Surat Al-Fatihah (Part 1)

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Surat Al Fatihah is the greatest surah in the Qur’an (as mentioned by the prophet (ﷺ); one which we recite many times throughout the day in salah yet many of us barely understand what we are saying in these ayahs. Let us explore the only surah which Allah commented on in the Qur’an:

“And We have certainly given you, [O Muhammad], seven of the highly praised [verses] and the great Qur’an.”
[15:87]

The Fatiha works as the lens of the Qur’an – meaning we look at the rest of Allah’s word through the Fatihah; it pairs with all surahs.

Firstly, we know from the hadith Qudsi that Surah Al Fatiha begins with “alhamdulillahi rebi al ‘alameen” and not with “bismillahi al rahmani al raheem”. The prophet (ﷺ) said:

“Allah Almighty said: I have divided prayer between myself and my servant into two halves, and my servant shall have what he has asked for.

When the servant says ‘all praise is due to Allah the Lord of the worlds,’ Allah says: My servant has praised me.

When he says ‘the Gracious, the Merciful,’ Allah says: My servant has exalted me.

When he says ‘the Master of the Day of Judgment,’ Allah says: My servant has glorified me and my servant has submitted to me.

When he says ‘you alone we worship, you alone we ask for help,’ Allah says: This is between me and my servant, and my servant will have what he has asked for.

When he says ‘guide us to the straight path, the path of those whom you have favoured, not those who went astray,’ Allah says: This is for my servant, and my servant will have what he has asked for.”

From this scholars can derive that the surah begins from that Ayah.

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

Praise and thanks belongs to Allah

Alhamdu lillahi rabbi al ‘alameen

Many translations mention only “praise” belongs to Allah yet this is a mistake seeing as the Arabic word for praise is “madh” (مدح). Allah here uses “hamd” (حمد) specifically to combine both praise and thanks which is “shukr” in Arabic (شكر).

He could have easily used both words in Arabic saying “al madhu wa al shukru lillahi” (الحمد و الشكر لله). However, Allah chose the combined word (alhamd) which means both – this is because in Arabic when two things are separated with “and” (و) it also separates the meaning.

Allah wanted us to be thankful and to praise him at the same time as they are not one and the same.

Moving to “rabbi al’alameen”, Allah here is announcing himself as the owner of the worlds. After introducing His name to us, Allah chooses one of His many attributes to associate with His name “Allah” and that is “Rab”. The attribute rab is broken down into many different attributes:

Malik: the owner.
Murabi: one who ensures the growth; someone who takes care of something so that it can grow.
Mun’im: the one who is giving something gifts/blessings.
Al Kayim: the one who makes sure His creation stays together and does not fall apart.
A’sayid: the one who has full authority.

To sum this up Allah is the owner thus making us His property. He takes care of us as we grow; gives us gifts such as sight and hearing; makes sure we stay together – imagine if Allah were to stop taking care of our hearts that are beating in our chests even for a second we will be dead; and He has full authority to do whatever he pleases with us. This is “Rab” and it is the relationship that Allah chose to associate Himself with us first before any other.

الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

The Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful,

Arrahmani arraheem

These two words may seem to mean the same thing but they both have different contexts. They both translate to ” merciful”, however the first word “A’rahman” is in the context of the present time. Allah is presenting His mercy upon mankind in the dunya. “A’rahman” is a name He associated Himself with not a description; which means that His mercy is unparalleled – we as humans cannot ever understand the extent of this.

“A’raheem” was broken down by scholars as meaning: merciful in the hereafter. This is to show Allah’s mercy throughout our entire lives here in this world and in the next.

However, the next ayah in this surah reminds us of our place with Allah:

مَالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّين

Sovereign of the Day of Recompense.

Maliki yawmi addeen

After mentioning Allah’s mercy, He reminds us that the day of judgement is coming and that He is the master of that day. This ayah is for the people who try to take advantage of Allah’s love and mercy.

These people will sin without thinking about it, telling themselves and others “but Allah’s the most merciful, he will forgive me”. This ayah puts us all in check – Allah’s love maybe upon us but so is His justice. He is the owner of that day and none other than Him will have any control.

There’s a perfect balance here between Allah’s mercy and justice; on one hand He is the entirely merciful and on the other He is the ultimate judge on the day of recompense.

These first 3 ayat are a complete introduction to Allah – everything we need to know about Him. When someone asks who our God is in Islam, these 3 ayat are enough to cover everything about Allah.

First thing He tells humanity is that He deserves praise and thanks.
Second thing is that He is our master.
Third thing He mentions is that He is not like any other master – He has extreme love and mercy for His slaves.
The last thing is that He will deal justly with those who take advantage.

In the next part we will cover the second half of the surah insha’Allah. Let us try remember the meanings of these ayahs during salah.

