A Brief Summary of Sura Al‑Fatiha
Part Two of the only lesson I gave after having been transferred temporarily from solitary confinement in the third School of Joseph to the company of others. This is a short sample of the lessons given to the Risale‑i Nur students in prison:
While reciting Sura al‑Fatiha during the prayers, it commanded me to expound one drop from its ocean and a single flash from the seven colours in the light of its sun. For sure we had written some very sweet and agreeable points from this sacred treasury in part of the Twenty-Ninth Letter, particularly in the journey of imagination taken in “the Nūn of na‘budu,” and The Eight Symbols (Rumûz‑u Semâniye), and the Qur’anic commentary Signs of Miraculousness (Isharat al‑I‘jaz), and in other parts of the Risale‑i Nur/, but I felt obliged to write down my reflections during the prayers, but only the allusions to the pillars of belief and their proofs from that very sweet Qur’anic summary, in the form of a concise extract and in the manner of Part One above. So referring the phrase
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate to two or three treatises of the Risale‑i Nur, I am starting from All praise be to Allah: In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. ❋ All praise be to Allah, the Sustainer of the All the Worlds. ❋ The Merciful, the Compassionate; ❋ Owner of the Day of Judgement; ❋ You alone do we worship and from You alone do we seek help; ❋ Guide us to the Straight Path; ❋ The path of those whom You have blessed, not those who have received Your anger, nor those who have gone astray.
First Phrase:
All praise be to Allah
A very brief allusion to the proof of the truths of belief in this phrase.
Filling the face of the earth, indeed, the universe, are intentional bestowals and bounties, which are the cause of praise and thanks, especially the sending of pure, clean, nutritious milk to infants from between blood and excrement; so too are there purposeful gifts and presents, and gracious benefactions and feasts. The price of these is to say “In the Name of Allah” at the start, “All praise be to Allah” at the end, and in the middle to perceive the bestowal in the bounty, and through it to recognize your Sustainer.
Consider your own self, your stomach, and your senses! How many things and bounties they need! See how many foods and delights they want for the price of praise and thanks, then compare all living creatures with yourself.
Thus, the endless praise offered verbally and through tongues of disposition in response to these general bestowals shows as clearly as the sun the existence and universal dominicality of One Who is Worshipped and Praised, an All‑Compassionate Bestower of Bounties.
Second Phrase:
The Sustainer of All the Worlds
A very short allusion to the proof contained in this phrase:
We see with our eyes that within the universe are not thousands, but millions of worlds, small universes, mostly one within the other. Although the conditions for the administration and running of these are all different, they are organized, maintained, and administered so perfectly that like a single page held constantly in view the universe is renewed and changed, and like a line, each of all those worlds is written by a pen of power and determining. Every instant attestations, particular and universal, are made; boundless, unending testimonies to the number of minute particles and the beings formed of them, to the necessary existence and unity of a Sustainer of All the Worlds Who administers these millions of worlds and travelling universes with an infinite knowledge, wisdom, and limitless all‑embracing mercy within an infinite dominicality.
Not to affirm, perceive, understand or see a dominicality which raises and administers with the same law, the same dominicality, the same wisdom, all beings from the arable field of particles to the solar system and the Milky Way, and from the cells of the body to the storehouse of the earth and to the universe in its entirety, certainly makes a person deserving of endless torment, and negates his worthiness to be pitied.
Third Phrase:
The Merciful, the Compassionate
An extremely brief allusion to the proof in this phrase:
Yes, the existence and reality of a boundless mercy is as clearly apparent in the universe as the light of the sun. As certainly as light testifies to the sun, so this extensive mercy testifies to One Most Merciful and Compassionate behind the veil of the Unseen. An important part of mercy being sustenance, mercy is signified by the name of Provider. As for sustenance, it points to an All‑Compassionate Provider so clearly that anyone with an iota of intelligence is compelled to affirm Him.
For example, He sends food to all living beings, particularly to the helpless and young, throughout the earth and the atmosphere, in truly wondrous fashion beyond their wills and power, from seeds, droplets of fluid, and grains of earth which all resemble each other.
He makes the hen‑birds search out the food and bring it their wingless, frail chicks in the nests at the tops of trees.
He subjugates the hungry lioness to her cubs, so she does not eat the meat she finds but gives it them.
He sends the pleasant, nutritious, pure, white milk, like the water of Kawthar, from the springs of breasts to the infants of humans and young of other animals, without it being polluted by red blood and filthy excrement, sending also their mothers’ tenderness to assist them.
