Surah Fatiha – Points to Ponder By Nouman Ali Khan InshAllah we are going to talk about few things, not a Tafseer but just few points of reflection from Surah Fatiha, which actually covers some of the most fundamental aspects of our deen, actually if we consider Surah Fatiha that we recite in every Salaah, a summary of all of Islam. So if somebody understands Surah Fatiha properly then they also have the ability to explain Islam to somebody else comprehensively because it contains pretty much everything you need to know to give someone a full picture of what Islam really represents. We are going to divide study of Fatiha into into three parts. First three ayaats, middle ayaats and then the last three ayaats. Not a very detailed tafseer but a very simple discussion. To make the matter brief we are not going to go into Bismillah…. Some mufasiroon consider it to be the first verse of Fatiha others say no its not. At the very least we have to translate Alhamdu lillah as praise and gratitude belongs to Allah. The word hamd includes two things praise & gratitude; you cannot translate it as ‘Praise belongs to Allah’ or just ‘Thanks belongs to Allah’. Now Arabic has a word for either of them, you could say Madh or Sana for praise and you could say Shukr for Thanks. So Alhamdu lillah includes Madh, Sana & also Shukhr, it includes all of these things in one word. First we need to understand the difference between praising Allah & thanking Allah. Before we talk about Allah let’s talk about generally these two terms. Someone you praise isn’t necessarily someone you thank and someone you thank isn’t necessarily someone you praise, these are mutually exclusive things. In other words for example if you see a really nice car in the parking lot you are not going to thank the car but you might praise the car that it’s a nice car you don’t go over and pat the car on the hood & say thank you so much. On other hand take a religious situation, its obligatory on all believers and this is not something new in our messenger’s revelation its been there from the very beginning of all the messengers that we have to be grateful to our parents now Ibraheem (AS) also has to be grateful to his parents so he is grateful to Aazur but does he praise his father? What the father does is it worthy of praise or criticism? What the father does should be criticized so he is grateful to him but he is not praising him. So you can praise someone without thanking them or you could thank someone without praising them. Now in regards to Allah we say Alhamdu, we don’t say almadhu wal shukrillah we don’t separate the two words we put them under one word, which is hamd. This has very profound implications, it means everything that Allah does we thank Him for and at the same time we praise Him for. This changes our attitude towards Allah very drastically from people of other faith. You may know Christians and other people of other faiths in your circles, you may even know some Muslims who don’t know the deen very we
Posted on: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 01:34:16 +0000
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