Kubra i.e. the Supreme Leadership in performing or leading the collective obedience and worship to Him. The notion of collective and universal obedience of the creatures is the basis of the Basic Theocratic form of Government advocated by Islam. It means that the sovereignty of the whole universe is God’s and His authority and power cannot be delegated to anyone else but the person who represents His Universal Will and who is in communion with Him and who knows the relation of the Infinite to the finites and the relation of every finite one to the other.

Iyyaka Na’budu and Iyyaka Nastayeen is an indicative sentence that all the worlds with all their parts and particles are in the state of obedience to God’s Universal Will, all are in quest of His help, and this is illustrated in the following verse:

أَفَغَيْرَ دِينِ اللَّهِ يَبْغُونَ وَلَهُ أَسْلَمَ مَنْ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ

“What! Do they seek religion other than God’s while submitted! to Him all that is in the Heavens and the Earth” (3:82).

What! Do they seek religion other than God’s while submitted! To Him all that is in the Heavens and the Earth!19

إِنْ كُلُّ مَنْ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ إِلَّا آتِي الرَّحْمَٰنِ عَبْدًا

“There is none in the heavens and the earth, but he comes to the All-beneficent as a servant” (19:93).

This refers to the universal submission of the order of the beings as a whole, the norm of which man should submit his will to God’s Will and seek help from none but He. Taking the facts of creation as the norm of the execution and the regulation of God’s Will is the utmost endeavour of the Qur’an to guide man and from this point one can say that Islam is the natural religion deriving lesson for man from the Book of the Creation. (A.P.)

In these two clauses of Iyyaka Na’budu and Iyyaka Nastayeen, Qur’an has given the brief solution of the most important problem which is the serious concern of philosophy, theology, ethics, jurisprudence, and which is the question of free will and determination. Hence the act of obedience and seeking help, is attributed to the creatures, proving that they are active and not merely passive onlookers of His activity. They have their own will be responsible for their actions but their will, and its outcome is subservient and subordinate to His Will as the Ultimate Authority in both fields of creation and legislation. They do things of their own will and inclination, but their will is conditioned with His Will, Order and His Providence.

Therefore, the deeds of the creatures, is neither the outcome of their absolute free will nor is it the direct outcome of His Free Will, leaving the creatures will entirely ineffective and not responsible at all, as the determinists would say. There is something in between as presented by the Fifth Holy Imam of the house of the Holy Prophet, Muhammad Ibn Ali Al-Baqir, “La jabr wa la Tafweez bal amarun bain al-amrain” i.e. it is neither compulsion nor is it a total handover, but the matter is a medium course. In the subsequent chapters of the Qur’an, here and there, are passages which apparently forward the Determinist views and there are also passages apparently advocating man’s free will and a total handover and there are reconciliatory passages too.

Once taking all these in view, the result will be the same as forwarded here. In short God’s activity can be termed as action and the activity of the creatures as the re - action. There can never be any reaction without any action, and the action will be futile if there be no reaction and this is true about God’s action in the realm of creation and the reaction of creatures whether conscious or unconscious, endowed with any will power or not. The action is not conditioned by the nature of the actor, but the reaction need not be the same as the act:

Baran ke dar lataafate tab’ ash khilaaf neest;

dar baagh lala rooyad wa dar shorazaar khas,

i.e. though there can be no doubt about the purity or the excellence of the rain water,

it raises flowers in the garden and thorns in the saltish soil.

In reaction, the act is represented conditioned with the manner and the nature of the finite one which reacts. Therefore, the reaction may seem to be sometimes as entirely unlike the action. The one and the same act of guidance may have different reactions. The divine action being the outcome of God’s unreserved grace, can be nothing but good but the reaction in the case of the finite creatures may fall short of the absolute goodness and thus, it is termed as evil or bad for which the nature of the finite is responsible. Qur’an says that the goodness which reaches man is from God and the evil which reaches man is from his own self20. And in Hadith al-Qudsi God says: Abdi ana aula behasanatek minka wa anta aula besayyatika minni’ i.e. O’ My servant (man) I am more responsible for thy good deeds and thou art more responsible for thy evils than Me. For example, the rays of radiation differing from the rays of the reflection, the former being conditioned with the nature of its source and the latter getting conditioned with the different grounds.