Then just as in truly wondrous fashion He causes the appropriate sustenance to hasten to all the trees, which need a sort of food, so He bestows an extensive table of foods on the human senses, which require sustenance physical and non‑physical, and on the mind, heart, and spirit.
It is as though the universe consists of hundreds of thousands of laden tables of every different kind and sort, all enfolded one within the other like the petals of the rose and shirts of the maize cob. With a multitude of various tongues, particular and universal, to the number of tables and the foods they bear and their bounties, these point out to everyone who is not completely blind a Most Merciful Provider, an All‑Compassionate and Munificent One.
If It Is Said: The calamities, ugliness, and evils in this world are contrary to that all‑embracing mercy, and spoil it.
The Answer: This question has been answered completely satisfactorily in various parts of the Risale‑i Nur such as the Treatise on Divine Determining. Referring you to them, here we make only a brief allusion, as follows:
All the elements, all the realms of beings, and all creatures, have numerous duties, particular and universal, and each of those duties yields numerous results and fruits. For the most part these are beneficial, beautiful, good, and are mercy. Only a few of them encounter those lacking ability, those who act wrongly, or those who deserve punishment and disciplining, or those who will be the means of producing many shoots of good. An apparent, minor evil is ugliness; it is apparently unkind.
But if for that minor evil not to occur, the element and universal being is prevented by mercy from performing its duty, then all its other good and beautiful results would not come into existence. Since the non‑existence of a good is evil and the spoiling of beauty is ugly, evils, ugliness, and pitilessness would occur to the number of those results. Thus, hundreds of evil and instances of unkindness would be perpetrated just so that one evil would not occur, which would be entirely contrary to wisdom, benefit, and the mercy of dominicality.
For example, things like snow, cold, fire, and rain have hundreds of benefits and purposes. If through their own choice careless or imprudent people harm themselves, for instance if they put their hands in the fire and say there is no mercy in its creation, the innumerable good, beneficial, merciful uses of fire will give them the lie and hit them in the mouth.
Moreover, man’s selfish desires and lowly emotions, which are blind to consequences, cannot be the criteria, measure, or balance of the laws of mercy, sovereignty, and dominicality which are in force in the universe. He sees things according to the colour of his own mirror. A black‑hearted, cruel person sees the universe as weeping, ugly, dark, and tyrannical.
But if he looks through the eye of belief, he sees a macroanthropos clothed in seventy thousand beautiful garments one over the other, sewn of instances of mercy, good, and wisdom. It is always laughing, smiling with mercy like a houri of Paradise dressed in seventy fine garments. He will observe that humankind within it is a miniature universe, and each individual human a microcosm. He will exclaim with all his heart and spirit: "All praise be to Allah, the Sustainer of All the Worlds ❋ The Merciful, the Compassionate. ❋ Owner of the Day of Judgement!"
Fourth Phrase:
Owner of the Day of Judgement
A very concise indication of the proof contained in this phrase:
Firstly:
All the evidences which testify to the proof of And to Him is your return, and to the resurrection of the dead and hereafter at the end of the Part One of this lesson, testify to the extensive truth of belief which Owner of the Day of Judgement indicates.
Secondly:
As is said at the end of the Tenth Word, just as the eternal dominicality, mercy, and wisdom of the universe’s Maker, and His pre‑eternal and post-eternal beauty, glory, and perfection, and His endless other attributes and hundreds of names certainly require the hereafter; so does the Qur’an testify to the abode of the hereafter with thousands of its verses and proofs, as does Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace) with his hundreds of miracles and evidences, and all the prophets (Upon whom be peace) and the revealed books and scriptures, with their innumerable evidences. The person, therefore, who does not believe in the everlasting life of the hereafter casts himself into a sort of Hell in this world, arising from his unbelief, and suffers constant torment.
As is described in A Guide For Youth, due to their death and parting, all the past and the future and creatures and universes continuously rain down endless pains on his spirit and heart, making him suffer the torments of Hell before going there.
Thirdly:
The Day of Judgement (Yawm al‑Dīn) alludes to a vast and powerful proof of the resurrection of the dead, but a situation has arisen here causing its postponement to another time. Perhaps too, no need remains for it, for various parts of the Risale‑i Nur have proved with hundreds of powerful arguments that the morning and spring of the resurrection of the dead and Great Gathering will occur as certainly as day follows night and spring follows winter.
