Yousuf Raza – Quran Daily Surah alFatiha Summing up

Alright, bismillah, alhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasoolillahi wa

ala alihi wa ashabihi ajma'in.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.

Thank you everyone for joining us once again

for Let's Grow Qur'an Daily.

Today I'm going to summarize Surah Al-Fatiha

for us.

And I'm going to summarize in the context

of a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ in

which he says that Allah says that قَسَمْتُ

الصَّلَاةَ بَيْنِي وَبَيْنَ عَبْدِي نَسْفَيْنِ That I have

divided, so this is God saying, that I

have divided the prayer, بَيْنِي وَبَيْنَ عَبْدِي نَسْفَيْنِ

between myself and my عَبْد, عَبْد as in

the people who do or are supposed to

do عبادة, right, who acknowledge إِيَاكَ نَعْبُد as

we said.

نَسْفَيْنِ in two parts, in two halves.

Okay, so the first point to note in

this entire hadith is it starts off with

Salah and then all it talks about is

Fatiha.

The entire hadith talks about Fatiha.

Salah is the entire prayer, right, with the

standing up, reciting the Fatiha, the portion of

the Qur'an, then going in Ruku, standing

up, going in Sajdah, you know, repeating that

process.

You know what Salah is.

But the hadith talks only of Fatiha, depicting

how it is as though Fatiha is the

prayer, that it is the essence of Salah,

of a person's prayer.

Okay, so that's the first point.

The second point is the importance of this

with respect to, especially those times in our

lives, and these times come in everybody's lives.

It doesn't matter how depressed or non-depressed

you may be or anxious or non-anxious

you may be.

There's always times of, you have this sense

of abandonment, maybe not very clinically severe, but

nevertheless, a loneliness, a recognition of how nobody

really gets you.

So this will be, from some people it

may be fleeting, for others it may be

a very chronic condition, something that persists.

So to have a real experience in Salah,

to have that conversational experience in Salah, that

it becomes a genuine religious experience, it can

be incredibly uplifting to believe how everything that

you're saying is getting a response, and not

just any response, but a wholehearted response, that

everything that you say matters enough to warrant

a divine response.

You matter enough to warrant a divine response,

that things change when you pray.

He changes them.

He appreciates what you have to say.

Okay, and so this is an incredible sense

of meaningfulness that is engendered with this recognition

of the response that every ayah brings.

It says that this communication is not a

front.

It's not a fake.

It's not a pretend play.

It says that this communication is significant, and

so you're significant, right?

That the Rabbul Alameen is responding to you,

that you sufficiently matter to him, and he

is going to, in response to what you

have to say, alter, perhaps slightly, perhaps significantly,

perhaps incredibly, the course of events thereafter, after

your prayer, right?

So, this empowerment, through the recognition of the

magnanimity of Allah ﷻ, that this engenders.

Okay, so that's the second point that I

wanted to make.

The third point that I wanted to make,

and before, I'll make that point before I

go into the rest of the hadith, which

will be a quick translation, is that of

how we find a trend in human history,

if you will, that there is a representation,

a focus in traditional religion, and that traditional

focus, focus in traditional religion, has been predominantly

on God, right?

So, in depiction of God being the all

-in-all, and that found its validation in

putting down the human being in contrast, right?

So, if God is to be all-in

-all, the human being has to be represented

in a downgraded fashion to the point of

really not mattering in a lot of representations

that we find.

As a reaction to that, partly, a modern

representation shows the human being to be all

-in-all, to be the highest and greatest,

in a sense displacing the position that humanity

gave to God for the most part of

its traditional religious history.

Modernity shifted that focus, did away with God

altogether, or placed it in secondary position, to

say the least, and elevated the status of

the human being.

What we find here in Surah Fatihah, the

first half is corresponding with that traditional representation

of the greatness of God, and the second

half corresponds to the greatness of human being,

as modernity attempts to do.

And we find that in this balance of

the two halves of Surah Fatihah, one that

lends the significance of Allah in the first

half, and the other that lends, that leads

for us to understand the significance of the

human being in the second half, is really

how their true significance is to be appreciated.

For trying to establish the significance of the

human being through a self-serving monologue, why

are human beings great?

Oh, because we say we're great.

Doesn't really cut it.

Doesn't really cut it.

It's like me standing in front of the

mirror and talking about how awesome and great

and beautiful I am.

Nobody cares.

It can have its own importance, but without

a validation, a confirmation from an other, that

doesn't stand for much.

So we see that significance and validation given

to each other, from the self to the

other and from the other to the self,

the human to God and from God to

human, that even within the ayat, as we

spoke about them, the attributes that are represented

are relational, are a two-way.

How Allah's attributes are such that they include

his relationship with human beings and how the

human beings being represented as Ibad, as people

who do Iyaka Na'bud or pronounce Iyaka

Na'bud and Iyaka Nasta'een and then

ask for Hidayah, and how that two is

relational with Allah.

And so we see this mutuality in the

both halves of Surah Al-Fatihah.

Again, balancing the relationship and then the two

halves are separated right down the middle by

Iyaka Na'bud and Iyaka Nasta'een which

is split between, as Allah says, between Baini

and Baini Abdi.

So I'll just go into the Hadith itself.

وَإِذَا قَالَ الْعَبْدِ Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala

says whenever with Qala Al-Abd الحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ

رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينِ قَالَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى حَمِدَنِي عَبْدِ Allah

says, My Abd did My Hamd.

My Abd did My Hamd.

And then so on, when He says He

stacked praise upon praise for Me.

And when He says مَالِكِ يَوْمَ الدِّينِ مَجَدَنِي

عَبْدِ He has exalted Me.

And then اِيَاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَإِيَاكَ نَسْتَيْنِ When you

say that, Allah is like, this is هَذَا

بَيْنِي وَبَيْنِ عَبْدِ This is between My Abd

and Me.

So this is like right in the middle.

Divides the surah in two halves.

The middle of the fourth ayah.

The first half اِيَاكَ نَعْبُدُ More towards the

first three ayahs.

The second half اِيَاكَ نَسْتَعِينِ More towards the

last three ayahs.

And the wow in the middle, the and,

dividing between the two.

Splitting them up.

Not splitting them up actually, relating them to

each other in a significant and meaningful way.

Right?

هَذَا بَيْنِي وَبَيْنِ عَبْدِ This ayah is between

My Abd and Me.

And then when He says اِيَاكَ نَسْتَعِينِ All

the way towards the end, Allah says هَذَا

لِعَبْدِ This is for My Abd.

وَلِعَبْدِ مَا سَأَلْتُ And for My Abd is

whatever He asked for.

Whatever He asked for.

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