The ideas forwarded in this small chapter represent all that the Qur’an covers in detail in all its chapters. Thus, this chapter is called the ‘Umm al-Kitab’ i.e. the Gist, Essence, or the Substance of the Book. (A.P.)

Wa Iyyaka Nasta’een

Wa Iyyaka Nasta’een i.e. Thee alone we seek help from (none - else but Thee). This prayerful statement is only logical and rightful, for one can seek help only from him whom the individual calls as his ‘Rabb’ i.e. Nourisher, Sustainer and Protector, and has vowed to serve only Him and none else. Besides, it will be quite in accordance with the infinite Mercy of the All-Merciful, Almighty to respond to the degree of the sincerity with which His faithful creature acknowledges only Him as his ‘Rabb’ and who has vowed sincerely to serve only Him and none else. By declaring this prayerful statement several times during his devout prayers, the individual would naturally and surely be invoking the Divine Mercy to reach him without fail.

Having submitted his prayer in the sincerest possible way to his real Lord who is his ‘Rabb’ and who is the All-Merciful, the individual would naturally get himself satisfied that he has petitioned to the proper authority Who alone can give him the desired relief, and even if what he prays for, is in any way denied to him, it will be in his own interest, for as light only can shoot from light and never can light cause darkness, mercy and nothing but mercy would be done by the All-Merciful, and that which man thinks to be cruelty done to him by God, will be nothing but the failure of his finite thinking against the infinite Wisdom of the All-Wise Lord.

Ihdina As-Sirat Al-Mustaqeem

The phrase literally means ‘Guide us to the right path’ or ‘show us the right way’. The word ‘Ihdina’ i.e. guide, or show is of the widest application. Even a true believer in the truth, however learned and wise he may be, has to necessarily pray for this blessing from the All-Merciful, the All-Knowing and the All-Wise Lord. Guidance which man needs, is not restricted to the knowledge or the practice of any doctrine. Man has to be ever seeking the knowledge of the higher truths leading to the higher spiritual elevations open to his personal progress.

The straight or the Right Path, used in this verse does not confine itself to mean only doctrines of the religion. The path mentioned in this Verse does not mean any particular path for there are the several aspects of the life of human souls in the world, viz. the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual. The guidance to the right path mentioned in the Qur’an comprehends all aspects of all the paths open to the human soul in this life. Guidance on the right path, in the higher sense of the prayer is the spiritual assistance to enable the human being to reach the destination in accordance with the object of his creation into this world.

It is also a known phenomenon that the essential prerequisite for following the right path, is the intense love of the right - minded and the correctly guided ones. It is to serve this necessity of man that the Holy Prophet enjoined love of his Ahl Al-Bayt who being divinely guided, have undoubtedly been always on the right path.

This necessity of a continuous guidance to the right path leading to the various heights of the divine grace, gives rise to the essential need of everyone desirous of being always guided aright, to be attached to the divinely guided ones whose right-mindedness alone can be relied upon and whose models have to be copied by the other ordinary members of the human race. This phenomenon of the essential attachment to the declared righteous ones, is called in the religious doctrines of the Original Islam which is identified by the title ‘Shi’ism’ as ‘Tawalla’, or the Love (of the Righteous ones).

While one who sincerely wants to be guided aright, should not only, necessarily keep himself attached to the divinely guided righteous ones but he must also be aloof from the misled, misguided and the wicked ones, shunning their society, hating their straying away from the right path, and their personal wickedness. This necessity of always shunning the wrong ways and the evil ones, is called ‘Tabarra’ or the act of being aloof from wickedness and the wicked ones.

