The chapter is headed by the words Bi-smi-llah al-Rahman al-Rahim, which also head every one of the other 113 chapters of the Holy Qur’an with the exception of one only, the ninth, while the same sentence occurs once in the middle of a chapter, viz., in 27:30, thus occurring 114 times in the Holy Qur’an. The phrase has besides acquired such a wide usage among the Muslims that it is the first thing which a Muslim child learns, and in his everyday affairs the Bismillah is the first word which a Muslim utters.
The Bismillah is the quintessence of the chapter Fatihah, in the same manner as the latter is the quintessence of the Qur’an itself. By commencing every important affair with the Bismillah, the Muslim in fact shows in the midst of his everyday life affairs that the right attitude of the human mind towards the Great Mind of the universe is that it should always seek a support in the Mighty One Who is the Source of all strength; and Faith in God, thus, finds expression in the practical life of a Muslim in a manner unapproached anywhere else in the history of religion.
The Fatihah has a special importance as a prayer. Its oft-repeated seven verses constitute the prayer for guidance of every Muslim at least thirty-two times a day, and therefore it has a much greater importance for him than the Lord’s prayer for a Christian. There is another difference, too. The latter is instructed to pray for the coming of the kingdom of God, whereas the Muslim is instructed to seek for his right place in that kingdom, which had already come, the hint no doubt being that the coming of the Prophet was really the advent of the kingdom of God about whose approach Jesus preached to his followers (Mark 1:15). The prayer contained in this chapter is the sublimest of all the prayers that exist in any religion, and occupies the first place among all the prayers contained in the Qur’an itself. A chorus of praise has gone forth for it from the greatest detractors of the Holy Qur’an. The entire chapter is composed of seven verses, the first three of which speak of the four chief Divine attributes, viz., providence, beneficence, mercy and requital, thus giving expression to the grandeur and praise of the Divine Being, and the last three lay open before the Great Maker the earnest desire of man’s soul to walk in righteousness without stumbling on either side, while the middle one is expressive of man’s entire dependence on Allah. The attributes referred to are those which disclose Allah’s all-encompassing beneficence and care, and His unbounded love for all of His creatures, and the ideal to which the soul is made to aspire is the highest to which man can rise, the path of righteousness, the path of grace, and the path in which there is no stumbling. Thus, on the one hand, the narrow views that the Divine Being was the Lord of a particular nation are swept off before the mention of His equal providence and equal love for all mankind, nay for all the creatures that exist in all the worlds, and, on the other, the soul is made to aspire to the great spiritual eminence to which arose those to whom Allah was gracious, the prophets, the truthful, the faithful and the righteous (4:69). One would in vain turn over the pages of sacred books to find anything approaching the grand and sublime ideas contained in this chapter of the Holy Qur’an.
As I have said, the Fatihah is the quintessence of the whole of the Qur’an. For the Qur’an is a book which declares the glory of Allah and teaches the right way to man, and both these themes find full expression in the Fatihah The fundamental principles of faith, the prime attributes of the Divine Being, which are the basis of all other attributes, the relation which ought to hold between man and his Creator, are all contained in their essence in the seven short sentences of which this wonderful chapter is made up. And to crown all, this chapter opens with the broadest possible conception of the Lordship of the Divine Being and the brotherhood of man, nay of the oneness of all creation, for the unity of the creation necessarily follows the unity of the Creator.
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
1 Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds,
2 The Beneficent, the Merciful,
3 Master of the day of Requital.
4 Thee do we serve and Thee do we beseech for help.
5 Guide us on the right path,
6 The path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favours,
7 Not those upon whom wrath is brought down, nor those who go astray.
Chapter 2
Al-Baqarah: The Cow
Part 1
(Revealed at Madinah: 40 sections; 286 verses)
The name of this chapter is taken from the story narrated in vv. 67–71, regarding the slaughter of a cow. As this chapter deals chiefly with the Jews, and as cow-worship, as shown in footnotes 51b and 67a, was the particular form of idolatry which took a hold among the Jews, the importance of that incident seems to have been rightly estimated in giving this chapter the name that it bears.
This chapter deals mainly with the Jews and their contentions against Islam, and hence it is that much of the legislation, details of which necessarily differ from the Jewish law, and most of the Jewish objections to the prophethood of Muhammad — peace and blessings of Allah be on him! — are dealt with in this chapter. The chapter opens with a brief statement of the fundamental principles of Islam, and, after mentioning the consequences of their acceptance or rejection in the first section, and dealing with lip-profession in the second, draws an inference of the truth of those principles, and more particularly of Divine Unity, by referring to the work of God in nature, in the third. The fourth section proceeds to show that man is endowed with vast capabilities but needs Divine revelation for his perfection, and this is illustrated in the story of Adam. The fifth section speaks of the Israelites, who are told how the Qur’an fulfils the prophecies met with in their books, and the next two sections are devoted to Divine favours to them and their stubbornness, being followed by three others which speak of their degeneration, their tendency to cow-worship, their hard-heartedness and their violation of covenants. The eleventh section speaks of their objections to the Holy Prophet, and the twelfth refers to their great enmity and to their plans against him. The thirteenth states that former scriptures are abrogated and a better and more advanced code is given in Islam, the religion of entire submission. The next section points out that partial good is met with in all religions, but it is only in Islam that religion attains to perfection. The fifteenth reminds the Israelites of the covenant with Abraham, which required the raising of a prophet from among the Ishmaelites, being followed by another dealing with the religion of the great patriarch. The subject of the Ka‘bah, the house built by Abraham, as the new qiblah, is thus introduced, and the next two sections, while declaring the Ka‘bah to be the new centre of spiritual activity, also give reasons for the change. The nineteenth warns the Muslims that they must undergo hard trials to establish the Truth; and that it will ultimately triumph, is made clear in the twentieth section. Certain minor differences with the Jewish law are then introduced as against the common principle of the doctrine of Unity, and thus the laws relating to foods, retaliation, bequests, fasting, fighting, pilgrimage, wine, gambling, orphans, marital obligations, divorce and widowhood are discussed in the eleven sections that follow. The next two, the 32nd and the 33rd, make a reversion to the subject of fighting, which was necessary if the Muslims would escape national death, and illustrations are given from Israelite history. We are then told in the thirty-fourth section of the mighty power of Allah to give life to the dead, and the Muslims are told that they should not use compulsion in the matter of religion, as their opponents had done. Two instances are then quoted in the following section, one from the history of Abraham and the other from Israelite history, showing how dead nations are raised to life. But national growth and prosperity, we are immediately told in the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh sections, depend on acts of sacrifice, and every penny spent in the cause of truth yields seven hundredfold, and even much more, fruit. The Muslims, being thus promised abundance of wealth as the result of their sacrifices, are warned in the following section against usurious dealings which breed an inordinate love of wealth, for the amassing of wealth was not the goal of a Muslim’s