Allah knows best.

Beautifying the wrong acts

Allah says in the Qur’an:

“Then is one to whom the evil of his deed has been made attractive so he considers it good [like one rightly guided]? For indeed, Allah sends astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. So do not let yourself perish over them in regret. Indeed, Allah is Knowing of what they do.”
[35:8]

Allah describes in this ayah a mindset which has sadly taken over most of society these days. Acts of evil are made to seem like some sort of progress in making humanity better, moving our minds out of “close-minded religious thought”.

Let’s take women as an example. We have groups working towards banning the hijab in the West – women’s right to “not be ashamed of their bodies” and “oppression”. In their mind they’re working towards women’s liberation or rights yet when women are used as pieces of flesh in the advertising industry and media nobody says anything.

These causes are given attractive titles to make them more appealing. If we look back at recent history in the Vietnam war there were protests in the US against pictures of women and children suffering and villages being destroyed because in that time the media in Vietnam was transparent.

Now a similar tragedy is occuring in many countries around the world yet what we hear is “freedom of Afghanistan” and “freedom of Iraq”; soldiers “protecting their country”.

The same could be said for the Muslim world going to war against eachother and naming it “jihad for Allah”. This is in its own way a method of beautifying a horrible act and in turn beautifying it to the Muslim society.

This also applies on an individual scale – we see shamelessness being beautified everywhere even in schools and colleges. The people who back away from shameless acts such as zina and alcohol/drugs are treated as inferior to those who engage in them.

Then Allah reminds us that He sends astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. This is why we see good people who see right through the nonsense being portrayed by the World and hold their desires back through the most tempting situations because at the end of the day Allah will guide those with pure hearts even if everyone turns against our Deen.

He then adds some advice to all of us – to not let it overwhelm us. “Tathhab nafsuk ‘alayhim hasarat” means that we shouldn’t let the grief over what’s happening in the world take over us to the point where that’s all life becomes – just venting over the tragedies and fitna around the world, all that is being talked about is how bad everything is.

The Deen is not against protests or speaking out or whatever it may be, but if these acts are not followed up by a concrete path of action then there’s a problem.

Indeed Allah is fully aware of what the wrongdoers. Everything is being written, every small act is recorded and will be dealt with true justice by Allah Himself. We as Muslims must guard ourselves from haram acts however appealing they may seem. If we let ourselves go down that rabbit whole of fitna it will be very difficult to crawl back out.

May Allah make us of those who beautify His Deen.

Allah knows best.

How do we deal with sectarianism?

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Many Muslims in our time tend to focus more on refuting “deviant sects” and telling the Ummah to stay away from certain groups. Let us look at how Allah teaches us to deal with deviancy in the religion, He says in the Qur’an:

But the people divided their religion among them into sects – each faction, in what it has, rejoicing; So leave them in their confusion until a time
[22:53-54]

Islam is no different from any other religion in the fact that there will be people who come up with deviant teachings and interpretations; this will continue to happen. Sometimes our response to this is to call out all the deviant groups, attempt to prove everything they’re doing wrong.

The problem with this is that new groups and sects will always come about, causing merely a back and forth debate between the truth and deviancy thus leaving the most important aspect which is to teach people the correct religion.

If we focus on educating the correct path, we’ll find that the people that have goodness in the hearts – whatever faction they may belong to – will realise what they are missing in their sects and find their way back to it.

Our job as Muslims is to make the correct understanding of Islam a common place and Allah will pull people out of all deviations.

We must adopt the mentality that Allah is teaching us here: leave them, stop passing judgement on them.

There’s a reason why Allah has made the heart hidden from everyone except Himself – it’s so we don’t hold the right to judge eachother. Someone who may seem like a deviant could be more pure of heart than a renowned scholar and Allah will pull them to the truth. At the end of the day, He is the only one capable of guiding or misguiding people.

May Allah bring the Ummah together and place us all on the correct path with the correct understanding of His beautiful Deen.

Allah knows best.

Balance of spending

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Allah says in the Qur’an:

“And [they are] those who, when they spend, do so not excessively or sparingly but are ever, between that, [justly] moderate” [25:67]

We see two extremes around us today:

Those who over spend on unnecessary items.
Those who don’t spend enough.

Allah teaches us that Islam is balance in all its aspects and spending is an important one. In this section of the Qur’an Allah speaks of those Muslims who will earn extra status with Allah.

Not throwing money away or spending insane amounts on pointless things is one way of being in this category. This is not merely talking about “shopaholics”, but also those who go out of their way to buy something that is logically over priced. These people know that the item is too expensive yet they buy it anyway.

Allah uses the word “yusrifou” which is derived from the word “israf” meaning to go overboard, to waste. This can apply to legitimate items too such as clothing or food. Spending on food and clothing is legitimate but over spending on them becomes a problem.