Taking ‘Iyyaka Na’budu wa Iyyaka Nasta’een’ as the norm of human activity, man’s action should always be in obedience to God’s Will, and being poor by nature, man in his activity is always in quest for help. Therefore, seeking help from God, is also obedience to Him. Thus, human life is an effort and strive, in approaching God, as the Absolute Perfection. However perfect man’s attainment may be in this direction, it will still be finite, and the absolute perfection is infinite. The distance between the infinite and the finite is infinite, which follows that man’s life should be continuous and endless and his effort and strive for perfection, by perpetual obedience and quest for help, as it is the case with the universe as a whole.

Thus, man has to be unceasingly in quest for help and guidance towards the Straight Path which leads to God. Even the great souls who are said to have been purified by God and whose path has been described in the succeeding verse, as the Straight for the Ideal one to be followed by mankind, have been ever busy in ‘Istighfar’ for the distance between their finite perfection and the Infinite Being was visible to them and they had been ever aspiring to rise higher and higher and they felt their short - coming or themselves helpless in obedience as He deserves, and the wider and the deeper becomes one’s consciousness of God’s Greatness, the greater will be, the realization of one’s shortcoming and helplessness and the more earnest will be one’s supplication and humility towards none but Him. Taking in view God’s Omnipresence, any path adopted by man towards any direction will lead undoubtedly only to Him:

فَأَيْنَمَا تُوَلُّوا فَثَمَّ وَجْهُ اللَّهِ

‘Ainama tuwallu fathamma waju Allah’

“…Whichever direction ye turn, ye shall find only His face [His Manifestation]” (2:115).

Therefore, it may be said that all paths lead only to Him and it is immaterial whether one follows this or that path, when the aim or the goal is one and the same, whether the path is straight or bent or the crooked one. The answer is that it is true that every part and particle can in some way or other, be termed as His aspect or phase but the aspects which are closer to His essence in comprehensiveness and give a better representation of His Unity, Absoluteness and Omnipresence are more effective in widening and uplifting man’s notion of Him. Moving towards such a phase and aspect is the straight path and what that path is, cannot be decided but by His guidance or order. Hence the supplication “Ihdina As-Sirat Al-Mustaqeem”. (A.P.)

Sirat Alladhina An’amta Alayhim

Sirat alladhina means the path of those and An’amta alayhim means on whom thou (‘O’ Our Lord!) has bestowed thy bounties.

This verse explains and determines the right guidance which man needs and for which he must pray. Otherwise, by merely saying guide me aright on the Straight or the Right Path is indefinite, for every path which the fancy of anyone chooses, will naturally deem it to be straight and God does not send angels to everyone to guide him. When God Himself, through His last revealed Book, the Qur’an, teaches man to pray to be guided aright, He alone can guide man to the identity of the path which, with Him is deemed Straight and Right. Thus, the Divine Grace of the Al-Merciful Lord through this verse of the First chapter of the Qur’an, guides mankind furthermore to the exact track which mankind should adopt, to be on the right. The verse explains to mankind that if the right path is desired to be followed, they must adopt the path of those on whom the Lord has bestowed His favours or bounties and they can be no others than those purified by God Himself21 i.e. the Holy Ahl Al-Bayt.

To be clearer and surer of the Straight Path and to have a model or a guiding example in view, the Qur’an made an explanatory clause of ‘Siratalladhina an’amta alayhim” i.e. the path of those on whom God has bestowed His bounties22. Though His bounties are the outcome of His All-Pervading and Universal Grace (Rahmaniyat) and has encompassed all His creatures:

وَرَحْمَتِي وَسِعَتْ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ

‘wa Rahmati wasa’at kulla sha’y

“and My grace encompasses everything” (7:156).