Fifth Phrase:
You alone do we worship and You alone do we seek help
It occurred to me that before pointing out the proof contained in this phrase, I should relate a true journey of the imagination which is described in the Twenty‑Ninth Letter. It was like this:
As is explained in the Risale‑i Nur, and especially in the Qur’anic commentary, Signs of Miraculousness (Isharat al‑I‘jaz) and The Eight Symbols (Rumûz‑u Semâniye), one time when I was seeking out the Qur’an’s miracles I found four or five miraculous predictions at the end of Sura al‑Fath and an historical miracle in the verse: This day We shall save you in your body, and even flashes of miraculousness in numerous other words and sometimes miraculous points in letters. Then, when reciting Sura al‑Fatiha during the prayers, a question occurred to me in order to inform me of a miracle in the nūn of na‘budu and nasta‘īn (You alone do) we worship (and from You alone) do we seek help. Why was it not You alone do I worship and from You alone do I seek help, rather than the first person plural, that is, “We worship You and We seek help from You”?
Suddenly the broad arena of a journey of the imagination opened up through the door of that nūn (we). I understood experientially the mighty mystery and vast benefits of praying in congregation, and that this single letter is a miracle, and I actually saw this. It was as follows:
At that time while performing the prayers in Bayezid Mosque in Istanbul, I said: You alone do we worship and from You alone do we seek help. I looked and saw that the congregation in the mosque was saying Guide us! the same as me; its members were all participating in my supplication, corroborating it. Then another veil was drawn back. I saw that all the mosques in Istanbul had as though become a huge Bayezid Mosque. All their congregations were exclaiming: You alone do we worship and from You alone do we seek help like me, setting their seals on my assertions and entreaties, and saying “Amen!” to them. Then within their becoming intercessors for me, a further veil was unfolded in my imagination.
I saw that the world of Islam had assumed the form of a huge mosque, with Mecca and the Ka‘ba as the mihrab. The rows of all the Muslims performing the prayers were in circles facing the sacred mihrab. Saying like me You alone do we worship and from You alone do we seek help ❋ Guide us… each was both supplicating in the name of all, and testifying, and affirming it; also making all the others intercessors for himself. Then, as I was thinking: “What such a vast community claims could not be wrong and its supplications would not be rejected; it repulses Satanic doubts,” and as I was affirming the vast, self‑evident benefits of performing the prayers in congregation, another veil was unfolded.
I saw that the universe and all the varieties of creatures were as though performing the prayers through the tongues of their beings and worshipping in a way particular to each. Responding with extensive worship to the all‑embracing dominicality of the Glorious All-Worshipped One, each group affirmed the testimonies and affirmation of divine unity of all the others. While observing that this was the case since they all take up positions proving the same result, yet another veil was unfolded.
I saw that just as the universe, the macroanthropos, exclaims: You alone do we worship and from You alone do we seek help with the tongue of disposition, and numerous of its parts declare it through the tongue of capacity and innate need, and conscious beings say it verbally, all thus displaying their worship before the Creator’s compassionate dominicality; in just the same way, through the silent tongue of need and submission to their Creator’s dominicality, all the particles, powers, and senses of my body, like those of all my companions in that vast congregation, each resembling a tiny universe, declared: You alone do we worship and from You alone do we seek help. In this way they showed that they were acting in accordance with the divine will and command and were at every instant in need of their Creator’s grace and mercy and assistance.
And just as entering through the door of the Nūn, I had observed in wonderment both the sacred mystery of performing the prayers in congregation and the beautiful miracle of the nūn, so I went out from it. “All praise be to Allah!”, I exclaimed. Thereafter I became accustomed to reciting the verse, You alone do we worship and from You alone do we seek help on account of those three congregations and those companions, great and small. Now we have completed the introduction and come to our main topic, and a brief indication of the proof alluded to by You alone do we worship and from You alone do we seek help:
Firstly:
We see with our own eyes that in the universe and especially on the face of the earth, within an awesome, continuous, regular activity and creativity, a compassionate, administering absolute dominicality responds with perfect wisdom and favour to the pleas for help and entreaties made by act, tongue, and state, replying actively to each. Sound intelligences and the eye of belief see within the appearance of this dominicality, the response of the manifestation of an absolute divinity, an Object of universal worship, to the thousands of sorts of worship of all beings, particularly living beings, and the voluntary, innate worship of all the groups of humankind in all its varieties. All the revealed scriptures and prophets also tell of this.
