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اَلْفَاتِحَةِ
The Opening

اَعُوْذُ بِاللّٰهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطٰنِ الرَّجِيْمِ۔

بِسْمِ اللّٰهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ۔

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلّٰهِ رَبِّ الْعٰلَمِيْنَ۔ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ۔ مٰلِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّيْنِ۔ؕ اِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَ اِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِيْنُ۔ؕ اِهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيْمَ۔ صِرَاطَ الَّذِيْنَ اَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ غَيْرِ الْمَغْضُوْبِ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا الضَّآلِّيْنَ۔

I seek refuge with God from Satan the outcast!

In the name of God—the most compassionate, the most merciful.

All praise be to God—lord of the Universe— the most compassionate, the most merciful.

Ruler on the day of Judgment!

You do we worship and You do we call on for help.

Guide us along the straight path, the path of those whom You have favored—with whom You are not angry, nor who are lost.

This is the customary invocation used in Islamic ceremonies of all kinds, and it forms a true prayer, occupying somewhat the same place in Islam as the Lord’s prayer does with Christians. The chapter is often said to contain the “essence” and the “Seven Oft Repeated Verses” of the Koran.

The best way to begin any task is in the name of God, the Lord, the Being who is the source of all blessings, and whose blessings and mercy are continually pouring upon His creation. To commence any undertaking in His name is to pray that God, in His infinite mercy, should come to one’s assistance and bring one’s work to a successful conclusion. This is man’s acknowledgement of the fact that he is God’s servant, and also brings divine assurance of success.

The Koran has a special and characteristic way of expressing a believer’s inner sentiments in the most appropriate words. The invocation of God, in the opening chapter of the Koran, constitutes a supplication of this nature. The feelings which are naturally aroused in one after discovering the truth are expressed in these lines.

Man’s existence is a very great gift of God. We can estimate its greatness by the fact that man would never exchange it, or even any apart of it—his eyes or hands, or any organ of his body—for the greatest treasures of the world.

Even these basic gifts of God (organs of the body) are more precious than the kingdoms of the kings. When man looks at the world around him, he cannot fail to notice God’s power and mercy abundantly in evidence everywhere. Wherever he casts his glance, he finds extraordinary order and supervision. Everything has been extraordinarily and astonishingly adapted to man’s needs. This observation shows that the great cosmic machine cannot be in vain. Therefore, one realizes that there must come a day when the grateful and the ungrateful are rewarded for the way they have lived their lives in this world. One spontaneously entreats God in words to this effect, ‘Lord, You are the Master of the Day of Judgement. I have submitted to You and humbly seek Your help; have mercy on me. Lord, show us the path that is, to You, the true path. Enable us to tread the path of Your chosen servants. Help us to avoid the path of those who have gone astray, and the path of those who have incurred Your wrath due to their obstinacy.’

God is the Master of the Day of Judgment, so that the qualities of mercy and kindness might not mislead anyone into forgetting that on that Day He will gather together all human beings from the first to the last and require each and every one to give an account of all of one’s acts to Him. We should always keep in view the fact that God is not only Merciful, but He is also Just. He has full authority to pardon or punish anyone He pleases, for He has complete power over everything. Therefore we should have full conviction that it lies absolutely in His power to make our end happy or sorrowful.

The Arabic word ‘ibadat’ is used in three senses:

• worship and devotion,

• submission and obedience,

• subjection and servitude.

“We are Thy worshipers, Thy subjects and Thy slaves and We keep these relations with Thee and Thee alone and We make none else the object of our worship in all the three senses. We ask for Thy help because we know that Thou art the Lord of the whole Universe and Thou hast all powers and Thou art the Master of every thing. Therefore we turn to Thee for help for the fulfillment of our needs and requirements. Show us that way which may lead us aright in every walk of life and keep us absolutely free from errors and evil consequences and bring us success in the end.” This is the request which the servant of God makes to Him when he begins the study of the Koran. He prays to Him to guide him in every walk of life and save him from the labyrinths of doubt and uncertainty, which result from the lack of true knowledge. The servant also requests the Master to show him the right and the straight way of life from among the many by-paths and crooked ways.

“The straight way for which we are praying is the way which has always been followed by the people favored by Thee and which has always brought Thy favors and blessings.”  The favored people are not those who go astray and incur the wrath of God, though apparently they might be enjoying the transitory good things of life. The really favored people are those who receive blessings on account of their righteous living. From this it also becomes clear that by favors are meant those real and permanent rewards, which result from righteous living and from winning the pleasure of God, and not those transitory good things of life which have been enjoyed even by the tyrants and worshipers of mammon and which are being enjoyed even today by all sorts of evildoers who have gone astray from the straight way.

God requires His servant to live his life with such feelings and emotions. The opening chapter of the Koran is a miniature portrayal of Islamic belief; the rest of the Koran is an enlargement of this picture.