Yet, as the outcome of His ‘Raheemiyat’ He has specified in various places in the Qur’an that of the children of Adam, Noah and Abraham the chosen personalities are viz. Nabeeyeen the prophets, siddiqeen, the truthful ones shuhada the Martyrs and Saleeheen the righteous and those who follow their footsteps with utmost exactness23,

Thus, with this restriction there is no need of taking ‘Ghayr il-maghdhubi’ as the qualifying adjectival clause for the personal pronoun ‘alayhim’ or the relative pronoun ‘Alladhina24’ ‘An’amta alayhim’ is already a restriction. Therefore, these two subsequent clauses should be taken as appositional clauses in the negative form. However, ‘Ghayr il-maghdhubi’ and ‘wa la 'dh-dhaleen’ are those who have deviated from the straight path ordered by God by falling short of the order which subjects them to His wrath or by exceeding the prescribed limits of the divine command and gone astray. The straight path of the Holy Prophets, is in between the ‘Taqsir’ i.e. falling short of the order and ‘Ghulu’ i.e. the transgression of the limits. Terming the Jews as the ‘maghdhubi alayhim’ and the Christians as ‘Dhalleen’ is only an exemplary expression for ‘Taqsir’ and ‘Ghuboo’. Whoever falls short of the command is included in the ‘Maghdhubi alayhim’ and those who have transgressed the prescribed limits are included in ‘Dhalleen’.

Those who brought the person whom God has made next only to the Holy Prophet of Islam, in all accomplishments, to the fourth position in the panel made by man for the disciples of the Holy Prophet, are surely falling short of the order as the Jews and those who raised up the persons who were sinners, ignorant and unstable in their faith and of questionable character and conduct, to the status of the divinely inspired guides, taking them as spiritual leaders of the guidance for the Muslims, have surely exceeded the limits and hence are included in the ‘Dhalleen’ as the Christians. Likewise, who raise the holy souls, the Prophets and their successors to the state of godhead are equally condemnable as ‘Dhalleen’. (A.P.)

The question arises as to what kind of bounties are they and who are those so favoured by God? If material wealth is inferred by the word ‘bounties’, then it is absurd, for even the most devilish ones in the world are given to own such gifts comparatively in greater abundance than the righteous ones, and the path would be of the most impious ones of the devilish beings in the world. But the subsequent clause of this verse makes the meaning clear that the favoured ones are those who never go astray, nor do anything which incurs the displeasure of God.

The favours or the bounties meant in this clause of the verse will pre-eminently be the gift of mental, moral and spiritual perfection incapacitating any sin or error, and the correct identification of such perfect beings lies in their personal purity which would never have been corrupted by any evil of any kind from the beginning of their life on earth to the end of it. Such ones of the ideal purity and innocence are called the ‘Masumeen’ who are only fourteen in number in Islam, viz. the Holy Prophet and his divinely chosen successors called the Twelve Imams (or the holy Guides) and Lady Fatimah, the holy daughter of the Prophet. There are besides the apostles preceding the Holy Prophet, who were also ‘Masooms’.

When God enjoins upon mankind to follow the path of those on whom He has bestowed His bounties, it naturally means that there are, and there will always be until the end of the world, people on whom He would have bestowed His bounties, who will be destined to be the ideal men and the correct and testified models of righteousness on earth. These men according to simple logic and the reasoning of mere common sense, cannot be but those who should necessarily resemble the Holy Prophet in their external as well as their internal purity and with the same store of knowledge and wisdom which idealized the Holy Prophet as the ‘Khair al-Bashar’ the Best of mankind. Otherwise, without making available the model, the order to copy it, will be sheer cruelty and nothing short of foolishness. This verse proves beyond all doubts, the existence of an Imam in every age until the Day of Judgment.

If we ask the Holy Prophet as to who these people are, on whom have been bestowed the bounties of God, he would reply saying: “He who is the best in knowledge and wisdom” - for what the Holy Qur’an says about those endowed with knowledge and wisdom and those divinely guided25. These verses guide the seeker of the right path towards the various factors that entitle one to be a religious leader or a spiritual guide and leave the question of the selection of a leader to the discretion of every individual, as a test and even a trial after revealing the truth from falsehood, as there should be no compulsion after it26.