Secondly:
As signified by the nūn of na‘budu in the introduction above, each of the three congregations, and all of them, being engaged all together in their different, innate, voluntary worship, is without doubt a grateful response to a worshippedness, and a boundless, unequivocal testimony to a Most Holy Object of Worship.
As signified by the nūn of nasta‘īn, the three congregations mentioned above, that is, every group and every individual from the totality of the universe to the congregation of the particles of a living body utters pleas for help and supplications both by act and state, testifying indubitably to the One Who administers them compassionately and hastens to assist them, and replies to and accepts their entreaties. For example, as is said in the Twenty‑Third Word, the acceptance of the three sorts of supplications of all the creatures on the earth in a way which is truly wondrous and beyond all expectation, testifies definitely to a Compassionate Sustainer and Answerer of Prayer.
Yes, before our eyes the supplications of grains and seeds to their Creator through the tongue of innate capacity to become shoots and trees, are accepted. Similarly, all living creatures seeking from someone through the tongue of innate need, their sustenance, which their hands cannot reach, and all their vital necessities and desires, which are beyond their power, testifies clearly to a Munificent Creator Who before our eyes accepts all those supplications they offer through the tongue of innate need, and at exactly the right time wisely makes strange, unconscious creatures speedily reply to their calls for help.
Thus, as in the above two paragraphs, the acceptance of the verbal supplications of all groups, especially the wondrous acceptance of the prophets’ (Upon whom be peace) supplications and those of the elite, attest to the proof of divine unity which And from You alone do we seek help comprises.
Sixth Phrase:
Guide us to the Straight Path
Yes, just as the shortest way among paths leading from one place to another, and the shortest of lines drawn from one distant point to another, are the straightest and most direct; in exactly the same way, the straightest and most direct of spiritual paths and interior ways are the shortest and easiest.
For example, all the comparisons in the Risale‑i Nur between the ways of belief and unbelief demonstrate decisively that the way of belief and the affirmation of divine unity is extremely short, direct, straight, and easy, while the ways of unbelief and denial are extremely lengthy, difficult, and dangerous.
That is to say, unbelief and the association of partners with Allah are not tenable in this straight, wise universe, in which everything is driven down the easiest and shortest path, and belief and the affirmation of divine unity are as necessary and essential in the universe as the sun.
Also, the most comfortable, beneficial, and the shortest and safest way in human morality and conduct is the way of the straight path and moderation.
For example, if the power of reason deviates from the wisdom of the middle way and the easy, beneficial straight path, it falls into either excess and a pernicious wiliness, or deficiency and a calamitous stupidity, and is prey to all sorts of difficulties on their lengthy paths.
And if the power of anger does not follow the path of courage, which is the middle way, it descends into either excess and an injurious, oppressive fury and arrogance, or into deficiency and an abased, painful cowardice and timidity, and as the penalty for the error of deviating from the straight path, suffers continuous torments of the conscience.
And if the power of animal appetites strays from the safe middle way of chastity, it falls into either excess and a calamitous, shameful debauchery and immorality, or into deficiency and frigidity, that is, an inability to experience pleasure, and suffers the torments of that spiritual sickness.
Thus, like these, in personal life and social life, in all their ways, the direct path is the easiest, shortest, and most beneficial. And ways other than the straight path are full of troubles, and are lengthy and harmful.
That is to say, just as Guide us to the straight path is a comprehensive supplication and wide‑reaching worship, so it indicates a proof of divine unity, instruction in wisdom, and moral training.
Seventh Phrase:
The path of those whom You have blessed
A concise indication of the proof contained in this phrase:
Firstly:
The answer to the question of who those are, is the verse: Of the prophets [who teach], the sincere [lovers of the truth], the witnesses [or martyrs] [who testify], and the righteous [who do good]. This verse lists the four classes of humankind who have received the bounty of right‑guidance. That is, with the prophets it indicates Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace), who is the leader of the four classes, with the sincere [lovers of the truth] Abu Bakr the Veracious, and with the witnesses [or martyrs] [who testify] ‘Umar, Uthman, and ‘Ali (May Allah be pleased with them). With these prophecies, that after the Prophet Muhammad (UWBP) and after Abu Bakr, both ‘Umar, and ‘Uthman, and ‘Ali would be both Caliphs and martyrs, this verse displays a flash of miraculousness.
