Khatira [ Guidance from Sūrat al-Fātiḥah ]

Occasion: Transcription of a khatira delivered on September 25, 2021 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

O Allah, we ask You for all good, its immediate and its delayed, and we seek refuge in You from all evil, its immediate and its delayed, and we ask You for the soundness of our hearts and minds and the well-being of our bodies. Then, welcome to you; from time to time we need to remind ourselves of the significances of Sūrat al-Fātiḥah.

The Key to the Prayer

This noble sūrah was made by Allah, the Most High, the key to His prayer. Imagine the key to the prayer like the key to your private room inside the house. The big house is Islam, and its key is "There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." As for the safe in which you keep your belongings, deposit your private things, and express your solitude with yourself, that is the prayer. And Allah made the key to the prayer Sūrat al-Fātiḥah; the prayer is where the servant is alone with his Lord, and it has been narrated that the first thing a servant will be held to account for on the Day of Resurrection is his prayer: if it is sound, the rest of his deeds are sound, and if it is corrupt, the rest of them are corrupt. And it was opened with His words: ﴿الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ﴾ (All praise is for Allah, Lord of the worlds).

"Al-Fātiḥah" Is a Name Fixed by Revelation

You know that the name «الفاتحة» is a name fixed by revelation (tawqīfī), and the names of all the sūrahs are fixed by revelation. The meaning of tawqīfī is that it is not a matter of independent reasoning but depends on what the revelation brought. This is what I hold before Allah as my creed: that everything in the Book of Allah was conveyed from the Lord of Might to Jibrīl, peace be upon him, to Muhammad ﷺ, to the Companions. Then we ask: what does the word «الفاتحة» (the Opening) mean? Is it merely the opening of the Qur'an, or is it an opening for everything that might be closed?

Praise Opens Everything for You

You begin it with "Praise be to Allah," and praise requires that you mention Allah's blessings upon you. Imagine you pick up the phone to speak to a person, and every time you mention to him his favors to you and the kindness of his that you cannot repay, and you speak to him with utmost reverence: would this not earn you more giving? If you make the one you are addressing feel that he is a benefactor to you, then without doubt he gives you more. So when the doors of worldly interests are shut, and you deal with the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, through praise, He opens for you. So the concept of praise is that it opens everything for us.

Lord of the Worlds: Care and Nurture

Then He is ﴿رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ﴾ (Lord of the worlds), and we have repeated often that lordship (rubūbiyyah) comes from taʿahhud, meaning rearing and nurturing, and its concept is that He brings every benefit and repels every harm. Just as you look after your child, bringing him everything that benefits him and keeping from him everything that harms him, so you say before everything you do in life: Lord of the worlds, meaning that He looks after me, tends to my interests, is gentle with me and kind to me, gives me this security, this tranquility, this calm and protection, opens the means before me and opens for me what is locked of doors, makes every journey easy for me and makes every hard thing light for me. Glory be to the Creator.

The Most Compassionate and the Most Merciful

Among what has been said about the difference between them, and what I understand, is that «الرحمن» expresses the greatness of the giving. If you ask your Lord for something, He gives you, and when He gives because He is al-Raḥmān, His giving has no limit and no end. As for «الرحيم», it indicates the duration of the giving: until when? Without end. So He is al-Raḥmān in the greatness of His giving, al-Raḥīm in its duration.

It has also been said about the difference: al-Raḥmān is the One who bestows the grand blessings, and al-Raḥīm is the One who bestows their fine details. So «الرحمن» comes fittingly with the great gifts in life, and «الرحيم» with the fine, small things. Let us look at our bodies: the heart is something very huge that performs great tasks, yet inside it are fine details. A drop of blood, the tiny hairs in which you feel pain, the nervous, digestive and respiratory systems: all of that is among the fine details of this body, and at the same time among its great things. And you will find nothing fine in Allah's creation except that you find it great in itself. So it is as though «الرحمن» pictures for you the greatness of what you are in, and «الرحيم» pictures for you the power of Allah to encompass this great thing that you pictured.

And it was said: al-Raḥmān is the One who bestows general blessings that include all people, believers and disbelievers. For Allah, the Most High, said: ﴿وَمَا مِنْ دَابَّةٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ إِلَّا عَلَى اللَّهِ رِزْقُهَا﴾ (And there is no creature on earth but that upon Allah is its provision), and this includes the Muslim and the disbeliever, the monotheist and the polytheist, the disobedient and the obedient, the righteous and the wicked. And it was said: al-Raḥīm is specific to the believers. So we have gifts different from the gifts of others; al-Raḥmān speaks of the gifts to all people, and al-Raḥīm of a particular group of creation. So ask yourself: in what do we stand out as believers from the rest of people? Peace of heart, tranquility of soul, ease of mind, and humility in prayer; and this you do not find in many people. It is as though the Lord of the heavens and the earth grants these qualities to His particular servants, while al-Raḥmān gives everything to anyone in what does not pertain specially to the people of faith and monotheism.