He who has been gifted with knowledge has been given goodness in abundance. Besides the Holy Prophet has already declared i.e. “I and Ali are of the one and the same Light”. This speaks of the internal purity of Ali, and the Holy Prophet has also declared “I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate”. There are numberless traditions of the Holy Prophet declaring the unique position of Ali in Islam, identifying him with the Holy Prophet in his person, purity, both physical and spiritual. This verse clearly means that to be guided aright one should in the absence of the Holy Prophet, follow Ali, son of Abu Talib, and the divinely chosen ones among his issues. The Holy Prophet while departing from this world gave his last and the final guidance to ail his followers for all times saying:

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم: إني تارك فيكم الثقلين كتاب الله وعترتي أهل بيتي فإنهما لن يفترقا حتى يردا علي الحوض.

‘Verily I leave amidst you the Two Weighty (important) things, the Book of God (the Qur’an) and my Itrat, Ahl Al-Bayt. If ye hold fast to these Two, never will ye get astray’, never will these Two be separated from each other, until they both return unto me at the Cistern (of’ Kawthar’)’27

The All-Merciful God, guarantees to guide a sincere seeker to His own ways:

وَالَّذِينَ جَاهَدُوا فِينَا لَنَهْدِيَنَّهُمْ سُبُلَنَا

“Those who (sincerely) strive in Us, We (Ourselves) certainly guide them unto Our ways” (29:69).

The one unique characteristic of the Qur’an is that under such circumstances it never points out the name of the person but only describes the personality and this puts the free choice of the seeker to test.

The Qur’an has offered sufficiently clear guidance towards the correct, the genuine and the divinely inspired guides i.e. the Holy Imams succeeding the Holy Prophet, describing the unique qualities they have been exclusively endowed with28.

Thus, the model men whose ways are those which every human being should covet to follow, are no other than the Holy Prophet and the Holy Imams whose personal purity from the moment of their advent in this physical world until their departure from it, have been unquestionably nothing but the manifestation of the glory of the divine purity about which God Himself through His Final Book to mankind, the Qur’an, has declared29.

As regards the identification of the pious whose path man has been directed by the All-Merciful Lord to pray to be guided to, to realise the object of his creation, the Qur’an is not silent. It has repeatedly been described as to who the genuine pious ones are, in several verses in different places of the Holy Book. One such verse will be sufficient to give man a clear glimpse of the personality of genuinely pious ones30.

The pious ones described in the above verse are not those who possess only some of those qualities and not the others, but those who possess all the qualities together. In our sincere search for such ones, we find only the Holy Prophet and his godly ‘Ahl Al-Bayt’, and no others in the Islamic World as a whole. The Holy Prophet has testified to this fact in his famous Hadith or traditions The Holy Prophet has even compared his Ahl Al-Bayt to the Arc of Noah:

إِنَّمَا مَثَلُ أَهْلِ بَیتِی فِیکُمْ کَمَثَلِ سَفِینَةِ نُوحٍ، مَنْ دَخَلَهَا نَجَی، وَ مَنْ تَخَلَّفَ عَنْهَا غَرِقَ

“The likeness of my Ahl Al-Bayt is like the Arc of Noah, Whosoever got into it saved himself and whosoever turned against it, was drowned and lost”31

The starting clause of the verse 2:177 clearly declares that there is no virtue in merely the form of the external manifestation of anything seeming to be religious, but the actual merit lies in the qualities which are detailed in the verse. Hence man should never be guided merely by the appearance which seems to be good and holy.

Thus, the prayer will mean to be guided to the path of the Holy Prophet and his Ahl Al-Bayt, and to be helped to remain steadfast on it.

Here under this unavoidable need of prayer, arises the necessity of the doctrine of ‘Tawalla’ or the close and the faithful attachment to the righteous ones desired to be followed as an article of the faith. The necessity of ‘Tabarra’ follows under the latter part of this very same verse:

غَيْرِ الْمَغْضُوبِ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا الضَّالِّينَ

Ghayr il-maghdhubi alayhim, wa la ‘dh-dhaleen

“Such as have not incurred Your wrath, nor are astray” (1:7).