Secondly:
The truth of divine unity, which these most elevated, most true and rightly‑guided four classes of humankind have taught with all their strength since the time of Adam, with innumerable proofs, miracles, wonders, evidences, and illuminations, and whom the majority of humankind have affirmed, is most certainly as definite as the sun. With their hundreds of thousands of miracles and proofs, these pre-eminent members of mankind have proved their veracity and truthfulness, and their consensus and agreement in positive matters such as divine unity and the Creator’s necessary existence forms such a proof it can be in no way doubted.
They are the straightest and the most veracious and verified of guides and the leaders in perfection among humankind, and human beings are the most important results of the universe, the vicegerents of the earth, and of living creatures the most elevated and with the most comprehensive capacity. Those people therefore who do not recognize a truth upon which those four classes have unanimously agreed, and deny the truths in which they believed unshakeably, with absolute certainty, vision of certainty, and knowledge of certainty, and in proof of which they put forward the universe together with all its beings, such deniers surely perpetrate an infinite crime and are deserving of infinite punishment.
Eighth Phrase:
Not those who have received Your wrath nor those who have gone astray
A concise indication of the proof contained in this phrase:
Based on unanimous reports, and universal, certain events and observations, human history and the sacred revealed scriptures relate in clear, definite fashion how on thousands of occasions succour arrived wondrously from the Unseen for the prophets, the people of the straight path, and how what they sought was given them exactly, and how on hundreds of occasions wrath and heavenly blows were visited on their enemies, the deniers. This demonstrates conclusively and unmistakably that the universe and humankind within it have a sovereign, just, generous, munificent, mighty, subjugating Disposer and Sustainer Who in various historical incidents wondrously bestowed victory and salvation on many of the prophets such as Noah, Abraham, Moses, Hud, and Salih (Upon whom be peace), and visited terrible heavenly calamities on numerous oppressors and deniers like the Thamud, ‘Ad, and Pharaoh, as punishment in this world too for rebellion against the prophets.
Since the time of Adam (Upon whom be peace), two mighty conflicting currents have come down to us. One is that of the people of prophethood, righteousness, and belief, who, following the straight path, receive the bounty of happiness in this world and the next. Since they act in accordance with the true beauty, order, and perfection of the universe, they both receive the favours of the universe’s Owner, and experience happiness in this world and the next. Being the means of humankind rising to the level of the angels, or higher, through the truths of belief they attain to a sort of Paradise in this world, and to bliss in the hereafter, and they cause others to win these too.
As for the second current, because it deviates from the straight path and through excess and deficiency transforms the intelligence into an instrument of torture amassing pains, it casts humanity down to a degree lower than the animals. Moreover, in addition to receiving the blows of divine wrath in return for their wrongdoing in this world, due to their intelligences, they see the universe as a place of universal mourning and as the slaughterhouse of living creatures toppling over in death, and as exceedingly ugly and confused, thus causing their consciences to suffer a perpetual Hell in this world and making themselves deserving of everlasting torment in the next.
Thus, the verse, Not those who have received Your wrath nor those who have gone astray at the end of Sura al‑Fatiha informs us of these two mighty currents. It is also the source, basis, and master of all the comparisons in the Risale‑i Nur. Since the treatises of the Risale‑i Nur expound this verse with hundreds of comparisons, we refer you to them for further explanation, and here suffice with this brief indication.
Ninth Phrase:
Amen
An extremely brief allusion to this:
The nūn in na‘budu and nasta‘īn points out to us those three great congregations, particularly the congregations of those who affirm divine unity in the mosque of the world of Islam, and especially the congregations of millions performing the prayers at that time, and it places us among them and opens the way for us to receive a share of their intercession; we too, then, through the word “Amen,” join in the supplications of that congregation of believing worshippers, affirming what they say, and offering a plea that their intercession and seeking of help will be accepted. It transforms our insignificant worship, supplications, and entreaties into universal, extensive worship, causing universal dominicality to respond to it.
That is to say, through the mystery of the brotherhood of belief and Islamic unity, through the bonds of unity of the congregation of millions in the mosque of the Islamic world at the time of the prayers, and by means of spiritual radios, the “Amen” at the end of Sura al‑Fatiha acquires universality and may become millions of “Amens.”
All praise be to Allah, the Sustainer of All the Worlds.
Glory be unto to You! We have no knowledge save that which you taught us; indeed, You are All‑Knowing, All-Wise.