And this feeling of stability is something people might spend all the treasures of the earth to obtain, just to put their heads down and sleep. (And he jokes and says: Hey you, the one snoring, your voice fills the world! And it is said: leave him, he is in another realm, he is not here, he is asleep.) You will say to me: everyone sleeps! But there is a great difference between one who sleeps with his soul at rest, his heart in harmony with himself and his mind calm, and one who sleeps disturbed and burdened, not in harmony with himself, because he lives in disobedience to Allah and sleeps in disobedience to Allah, we seek refuge in Allah. Imagine one asleep with his head dazed by wine, and another who says: «اللهم إني وجّهت وجهي إليك، وفوّضت أمري إليك، وأسلمت ظهري إليك رغبةً ورهبةً إليك، لا ملجأ ولا منجى منك إلا إليك، آمنت بكتابك الذي أنزلت وبنبيك الذي أرسلت» (O Allah, I have turned my face to You, entrusted my affair to You, and committed my back to You, out of longing and fear of You; there is no refuge and no escape from You except to You; I believe in Your Book which You sent down and in Your Prophet whom You sent).^[2] And he has recited Āyat al-Kursī and the two Muʿawwidhatayn and recited the Qur'an, so he sleeps calm and at ease, and greets his tomorrow better than he greeted his yesterday, setting out energetic, knowing that he has in life a purpose and a goal, and that in it he is settled. And another, may Allah honor you, is like the cattle, like the beast let loose in the world. There is a great difference between this one and that.

And it was said that «الرحمن» is not applied except to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, whereas «الرحيم» can be applied to people, as the example is given of forms such as «عليم», «حكيم», «جميل» and «حنين», for these share their attributes with people and are not specific to Allah. So if «الرحمن» is specific to Allah, why is there mentioned alongside it something in which human beings share? What I understand from that is that you perhaps see the soundness of your condition in what creatures possess, and what creatures possess, Allah possesses. So turning to the Greatest, the One who has dominion over existence, is better than turning to what is in the hands of the lesser. So your turning to Allah, al-Raḥmān, subjects to you the mercy of every merciful one around you, and you do not obtain the mercy of those who share the attribute with Allah, even if the act differs, except by the permission of al-Raḥmān, glory be to Him, the Most High.

What If We Said It with Presence?

So imagine you read "In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful"; you feel stability and tranquility. And note that you say these words seventeen times every day. So why do you fear tomorrow? Why do you carry the worry of provision? Surely one of us today did not say "the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful" (he says it jokingly: me and my wife, one of us did not say it, and that is why we have a problem!). And perhaps: why do I have a problem with my work colleagues? It seems that one of us today did not say "the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful." And when the proportions of humility and concentration in what we read and recite are disturbed, our system of understanding is disturbed. And Allah, Blessed and Most High, is higher and knows best.

Master of the Day of Judgment

And in this great sūrah there is a reminder of the Last Day, which is the goal we seek and look at with our eyes and hearts. So if you now say: I want to finish my work to go back to my family, and you finish your prayer to go back to your family and home, then the last thing in the day is that we return to our families, but the last thing in life is that we return to Paradise.

Then He mentions the state of the people of Paradise on couches, facing one another, with youths going around among them as though they were hidden pearls, ﴿وَأَقْبَلَ بَعْضُهُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ يَتَسَاءَلُونَ * قَالُوا إِنَّا كُنَّا قَبْلُ فِي أَهْلِنَا مُشْفِقِينَ * فَمَنَّ اللَّهُ عَلَيْنَا وَوَقَانَا عَذَابَ السَّمُومِ * إِنَّا كُنَّا مِنْ قَبْلُ نَدْعُوهُ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْبَرُّ الرَّحِيمُ﴾ (And some of them will turn to others, asking one another. They will say, "Indeed, we were previously, among our families, fearful. So Allah conferred favor upon us and protected us from the punishment of the scorching fire. Indeed, we used to supplicate Him before; indeed, it is He who is the Beneficent, the Merciful").^[1] Memories; they tell beautiful stories that happened to them in the world, which they passed through as experiences and crossed over from.

Guidance Is in Allah's Hand

And since the decision of guidance is in the hand of Allah, Blessed and Most High, this declaration came: ﴿إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ﴾ (You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help); so we cannot even worship except with His help. ﴿اهْدِنَا﴾ (Guide us): and do not leave us to ourselves, lest we go astray or be the object of wrath. ﴿اهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيمَ * صِرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ غَيْرِ الْمَغْضُوبِ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا الضَّالِّينَ﴾ (Guide us to the straight path, the path of those upon whom You have bestowed favor, not of those who have earned wrath, nor of those who have gone astray). O Allah, do not let us go astray, āmīn, and do not let anyone go astray through us, make us guides who are rightly guided, and grant us, our Lord, a fine arrival at what You wanted from us in discharging the trust of conveying from You.

O Allah, we ask You for complete covering, full pardon, vast mercy and complete forgiveness. O Allah, let down Your covering over us, be gentle with us, have mercy on our weakness, overlook our slips, guide us to our paths, ease for us the means of obeying You as long as we live, cause us to die upon Islam, and do not take us except while You are pleased with us, O Lord. O Allah, seal our deeds with the lasting good deeds, grant us a good outcome in all our affairs, bring us to the waters of deliverance, and do not, because of our sins, give power over us to one who does not fear You regarding us and does not show us mercy. O Allah, we ask You for Your mercy, Your forgiveness, Your pardon, Your gentleness, Your generosity and Your help, and we ask You, O Lord of the worlds, to grant us a drink from the basin of Your Prophet after which we shall never thirst. And may Allah send prayers and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon his family and Companions.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The passage recited from Sūrat al-Ṭūr: 25–28 (and the reference to the youths before it is by meaning from verse 24), and it was transcribed as recited in the garbled transcript and corrected against the text of the Qur'an; the other verses: al-Fātiḥah: 2 and 4–7, and Hūd: 6 (part of the verse as mentioned). ^[2]: Editor's documentation: This is the transmitted bedtime supplication, which is in the two Ṣaḥīḥs from the ḥadīth of al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib (may Allah be pleased with him), and its wording in them is «وألجأت ظهري إليك» (and I have taken refuge with You with my back); the speaker transmitted it in the wording he spoke.