One thing which cannot and should not be spared from being brought to light, for the information of the readers of this Holy Book, is that ‘Wahi’ or Revelation as the special means of communicating the Divine Will, employed exclusively in case of the Apostles of God, who had to convey the Divine Message in the words of the Lord Himself. This privilege of receiving directions by means of ‘Wahi’ or Revelation direct from God through the agency of Gabriel, the Messenger Angel, ended with the Holy Prophet Muhammad the Last of God’s Apostles. No angel did ever come to anyone after the Holy Prophet Muhammad, with any message whatsoever.

‘Wahi’ or revelation through the Messenger Angel could be sent only to an Apostle of God endowed with the purity of the personal calibre which can bear it. No other man and woman who does not have the essential cleanliness can ever have it because he or she cannot bear to be conditioned in the communion with the overwhelming strength of the angelic force. Only that implement of steel which is essentially pure in its property, and which is specially tempered for the purpose, can bear the influence of the electrical energy and transform it into light if it has to manifest its effect in a bulb, and not every bit of iron or even of steel even purified to any degree. Similarly, every box, however beautiful and strong it may be, cannot receive the voices transmitted in the air by a radio station and resound them from it.

Only a radio receiving set which is made for the purpose, and which is duly equipped with the necessary valves, can receive successfully, and reproduce closely the sound waves in the air. Similarly, every soul in a human frame, cannot be the Holy Prophet Muhammad or any of the apostles or the chosen ones of God, who have been made with a purpose or for a purpose, with the calibre necessary for the services divinely desired of those Holy persons.

There is another point worthy of note that gets quite plain from the structure of a radio set and its function. Radio sets only with special strength can receive the voices from any distance and at any meter, and not all radio sets irrespective of their individual quality or capacity. Similarly, all the apostles are doubtlessly the true apostles of God, but they vary in their personal position in respect of the individual capacity divinely endowed in them. It is referring to this factor about the personalities of the apostles of God that the Qur’an declares32.

But the commentator of a new school of thought in his endeavour to create some room for the possibility of apostleship of one whom he hails as an apostle, has resorted to several unacceptable arguments based upon the logic of his own conjectures. He thinks that the divine favour of guiding a human soul through Wahi or revelation, can always be bestowed upon anyone until the Day of Judgment. This is obviously to create room to somehow argue out the possibility for the apostleship of one of his own fancies. Nobody can eve deny that the divine guidance through revelation can and may continue as long as God wills. The advocate of a new apostle should know that what ‘Wahi’ or revelation which he wants for his apostle can freely have it but the mere word ‘Wahi’ or revelation does not mean what is revealed to him to be from God.

The word ‘Wahi’ literally means a mental awakening towards any idea. The awakening can be even from Satan, as we have been informed through the Qur’an that Satan effects his misleading through his own ways of ‘Wahi’ but the Wahi from God towards those whom He wills to guide, can be through inspiration which is called in Arabic ‘Ilham’ and the same divine grace when meant for a higher purpose of conveying any message to any apostle, is affected through the messenger angel Gabriel, which course of the divine communication ended with the Holy Prophet Muhammad.

At the perfection of the religion Islam, the apostolic service had to conclude its role, and only at its perfection the Religion, was named ‘Islam’ and this was the completion of the Divine Bounties towards mankind which has been openly declared in 5:3. With the departure of the Last Apostle of God, also stopped the angelic course of communication between God and man. The ‘Wahi’ in the form of ‘Ilham’ meaning only inspiration will naturally continue. It may reach a man and even a fly like the bee when it has to execute a plan by the All-Wise Lord of the Universe.

وَأَوْحَىٰ رَبُّكَ إِلَى النَّحْلِ أَنِ اتَّخِذِي مِنَ الْجِبَالِ بُيُوتًا

“The Lord revealed (i.e. inspired) to the bee saying take houses (hives) in the mountains” (16:68).

