SURAH 1: Al Fatihah (The opening)

1. In the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful

2. All praise be to God, Lord of the worlds,

3. The most compassionate, the most merciful

4. Master of the day of judgement

5. To you alone we worship, and to you alo§ne we ask for help.

6. Guide us the the straight path

7. The path of those who you have favoured

8. Not the those who’ve earned your anger

9. Nor those who have gone astray.

Period of revelation:

This was the first complete Surah to be revealed to the Prophet Muhammed and one of the

earliest revelations too, according to authentic Hadith.

Theme:

This Surah is in fact a prayer which God has taught to all those who want to make a study of His

book. It has been placed at the very beginning of the book to teach this lesson to the reader:

If you sincerely want to benefit from the Quran, you should offer this prayer to the Lord of the

universe.

This preface is meant to create a strong desire in the heart of the reader to seek guidance from

the Lord of the Universe, who alone can grant it. Al-Fatihah indirectly teaches that the best thing

for humankind is to pray for guidance to the straight path, to study the Quran with the mental

attitude of a seeker of the truth and to recognise the fact that the Lord of the Universe is the

source of all knowledge.

From this theme, it becomes clear that the real relation between Al-Fatihah and the Quran is not

an introduction to the book, but a prayer and its answer.

Al Fatihah is the prayer from the servant and the Quran is the answer from the Master to this

prayer. The servant prays to God to show him guidance and the Master places the whole of the

Quran before him as if to say – “This is the guidance you begged from me”.