The Structure of Sūrat al-Fātiḥa (Part III)

This is continuing from my previous two posts, The Structure of Sūrat al-Fātiḥa, part I and part II.

Finally, it is also worth noting that the Fātiḥa, as the first sūra of the Qur’an, also relates to the last sūrah of the Qur’an, sūra 114, called an-Nās (“People, Mankind”).  This time I will print the Arabic text in English characters:

Qul aʿūdhu bi rabbi ’n-nās

   Maliki ’n-nās,

   Ilāhi ’n-Nās,

Min sharri' l-waswāsi ’l-khannās,

   Alladhi yuwaswisu fī ṣudūri ’n-nās,

   Mina ’l-jinnati wa ’n-nās.

Say: I take refuge in the Lord of mankind,

   The King of mankind,

   The God of mankind,

From the evil of the slinking whisperer,

   Who whispers into the hearts of mankind,

   From the jinn and mankind.

Like the Fātiḥa, sūra 114 is a prayer to God.  It consists of two contrasting halves, the first listing attributes of God, and the second listing attributes of certain kinds of people.  

The first name of God mentioned,  Rabbi’n-Nās (“The Lord of Mankind”) corresponds to the first āyah of the Fātiḥa.  The next two names mentioned, “King of Mankind (Maliki ’n-Nās)” and “God of Mankind (Ilāhi ’n-Nās)” correspond to “Master (Mālik) of the Day of Recompense” and “You alone we worship.”  

Both sūras also mention two kinds of people in negative terms: in the Fātiḥa, “those who have earned anger” and “the astray”; in sūrah 114 whisperers from jinn and from mankind.  

There are also some interesting points of contrast.  For example, the Fātiḥa was a collective prayer, while sūra 114 is an individual prayer; and the context of the Fātiḥa was positive, a prayer for guidance, while the context of sūra 114 is negative, a prayer of refuge from harm.  

To cap this all off, the very last āya of the Qur’an, “From the jinn and mankind” goes back to the first, “All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all peoples,” since “all peoples” here alludes to two kind of personal beings: jinn and mankind!

Here is a video of my teacher, Nouman Ali Khan, talking about the comparison between the Fātiḥa and Surat an-Nās:

The Structure of Sūrat al-Fātiḥa (Part II)

Continuing from The Structure of Sūrat al-Fātiḥa (Part I). 

Here, for the reader's convenience, I will reproduce diagram text of the Fātiḥa and its translation from the previous post:

الحمد لله

A.  رب العالمين

   B.  الرحمن

   B'. الرحيم

A'. مالك يوم الدين

C.  إياك نعبد

C'. وإياك نستعين

A.  اهدنا الصراط المستقيم

   B.  صراط الذين أنعمت عليهم

   B'. غير المغضوب عليهم

A'. ولا الضالين

Translation:

All praise are due to God

A.  The Lord of all peoples,

   B. The All-Merciful,

   B'. The Ever-Merciful,

A'. Master of the Day of Recompense.

C. You alone we worship,

C'. and you alone we ask for help.

A.  Guide us along the Straight Path,

   B.  the path of those whom You have favored,

   B'. not of those who have earned wrath,

A'. nor of the astray.

Continuing from where we left off...

There is still more to be observed in each chiasmus (colored in blue and red respectively).  

The end of the sūra divides those who lack guidance into two groups of people.  The first of these groups are al-maghḍūbi ʿalayhim, literally meaning "those who have earned anger."  From other Qur'anic texts and from the Prophet Muhammad's commentary on these verses, this is understood to refer to people who, despite having knowledge of God’s commandments, resolved to act against them.

The second group of people are aḍ-ḍālīn, meaning “those who are lost” or “those who are astray.” In contrast with the previous group, this refers to people who lack guidance because they do not have proper knowledge about what the Straight Path consists of.

Therefore, the two kinds of people who lack guidance lack either (1) sound knowledge or (2) sound action, so guidance consists of both of these together.  The Fātiḥa itself is structured to remedy both of these problems.  The first chiasmus consists of sound knowledge of God (His attributes), while the second consists of sound action (taking to Him in prayer).  

It should also be noted that the first chiasmus (including “All praise is due to God”) is entirely a nominal sentence, and the second chiasmus is entirely a verbal sentence.  The use of the nominal sentence is rhetorically suited to speaking about God because nouns are more stable and permanent.  Conversely, the use of the verbal sentences is suited to speaking about human beings because verbs are subject to time and change.  The center, “You alone we worship and You alone we ask for help,” in the Arabic shares qualities of both nominal and verbal sentences (both clauses are verb-based but begin with nouns), which is fitting because it concerns both God and us.

As a ring composition, the end of the Fātiḥa also comes back to the beginning.  The first āya described God as the “Lord of all peoples.”  The last two āyas classify all people into three categories: those whom God has favored, those who have earned wrath, and those who are lost and astray.

There is one more thing I would like to draw attention to about the Fātiḥa.  I will do that in the next post, in shā'a 'llāh.

The Structure of Sūrat al-Fātiḥa (Part I)

I recently read Raymond Farrin's analysis of Sūrat al-Fātiḥa in his new book, Structure and Qur'anic Interpretation: A Study of Symmetry and Coherence in Islam's Holy Text.  Farrin is a scholar of classical Arabic literature and has written a number of fascinating studies of ring composition in classical Arabic poetry and the Qur'an, the book I just mentioned being his most recent contribution.  I hope to give more examples from his work later on in this blog.