Here in this Verse exactly the word ‘Wahi’ or the revelation meaning inspiration has been used and simply because the word ‘Wahi’ is used for the inspiration or the instinct which even the tiny fly is endowed with, the insect cannot sensibly be considered to be an apostle of God.

‘Wahi’ in the meaning or sense of inspiration, definitely continues and must continue without which no good in the world can ever be done by anyone and at the same time, the same method of inspiring evil into the wicked minds of his devotees has been granted to Satan, which boon along with the respite, has been allowed to him to mislead those whom he can successfully capture through inspiring evil in them against the guidance which they already had from God through the apostolic services of the huge number of the prophets.

None can ever understand that when:

1. The conception about God is to remain the same.

2. The Qur’an which is the Fountainhead of the faith and its practice, to be the same.

3. The Method of prayers (compulsory), to be the same.

4. Qiblah or the Central Turning Point, to be the same.

5. When the religion has been perfected by God Himself, His Bounties completed and the religion finally named, is also to remain unchanged.

Where does arise the need for any new apostle from God and why would God trouble the Messenger Angel Gabriel, without any new message which could not be added to His Final Book the Holy Qur’an?

The Truth is, neither there is any necessity of any new apostle to come, after the Holy Prophet Muhammad, nor will any apostle come in future till the Day of Judgement for any service connected with the apostleship of God. At the same time none can stop anyone who wants to assume the office of his own imaginary apostleship, for many such imposters have already come and gone.

It is against such false prophets that the great mystic poet Rumi, in his world - renowned classic. Mathnavi, has said:

‘Ai basa Iblees Aadam roo’ee hast

Pas bahar dasti nashaayad daad dost’

Often times Satan appears in human form,

Hence one should not give his hand in the hand of everyone (who appears to be human).

Ghayr Il-Maghdhubi Alayhim, Wa La ‘Dh-Dhaleen

This part or the 7th verse means ‘Not the path of those on whom fell Thy wrath, nor of those who have gone astray’ (1:7). This is a further explanatory clause of the prayer in which the supplicant expresses his hatred towards those who have rebelled against the Divine Authority and gone astray and consequently earn the Wrath of God. This is the doctrine of Tabarra which means being aloof from evil and the evil ones.

The words in this verse are only descriptive without mentioning the names of those who earned the Wrath of God and those who have gone astray. By leaving the language merely descriptive the Holy Book has made them applicable to any people who earn the qualities of the described kinds of the people.

The Holy Prophet in illustrating the verse has been reported to have said that those who have brought upon themselves The Wrath of God, are the Jews for their rejecting Jesus and persecuting him as they did, and those gone astray owing to their exaggerating an apostle of God, who was a man and a mortal, to the status of godhead, calling him the son of God and worshipping him in the place of God Himself be the Christians.

What the Holy Prophet has been reported to have said, is only by way of an explanation and illustration of the verses but the significance or the application of the verses does not get restricted or confined only to the two particular people. The meaning of the verse is definitely applicable to anyone who rejects the Holy Prophet or anyone of the divinely commissioned Imams from the Holy Ahl Al-Bayt, as well as those who exaggerate and unwarrantedly raise anyone to any position which the individual does not deserve.

Though, those on whom falls God’s wrath and those who go astray, are mentioned separately, the responsibility of both the categories, of suffering the Wrath of God, and of going astray, rests with the men and not with any despotic monarchical cruelty of the Lord. The first kind suffers the Wrath for their deliberately breaking the law of the All-Merciful Lord and the second kind strays owing to their carelessness and ignorance.

This last verse of the Opening Chapter of the Qur’an, in its guidance as to the verbal expression of a supplication to God, demands every individual supplicant to express his personal hatred against evil and the evil ones. It is under this expressed Will of God that the doctrine of Tabarra occupies in the practical code of the religion, Islam. As without this last verse of this chapter, the chapter will be incomplete. Islam as a religion without the doctrine of Tawalla, along with Tabarra, can never be complete, for a mere declaration of friendship with anyone, without the hatred against his enemies, can never be genuine or reliable.

