Al-Fatiha: A Reflection!

Here I will show some points of the reflections on Surah Al-Fatiha done by Abul Kalam Azad, an Indian scholar and a senior political leader of Indian independence movement, well known in the first half of twenty century.

Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958) was born in Makkah. His father Maulana Khairuddin was a Bengali Muslim of Afghan origin who went to Makkah and settled there for some years. Khairuddin married an Arab woman, the daughter of Sheikh Mohammad Zaher Watri. In 1890 Khairuddin took his wife and son back to Calcutta.

The young Abul Kalam studied Qur’an, Arabic, Urdu, Persian, English, Philosophy, Geometry and Mathematics. Then he visited Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Turkey, where he met many personalities, among them Muhammad Abduh in Egypt.

The aims of the Qur’an

Since the early time of his constant studies, he was eager to work on the interpretation of the Qur’an, so he published his periodical “Tarjuman Al-Qur’an” and started to do the work in Urdu. The most famous of his achievement was  “The Opening Chapter of the Qur’an”, which he published in 1930, but he continued renewing it and published its last version in 1945 and let it be translated into English by Professor Dr. Syed Abdul Latif of Osmania University in 1960.

According to Abul Kalam Azad, the function of revelation has been simply to interpret, on the basis of knowledge and conviction, the inherent urges of man.

Surat-ul-Fatiha expresses the instinctive urges of man so artfully and with such ease that he is impelled to affirm that every line of this Surah (= chapter), nay every word of it, is but the compulsive voice of his own heart and mind. It reveals one or other of the great purposes which underlie the “Deen” (= the way of life sponsored by the Qur’an).

For Abul Kalam, this Surah, Al-Fatiha, summarizes the content of the Qur’an. And the aims of the Qur’an are as follows:

(1)         To present the attributes of God in proper perspective, for, it is in his approach to them that man has often blundered.

(2)         It lays emphasis on the principle of causation in life so as to suggest that, even as in nature, every cause has its effect in the domain of human life, both individual and collective, so much so, that a good action produces a good result and an evil action an evil result.

(3)         To inculcate in man a faith in the life of the Hereafter, by pointing out that man’s earthly existence will become manifest, as a matter of course.

(4)         It points the way to righteous or good life: “Surely, This Qur’an guides to all that is most upright, and gives the believers who do good deeds the glad tiding that theirs will be a great reward” (17:9).

Contents of Al-Fatiha

This Surah draws attention to the All-encompassing providence of God, His Mercy and His Justice. And this gives a comprehensive picture of divine attributes which operate to provide man with all that he needs to sustain and develop the humanity in him and prevent him from going down in scale of life.

Anyone who has attained to faith and performs prayers in which he says “All praise is due to God, the Sustainer of all the worlds, the Most Gracious, the Dispenser of Grace”, then reflects over the life of the universe will see that the most pointed reality that strikes in the order that subsists therein is the system of God’s sustainment and benevolence. It is through this order that we are introduced to Nature. And when we get to know it a little closer, we realize that a greater reality than this order is at work everywhere and on which this very order depends. This is the sustainment and benevolence of God to Whom we say in our prayers “All praise is due to God, the Sustainer of all the worlds”. And if we reflect further, it is not sustenance alone the whole objective, something greater than this is in view. Sustenance is but a means to the development of beauty and perfectness in everything. We notice that there is a design in the life of the universe, and that there is beauty in this design. There is in its disposition the sense of balance.

This Surah desires man to acknowledge the universal character of divine concern for every individual, group, community, country and every form of existence.

This Surah emphasizes that requital is but the natural reaction to one’s own action and its inevitable result. It is not fair therefore to assert that God deals out punishment to any one out of revenge or in anger. This signifies that alongside the attributes of grace and beauty, those of “power” and “pressure” are also at work in the universe, and this is because His wisdom has assigned to each object a particular quality productive of a particular result. Justice, according to the Qur’an, is not a negation of mercy. It is mercy itself.

Moreover, the form of prayer suggested in the Surah is not only “we serve You”, but is specifically worded “You alone do we serve, and from You alone do we ask for help”. This manner of expression fulfills the primary condition of faith in the unity of God and disallows room for every form of “Shirk” (= associating with God anything beside Him).

Lastly, the path of goodness is styled “as-sirat-al-mustaqeem” (= the Straight Path). There could be no better or more appropriate term than this to designate it, for no one will fail to distinguish between a straight road and a road which is not straight, or disdain to choose the first. And then to enable him to know what a straight road for himself, and this, not in the form of any abstract idea, but in the form of a concrete reality, namely, the road followed by those on whom God has, as a result of their actions, bestowed favors.

For, whatever the country or nation one may belong to, man has always found two ways lying clear before him. One is that of those who have lived successful lives, the other failures.

This was the reason why the prayer form was adopted to stress the point. The prayer form helps to voice the inward condition of one who thought intent on seeking a spontaneous expression.