One thing he argues is that Sūrat al-Fātiḥa is a ring composition.  In Muslim faith and practice, the Fātiḥa (literally meaning, "The Opening") is not only the first sūra ("chapter," for lack of a better term) in the Qur'an, but it is also the perfect prayer taught to them by God to be recited as the most important part of the daily prayers, and also represents a summary of the main themes of the Qur'an.

I agree with Farrin's observation about the sūra's chiastic structure, but I have a slightly different take on the explanation of the relationship between the different terms in this structure.  Here I will diagram the structure of the sūra and then explain what I believe is its precise import.

الحمد لله

A.  رب العالمين

   B.  الرحمن

   B'. الرحيم

A'. مالك يوم الدين

C.  إياك نعبد

C'. وإياك نستعين

A.  اهدنا الصراط المستقيم

   B.  صراط الذين أنعمت عليهم

   B'. غير المغضوب عليهم

A'. ولا الضالين

Translation:

All praise are due to God

A.  The Lord of all peoples,

   B. The All-Merciful,

   B'. The Ever-Merciful,

A'. Master of the Day of Recompense.

C. You alone we worship,

C'. and you alone we ask for help.

A.  Guide us along the Straight Path,

   B.  the path of those whom You have favored,

   B'. not of those who have earned wrath,

A'. nor of the astray.

As Farrin points out, this sūra is composed of two chiasmi fit into a ring composition.  The structure gives profound insight into the meaning of the individual verses of the sūra.  However, the following is what I believe to be a more accurate account of the meaning within the two chiasmi.

Let me begin by explaining the first chiasmus (in blue):

A describes God's relationship with people in this world, while A' describes his relationship with them in the afterlife.  A uses the term rabb (translated as "Lord") while A' uses the term mālik (translated as "Master").  These are synonyms in the Arabic language, mālik being one of the meanings of the word rabb.

The relationship between B and B' is obvious.  They are both names of God highlighting his mercy (raḥma).  However the nuance in their meanings is brought out by their placement in the chiasmus.  B is closely tied to A, because they primarily concern this world.  B' is closely tied to A' because they primarily concern the next world.[1]

Let us skip C-C' for a moment and look at the second chiasmus (in red):

The relationship between A and B is obvious, and the relationship between B' and A' is obvious.  The former concern those who are guided, while the latter concern those who are not.

What is really interesting is the relationship between A and A', and B and B'.  A concerns guidance (hidāya) while A' concerns its antithesis, misguidance/going astray (ḍalāl).  B concerns a class of people labeled alladhīna anʿamta ʿalayhim ("those whom You have favored"), while B' concerns a class of people labeled al-maghḍūbi ʿalayhim ("those who have earned wrath").  These are not exact antithesis, but this appears to be an example of a literary device the Qur'an uses in which it juxtaposes two not-quite opposite terms in order to create a four-way comparison.  The antithesis of niʿmah ("favor" - B) in Arabic is niqma ("retribution, punishment"), while the antithesis of ghaḍab ("wrath" - B') is riḍā ("satisfaction").  The implication is that those who are qualified of God's favor (niʿmah) are also qualified by His satisfaction (riḍā), while those who have brought on His wrath (ghaḍab) have also brought on His retribution (niqma).

Now returning to the center (C-C'):

"You alone we worship and You alone we ask for help" is the central idea of this sūrah.  By implication, since this sūrah summarizes the contents of the Qur'an, the verse embodies the main idea of the entire Qur'an.  It is the relationship of the worshiper (ʿābid) with his God (ilāh), and of the slave (ʿabd) with his Lord (rabb).  It is equivalent to the Muslim declaration of faith, "there is nothing worthy of worship except God" (lā illāha illā 'llāh).

C concerns the exclusive worship of God.  Now look at the entire first half of the sūra ending with C—from "All praise are due to God" until "You alone we worship."  The whole first half in fact consists of exactly that: worship of God.

C' concerns praying exclusively to God for help.  Now look at the entire second of the sūra beginning with C'—from "You alone we ask for help" until "nor of the astray."  The whole second half of the sūra actually consists entirely of praying to God for help!

So the sūra has an extremely brilliant structure which is closely tied to its meanings.[2]  It is so precisely worded and arranged that nothing could be added or taken away from it without  breaking the entire composition.  Moreover it beautifully summarizes the main themes of the Qur'an. 

There is a lot more that can be said about the precise wording of the sūra, how the verses connect linearly, and other features of its naẓm (coherence and arrangement).  I do not intend to discuss all of these here.  However I would like to devote the next post to a few more observations about the implication of the structure of this sūrah, shown above, on its meanings as well as how it connects with the final sūra of the Qur'an.  In shā’a 'llāh.


[1] There is a lot of commentary on the precise distinctions between two names.  To summarize what is relevant here, it can be said that ar-Raḥmān (which I have translated as "the All-Merciful") connotes God's mercy towards all of His creatures, deserving and undeserving alike; while ar-Raḥīm highlights the permanence of God's mercy, but which is more selective and excludes some types of people in the afterlife.

[2] The bipartite structure of this sūra is alluded to in a famous ḥadīth qudṣī ("sacred tradition") in which the Prophet related on behalf of God "I have divided the prayer [i.e. Sūrat al-Fātiḥa] into two halves between Myself and My slave, and My slave shall have what he asks for."