Similarly, merely professing attachment to the Holy Prophet Mohammad can never be sufficient or a reliable proof of its genuineness unless the devotee gives a simultaneous assurance by a similarly open declaration of hatred against the enemies of the Holy Prophet and his beloved godly members of his holy family who have been praised by God in the words of the Qur’an as those specially purified by God Himself33.

Note - Some matters are oft-repeated in the above notes but under different headings. It was necessary to do it, to facilitate easy and correct understanding of the topics, with their allied references.

• 1. Vide: Holy Qur’an, 25:60.
• 2. Vide: Tafsir al-Kabir Maulvi Abdul Hai.
• 3. Hadith uth-Thaqalain, in: Tafsir al-Kabir, Tafsir Durr al-Manthur and many others.
• 4. Alaikam ul-Qantara of Maulvi Abdul Hai.
• 5. Fakhhruddin ar-Razi, Kanz al-Ummal.
• 6. Durr al-Manthur of Suyuti.
• 7. Vide: 10:22.
• 8. Vide: 59:24.
• 9. Vide: 26:23; 26:24.
• 10. Vide: the following Verses:
  يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ السَّاعَةِ أَيَّانَ مُرْسَاهَا
  “They ask you about the Hour - When will be its appointed time?” (79:42).
  فِيمَ أَنْتَ مِنْ ذِكْرَاهَا
  “About what! You are one to remind of it” (79:43).
  إِلَىٰ رَبِّكَ مُنْتَهَاهَا
  “With thy Lord in the Limit fixed therefor” (79:44).
  إِنَّمَا أَنْتَ مُنْذِرُ مَنْ يَخْشَاهَا
  “You are only a warner to him who would fear it” (79:45).
  كَأَنَّهُمْ يَوْمَ يَرَوْنَهَا لَمْ يَلْبَثُوا إِلَّا عَشِيَّةً أَوْ ضُحَاهَا
  “On the Day that they see it, [it will be] as though they had not tarried but the latter part of a day or the early part of it” (79:46).
• 11. Vide: 21:107.
• 12. This is only a verse from Du’a Kumail.
• 13. Vide: 2:259.
• 14. Vide: 70:4.
• 15. Vide: 83:6.
• 16. Vide: 82:18; 82:19.
• 17. Vide: 45:20; 45:21; 23:115; 23:116.
• 18. Vide: Surah TaHa (20); 7:105; 11:110; 17:105; 29:39; and many others.
• 19. Vide: 59:24 and 61:1.
• 20. Vide: 4:79.
• 21. Vide: 33:33.
• 22. Vide: 4:69; 5:16; 5:19; 19:58.
• 23. Vide: 4:69; 5:16; 5:19; 19:58.
• 24. Vide: Zamaqshari.
• 25. See: 2:247, 2:269, 10:35, 13:16, 39:9, 67:22.
• 26. see-2:256.
• 27. Tafsir al-Kabir, Tafsir Durr al-Manthur and many others.
• 28. Vide: 67:22, 10:35, 5:55.
• 29. Vide: 33:33.
• 30. Vide: 2:177.
• 31. Sheikh Tusi, Al-Amali, 1414 BC, p. 633; Daylami, Irshad al-Qulub, 1412 BC, vol. 2, p. 306; Sheikh Saduq, Uyun Akhbar al-Rida, 1378 AH, vol. 2, p. 27; Sheikh Saduq, Al-Amali, 1362 AH, p. 269, Hadith 18; Tabarsi, Al-Ihtijaj, 1403 BC, vol. 1, p. 273. Al-Mustadrak `ala al-Sahihayn, volume 3, p. 151.
• 32. Vide: 2:253.
• 33. Vide: 33:33.