Then there is the other side of the spectrum, those who hog their wealth, spending the bare minimal just to keep the numbers in the bank account or the stacks of notes. Allah uses the verb “yaqtorou” which essentially means to shrink the budget.

With these people it is usually the people surrounding them that suffer the most, such as family. The father may be overly attached to his earnings to the point where any money he spends on his kids feels like a huge burden. Allah teaches us that this is not the way a Muslim’s mentality should be.

We must spend our wealth on ourselves, the people around us and those in needs, within the limits Allah has given us. Those who are rich will have different limits to those who are less wealthy. We must stay in our lanes, as they say today.

At the end of the day the money we keep in this world will mean nothing once we pass on to the next life. What will have value is what we have spent in doing good for ourselves and others, and also abstaining from that which is wasteful.

May Allah make us of those who balance their wealth.

Allah knows best.

Making sects in Islam

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

The world has become confused when it comes to sects in our deen. Muslims and non-Muslims alike believe that separation in Islam is the norm, when in fact it isn’t. Allah says in the Qur’an, as mentioned in a previous post:

“He has ordained for you of religion what He enjoined upon Noah and that which We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], and what We enjoined upon Abraham and Moses and Jesus – to establish the religion and not be divided therein…” [42:13]

What we should concentrate on here is the fact that Allah ordained upon the people His religion in which division should not be an occurrence at all. Allah uses the word “tafaruq” which means to separate or divide, not to be confused with “ikhtilaf” which is a disagreement (mostly a small one which could be good or bad). Angels for example have ikhtilaf between them just as we humans do – the only tafaruq is between them and the jinn, for example.

As human beings we can have disagreements when it comes to the deen – there are various opinions within tafsir of the Qur’an and hadeeth and fiqh. However, if this ikhtilaf turns into division this is where the problem is – Allah says establish the deen and do not separate.

Today we are the complete opposite of this teaching. We take the smallest disagreements and make them the justification for our divisions. One mosque telling the people to avoid another mosque because they place their hands in a different position during salah – a ridiculous but real example. This completely goes against what Allah is teaching us here.

“Sects” only started forming after the death of our prophet (ﷺ) and they have now mostly become different religions teaching different things. We have been warned by our prophet (ﷺ) that even though these ayahs have come down there will be people that make sects; he (ﷺ) said: “My ummah will divide into 73 sects, all of them will be in the Fire except for one, and that is the Jamā’ah.” It was said, “And who are they, O Allah’s Messenger?” He responded, “That which I and my Companions are upon today.” [Tirmidhi]

There is only one Islam and it is formed around the teachings in the Qur’an and the authentic Sunnah of the prophet (ﷺ) and following these is what defines us as Muslims <- the only name we should be using. The prophet (ﷺ) was not a “Sunni” or a “Shia” or a “Suffi” etc. he was a Muslim, just as all previous prophets were – people who submit their wills to Allah and follow His guidance.

May Allah make us all one true ummah and guide all those who have fallen into deviated teachings to the right path.

“And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided. And remember the favour of Allah upon you – when you were enemies and He brought your hearts together and you became, by His favour, brothers [and sisters]. And you were on the edge of a pit of the Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus does Allah make clear to you His verses that you may be guided.” [3:103]

Allah knows best.

“We have time”

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

One of the biggest fitnas of our time is the idea that we still have time. Many of us are living in the delusion that we still have a long way to go until judgement day. We hear people saying “some of the signs of judgement day haven’t happened yet”. We see the youth look at those who are older and assume that because those others have lived many more years, so will they. Allah says in the Qur’an:

“Indeed, Allah [alone] has knowledge of the Hour and sends down the rain and knows what is in the wombs. And no soul perceives what it will earn tomorrow, and no soul perceives in what land it will die. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.” [31:34]

He says only He has knowledge of the “hour” – the use of this word is interesting as Allah could have said “day” but instead uses the Arabic word “sa’a”. In modern Arabic this translates to “hour” – in old Arabic they used this word as a “moment”. This is to show us that we must have a sense of urgency, as a moment is much less than a day.

The hour here represents death as every living creature and plant will pass away – Allah says He knows when everything will end and will continue to provide life-giving rain which gives birth to everything on Earth just like the womb of a mother.

Allah then reminds us that we have no idea what we will earn the next day. We hear those around us saying that they will start praying their daily prayers soon or whenever they reach a certain age – “live your life, you’re still young” – we don’t know if we can earn that tomorrow.

Judgement day may seem far away, but every single soul’s judgement starts in the grave and that can happen at any time, on any land – certainly Allah is fully aware. The fact that we are alive right now is a blessing and a chance to fix our deen, before it’s too late.

May Allah make us of those who are weary of time in all aspects of our lives.

Allah knows best.